Good morning. On Fortune‘s radar today:
- The U.S. and Iran appear to be exchanging messages about a proposed peace deal, and the markets are loving it. Oil is down, stocks are up. Iran said “non-hostile vessels” could pass through the Strait of Hormuz, with its permission. But President Trump is still sending thousands of ground troops to the region.
- Exclusive: Alphabet is No. 1 on Fortune’s America’s Most Innovative Companies list.
- Anthropic may be target of “attempted corporate murder,” a judge says.
- Yikes: Growth in corporate investment is now reliant solely on AI.
- Polymarket thinks the war will last until May.
THE MARKETS
Good news all over the place
Oil declined to $97 per barrel, and S&P 500 futures were up 0.74% this morning after the index closed down 0.37% yesterday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 2.87%, India’s Nifty 50 was up 1.72%, South Korea’s KOSPI rose 1.59%, and the Stoxx Europe 600 was up 1.46% in early trading. Gold is no longer a safe haven—it’s down 15% since the start of the war. Bitcoin continues to go nowhere—it’s at $71.5K this morning.
ONE BIG THING
Exclusive: Alphabet is again No. 1 on Fortune’s America's Most Innovative Companies list.
America’s Most Innovative Companies honors companies that lead the charge in fostering creativity, advancing technology, and driving transformational change. This is the fourth year Fortune has published its list in partnership with Statista, and for the fourth year in a row, Alphabet has come out on top. The 300 companies on this year’s list brought in over $12.5 trillion in revenue for the latest 12 months, with the median revenue figure at $24 billion. Technology, health care, and financial firms dominate the list. See the data here.
IRAN
Peace talks have broken out
The U.S. sent Iran a 15-point peace plan via Pakistan, and with that glimmer of hope stock markets bounced upward globally and the price of oil fell to $97 this morning. Iran has not yet responded to its substance, the Financial Times reports. While messages are going back and forth between Iran and the U.S., both sides are blustering. “Has the level of your internal conflict reached the point where you are negotiating with yourselves?” a Tehran spokesperson said. “Someone like us will never come to terms with someone like you. Not now, not ever.” Trump last night said Iran “gave us a present and the present arrived today. And it was a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money,” but he gave no details.
Ships at sea: In addition, Iran told the International Maritime Organization that “non-hostile vessels” could pass through the Strait of Hormuz “in coordination with Iranian authorities”—a reminder that despite the battering Tehran has taken it remains in control of the crucial oil export route.
- About 800 tankers are floating on either side of the strait, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Reality check: The U.S. is sending 10,000 infantry troops to the gulf region, including two units of Marines. It has about 50,000 troops there. That looks more like a ground-invasion force than a peace-keeping plan. The U.S. continues to target sites in Iran, Israel launched more strikes on Iran’s proxies in Lebanon, and Iran continues to strike its neighbors.
Iran will be wary of Trump’s tricks: Twice before (in June last year and three weeks ago), Washington agreed to talks and then suddenly gave a greenlight to the bombing of Tehran, Axios reports. In fact, the Pentagon is planning for two or three more weeks of war even if peace talks go well.
- One crazy quote: When asked why Trump was sending thousands of troops to the region if he believed he could get a peace deal from Iran, a White House adviser told Axios: “Trump has a hand open for a deal and the other is a fist, waiting to punch you in the f***ing face.”
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Federal judge says Anthropic may be target of ‘attempted corporate murder’
Federal District Judge Rita Lin showed some sympathy for Anthropic on Tuesday, in the AI company’s challenge to the Pentagon labeling it a “supply-chain risk” to national security and banning all government contractors from using the company’s sweeping AI tools. Fortune’s Amanda Gerut reports: Saying that she couldnt understand why the Trump administration wanted to ban Anthropic from all federal contracts, as opposed to the Pentagon simply declining to do business with it, she said, “One of the amicus briefs used the term ‘attempted corporate murder,’ … I don’t know if it’s murder, but it looks like an attempt to cripple Anthropic. And specifically my concern is whether Anthropic is being punished for criticizing the government’s contracting position in the press.”
- Exclusive: AI-powered benefits platform Origin raises $30 million in fresh funding to bring CHROs visibility into benefits usage and spend, by Jeremy Kahn.
- The AI era has a message for every CEO: Adapt or die, by Bea Nolan.
- China could be the ‘big winner’ in AI thanks to abundant power, cheap manufacturing, and an open-source craze, by Nicholas Gordon.
- Wall Street is convinced AI will kill SaaS. History and economics say something else, by Jeremy Kahn.
- Jury finds Meta failed to protect kids from sexual predators, misled users — ordered to pay $375M in landmark case, the New York Post reports.
CHART OF THE DAY
Growth in corporate business investment is now reliant solely on AI
This is probably one of the most worrying charts in U.S. economics right now: If not for spending on AI and related tech— i.e. computers, communications equipment, software, data centres, and so on—corporate capex would be in decline, according to Pantheon Macroeconomics.
NUMBER OF THE DAY
3
The number of seats United will let you buy together so that “the entire row is alllllll yours,” as the company put it in a tweet yesterday. The “United Relax Row” will feature three adjacent economy seats “with adjustable leg rests that can each be raised or lowered to create a cozy lie-flat space for stretching out,” the company said. The product launches next year.
MORE FROM FORTUNE
Goldman raises recession odds to 30% on higher inflation, lower GDP outlook as oil prices surge, by Nick Lichtenberg
Why QVC is making such a big bet on TikTok, by Phil Wahba
‘We’ve become like Europe’: Jamie Dimon warns China is beating the U.S. as he says Iran war means a ‘better chance’ of permanent Middle East peace, by Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez
The job market is so bad that ‘reverse recruiters’ are charging $1,500 a month just to help people look for jobs, by Jake Angelo
Europe has survived 3 energy shocks in 4 years. The only way out is to stop buying power from its enemies, by David Frykman
THE FRONT PAGES TODAY
Palantir turns poisonous on the midterms campaign trail - FT
OpenAI Scraps Sora Video Platform Months After Launch - WSJ
Private credit’s ‘zero-loss fantasy’ is coming to an end as defaults and fund exits rise - CNBC
Democrats notch special election win in Trump's backyard - Axios
Meta Glasses Withheld From EU Over Battery Rules, Supply Snags - Bloomberg
ONE MORE THING
Polymarket, how long is this thing gonna go on for?
Bettors on the date when a “ceasefire” will take place indicate that hostilities will go on until April 30 or afterward—that’s when a majority of bets emerge on a date. Macquarie analysts Thierry and Gareth agree with that assessment. “U.S. amphibious assault forces are still making their way to the theater of operations. An "off-ramp" may be getting staged, but it’s too early to be taken,” they told clients. Oxford Economics’ Angel Talavera says: “Our new baseline assumes the Strait of Hormuz remains impassable until May … This translates into a new assumption of crude oil prices surging to an average of $130 per barrel in April and $113pb in Q2.”
