French finance minister Roland Lescure suggested today that calls to slow down development of AI are a ploy by U.S. AI labs so they can stay in first place, and that France and Europe should ignore them and accelerate instead.

I've served in two White Houses and in Congressional leadership, and I can tell you when the last time a CEO or an industry at large asked to be regulated: never. That's what makes Dario's letter so striking — it's an admission that we're driving down a dark, winding road on wet pavement with the headlights off. And where's President Trump? Looks like he nodded off again. It’s time to turn the lights on, put both hands on the wheel, and regain control before it’s too late.

GS TMT Recap 2026: 1. Surprisingly low number of crack heads in SF vs prior years. Well done. 2. Data points away from conference more helpful that data points from group meetings this week - feels like coming to the end of conference usefulness 3. Granola / Secret Granola usage skyrocketing - I wonder how we fix this? 4. Wall of worry to be climbed with stocks - set up feels good 5. AI will probably kill us but that’s not a CY’26 problem so we don’t care 5. Certain pod shop HR departments read fintweet (letter at the end of the alphabet) - friendly reminder this is all satire and vibes 6. Best part of conferences are the afters / dinners - at least one part of the job remains very enjoyable 7. Food still sucks - GS HR if you’re reading this please fix!

SITUATIONAL AWARENESS BEGINS WORKING WITH CLEAR STREET AS FUND REBUILDS Leopold Aschenbrenner’s hedge fund Situational Awareness has started working with brokerage Clear Street as it rebuilds its public-market portfolio following billions of dollars in losses during the AI sell-off. The fund is rebuilding large positions in AMD, Intel, SK Hynix, SanDisk and CoreWeave, and has recently used customized “flex options” for leveraged upside exposure. Aschenbrenner has told brokers the fund plans to use significantly less leverage than before. Situational Awareness’s assets plunged 67% in July, though the fund was still up 80% YTD at the end of that month. Source: Financial Times

OpenAI's Sam Altman says if it took melting all the GPUs to ensure humanity's survival, it's an easy yes "I think there will be many places along the way where we have to say we are pausing, we're going to redirect our efforts into safety and alignment before we can go to that next level." "And this is what we've been doing for a long time. It has worked so far. I suspect it will continue to work." "I don't think we're ever personally going to get to the point where we have to say melt all the GPUs. But if we had to do something like that to ensure the continued existence of humanity, easy. Yes. I don't think it's gonna happen."