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So there's a lot of noise about AI, but time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now a global workforce of 300,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions, resolving 94% of common questions, not noise. Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business. IBM.
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The Senate approves Kevin Warsh as Fed chair by the narrowest margin ever. Plus, drug overdose deaths in the US Fell for the third year in a row as the country emerges from the opioid crisis and anthropic pulls ahead in the AI race, beating out OpenAI for the first time. But can it stay in the lead?
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They grew 80 times more in the first quarter than they anticipated, which has created a lot of bottlenecks for them. So what they need to do is continue to sign new computing contracts with Google, with Amazon, with whoever.
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It's Wednesday, May 13th. I'm Alex Osola for the Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of what's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. The Senate has confirmed Kevin Warsh as the Federal Reserve's next chair. Senators voted 54 to 45, largely along party lines. The one exception was Democrat John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who joined Republicans in voting for Warsh. It was the closest margin for any Fed chair since Senate approval became a requirement for the job in 1977. Democrats have questioned how Warsh plans to maintain the Fed's independence.
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President Trump has repeatedly and publicly demanded sharply lower rates. We've seen him harangue the Federal Reserve over and over and over. And Mr. Warsh's views have conveniently moved in exactly that direction. Now, that doesn't automatically disqualify him, but it does create a very legitimate question. Is this a genuine change in economic judgment, or is it a shift that reflects the preferences of the president who nominated him?
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That was Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, speaking on the Senate floor today. Walsh, meanwhile, has said he would maintain the Fed's monetary independence. He said he hasn't made any promises on policy decisions to President Trump. Warsh faces challenges in the job. While Trump wants rate cuts, hot inflation is making policymakers skeptical. As for Jerome Powell, his last day as chair is Friday. In other news from the Trump administration, we're exclusively reporting that White House officials are weighing a plan for President Trump to issue 250 pardons because it's the nation's 250th birthday. Both Republicans and Democrats have already been critical of the pardons he's issued, and some in the White House have raised concerns about doing too many more before the midterm elections this fall. The WSJ has learned that Trump could announce the pardons on June 14, which is both Flag Day and his birthday, or on the Fourth of July. And the federal government is accelerating its crackdown on health care fraud. It launching a nationwide audit of state Medicaid fraud watchdogs. In a press conference Today, Vice President J.D. vance said states must address fraud or run the risk of losing federal funding for Medicaid.
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For those states that refuse to get serious about fraud, we are going to turn off that anti fraud money. And if we continue to find problems, we can turn off other resources within their state Medicaid programs as well. Our goal here is not to do that. We don't want to turn off any money. What we want to do is ensure that people are taking fraud seriously.
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CDC data out today show that drug overdose deaths fell in the US in 2025. Overdose deaths have now dropped for three years in a row. Deaths are still slightly above pre pandemic levels, but there are promising signs that the US Might be coming out of the opioid crisis. Journal reporter Jen Kalfus says a few things are causing this decline.
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The major reason why we're seeing a drop in drug overdose deaths is largely because of a pretty massive drop in deaths involving synthetic opioids, largely fentanyl. That's really been what's driving this decline over these last three years. And also it's really what drove the increase in those Deaths in early 2021-2023. There are probably a few reasons why we might be making progress on this front. There have been certain policy changes that have increased access to overdose reversing drugs. Telemedicine and mobile clinics have increased access to treatment as well. At the same time, while this nationwide trend is pretty remarkable, the CDC data released today shows that states like Arizona and New Mexico and Colorado are actually seeing increases in their drug overdose deaths. One thing that really shows is that there's just more work to be done here. There are still communities and places that could be susceptible to an increase in drug overdose deaths.
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Some 10 million Americans are on GLP1 drugs like WeGovy and Zepbound for weight loss. Many of those people are eating out less and that's putting a dent in restaurants business. Our restaurant Reporter Heather Haddon is here to tell us what restaurants are doing about it. Heather, we've talked on this show before about how fast food chains are emphasizing their protein offerings to attract people, focusing on their health and losing weight. What are other kinds of changes restaurants are making as more people are taking these drugs?
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Protein is a big one for sure. I don't know if you've seen Chipotle's protein cups, which is basically just chicken sold in a cup, and they say those are doing really well. But yeah, this is a big thing that chains are having to think about. Amongst casual dining chains like Olive Garden, you see these lighter portion menus. So those are basically smaller amounts of food. They're typically cheaper and they have less calories than a full portion of linguine or whatever you're gonna. Cheesecake Factory has its skinnylicious menu, which is Items that are 590 calories and less. And Panera this year has developed what they call a salad stuffer, which is a specially made Italian piece of bread that is hollowed out and that they stuff salad into.
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Are some restaurant chains more affected than others?
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So the research shows, and this might not be surprising, that fast food in general, particularly options that are really fatty, that does not tend to appeal to GLP1 users quite as well. Amongst the fast food chains like McDonald's recently highlighted the protein in their menu. Egg McMuffins and other options that maybe are a little healthier. Steakhouses do a bit better because that's just, you know, solid protein. And then I would say in general, fast casual like the Chipotle's of the world tend to do the best.
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Drug companies expect that the pill form of these obesity drugs will make them even more widespread. How are restaurants preparing for that scenario?
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A lot of restaurants are getting asked about this during earnings calls and there's a lot of. We're still studying it, we're still figuring it out. But a number of companies now listed in their filings that GLP1s is something that could be a risk to their business. So that they're watching it.
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That was WSJ reporter Heather Haddon. Thank you, Heather.
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Thanks so much.
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Coming up, how huge gains in tech stocks are lifting markets again. And Alex Murdoch, the South Carolina man convicted of killing his wife and son, is getting another trial. That's after the break. Hi, this is Alex Osola, host of the WSJ's what's News podcast. We bring you the biggest news of the day, from business and finance to global and political developments that move markets. If you're looking for more insights and tools to understand the latest headlines, consider becoming a subscriber to the Wall street journal. Visit subscribe.WSJ.com whatsnews to subscribe now. Investors are growing more worried about a surge in gas prices fueling inflation, which is pushing up treasury yields. But stock markets are largely chugging higher, the S and P and Nasdaq closing today at their latest record highs. WSJ markets reporter Jack Pitcher says this is thanks to big investor optimism around tech and specifically chip stocks.
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Earnings reports we got over the first quarter have been really strong, especially for the chip makers, and people are just piling into chip stocks. We've seen price action in some of these stocks that people haven't really seen in 25 or 30 years since the dot com bubble. So much bullishness in this one area of very large companies is masking the fact that stocks broadly aren't necessarily all up that much. We actually have more than half of the S&P 500 down on the year stuff that's more sensitive to the price of oil or to consumer spending that is not doing so hot. Oil has come in from its highs of the year. It's trading around $100 a barrel right now. That's an expensive level, but it is not automatically about to trigger a recession. Some people are worried if the conflict in the Middle east is not resolved soon, that oil is going to climb a lot more for here. So that's definitely something investors are watching closely.
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OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has long been the front runner in AI, but now anthropic is emerging as the industry leader. It's growing faster, and its fundraising could soon yield a higher valuation compared to its rival. It's the first time Anthropic has pulled ahead of OpenAI, toppling its dominance since the launch of ChatGPT four years ago. Kate Clark, who covers startups and AI for WSJ, joins me now. Kate, how do we actually determine which company's in the lead?
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This is a very tricky question. The greatest data point is users, but the two companies don't share the exact same metrics. There was some new data released from a corporate card startup called Ramp that tracks AI adoption across its customers. So for the first time in their data set, more of their customers are adopting Anthropic, which is very interesting because Anthropic is in discussions to raise a new round of capital and has received offers at a $900 billion plus valuation, which would mean that it has a larger valuation than OpenAI. Of course, ChatGPT, the chatbot still has far more users than Anthropic's Claude. But Anthropic has a huge lead with enterprise users over at OpenAI, and that is where the real money in this industry is coming from.
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When did we start to see that shift happen for Anthropic?
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In around November December, they released a new model that was highly powerful and they really took a clear lead in the AI coding department, which has been a huge area of growth for these companies over the last six months. We've just seen them consistently pull ahead in the enterprise area again because of that AI coding tool, Claude Code, that
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has been such a hit anecdotally on our team. We were talking about this story and a lot of us have heard people we know using Claude more. And then also Anthropic has had a very public battle with the Pentagon. Did that affect its user numbers?
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So according to Sensor Tower, for the first time on March 2nd, Claude actually surpassed ChatGPT in US weekly downloads. That was the only time that's happened. And since then, ChatGPT has remained the far more downloaded app. But you could see that that saga did have a clear impact. The investors didn't necessarily love that situation, but it really did build a sense of brand loyalty amongst a lot of people.
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So what does Anthropic have to do to stay in the lead?
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The big constraint for the company right now is computing capacity. They grew 80 times more in the first quarter than they anticipated, which has created a lot of bottlenecks for them. So what they need to do is continue to sign new computing contracts with Google, with Amazon, with whoever they can. I mean, we recently saw them sign a deal with SpaceX to get their compute. So that's really going to be the challenge ahead for them. And then to continue to a product that people are using a lot. Not just AI engineers, but also all of the regular people that are using ChatGPT every day.
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That was WSJ reporter Kate Clark. Thank you, Kate.
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Thanks.
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And a note from US News Corp, owner of the Wall Street Journal, has a content licensing partnership with OpenAI. And finally, an update from South Carolina on one of the country's highest profile court cases. The state Supreme Court has overturned the conviction of Alex Murdoch, the 57 year old disbarred lawyer who was convicted in 2023 of murdering his wife and son. That decision all but ensures a new trial. The higher court found that jury deliberations were fatally flawed because of improper remarks by a court official. After the trial, some jurors said the official had told them not to listen to what Murdoch said on the witness stand. It isn't clear when a new trial would take place, but Murdoch will likely spend the rest of his life in prison anyway. That's because he separately pleaded guilty to financial charges, leaving him spending at least 27 years in prison. And that's what's news for this Wednesday afternoon. Today's show is produced by Anthony Banci and Danny Lewis with supervising producer Tali Arbel. I'm Alex Osoleff for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.
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FOREIGN.
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Hey, this is Telus Demos and I'm Miriam Gottfried. We're reporters at the Wall Street Journal and The hosts of WSJ's take on the Week. It's a weekly show that gives listeners a leg up in the world of markets and investing.
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From the Fed's moves to market bubbles, we dive into the biggest deals, key players and business news ahead.
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