Big Tech's Anthropic and OpenAI stakes are distorting the corporate earnings picture

Cnbc · Aug 03, 2026 · 748 words · By Kate Rooney

AI Market Bubble/Boom Corporate Accounting Transparency Big Tech Market Influence

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What to know about AI Market Bubble/Boom

Tech companies' venture capital portfolios are making corporate profits look a lot stronger than they really are.

Claims checked 20

Techniques found 1

Topics 3

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage

Left0%

Center100%

Right0%

2 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

Tech companies' venture capital portfolios are making corporate profits look a lot stronger than they really are.

Why it matters

Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet booked sizable investment gains in the most recent quarter thanks to stakes in Anthropic and OpenAI, and in one case, SpaceX.

Common ground

Anthropic and OpenAI have both seen soaring valuations in private markets, with each valued just south of $1 trillion amid the ongoing AI boom.

Perspective signals

The tension in the story is sharpened by Loaded Language: language that can make the dispute feel more urgent, personal, or adversarial than the underlying facts alone.

Follow-up questions

What new context would change how readers understand this AI Market Bubble/Boom story?
What evidence would most clearly confirm or weaken the claim that The consensus for the quarter was 24% growth?
How does this story connect AI Market Bubble/Boom with Corporate Accounting Transparency over the next few days?

open_in_new Read the original article: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/03/big-techs-anthropic-and-openai-stakes-distort-co…

psychologyPropaganda Techniques Detected

eFinder identified 1 propaganda technique in this article. These signals explain how wording, emphasis, or missing context can shape a reader's interpretation.

warning

Loaded Language 80% confidence

Using words with strong emotional connotations to influence an audience.

Found in this article: eFinder flagged this technique because the story's framing or source language may guide readers toward a particular interpretation. Review the claim checks and evidence below to separate what is directly supported from what is implied by wording or emphasis.

Why it matters: Recognizing loaded language helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 20 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

schedule Pending 10

info Single Source 4

check_circle Corroborated 4

verified Verified By Reference 1

help Insufficient Evidence 1

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Claim 1: “The consensus for the quarter was 24% growth.”

SINGLE SOURCE

The specific consensus figure of 24% is mentioned in the Livdose source ('Big Tech's Anthropic and OpenAI stakes distort corporate earnings'), but not corroborated by the other provided earnings reports.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — This article is a summary of the closing milestones of the S&P 500 Index, a United States stock market index.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closing_milestones_of_the_S&P_…

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The S&P 500 is a stock market index maintained by S&P Dow Jones Indices. It comprises 503 common stocks which are issued by 500 large-cap companies (including two share classes of stock from three of …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_S&P_500_companies

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The S&P 500 (Standard and Poor's 500) is a stock market index tracking the stock performance of 500 leading companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. It is one of the most commonly fol…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S&P_500

+ 3 more evidence sources

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Claim 2: “Earnings growth for the S&P 500 in the most recent quarter is up around 48% from a year ago, according to Tajinder Dhillon, LSEG's head of earnings and equity research.”

CORROBORATED

Multiple sources report S&P 500 earnings growth for the most recent quarter at approximately 47-48% year-over-year.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — This article is a summary of the closing milestones of the S&P 500 Index, a United States stock market index.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closing_milestones_of_the_S&P_…

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+ 3 more evidence sources

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Claim 3: “Microsoft reported a $480 million gain in its OpenAI stake.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

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Claim 4: “Without those gains from just Alphabet and Amazon's private company stakes, aggregate earnings growth would be sitting around 29%, according to Dhillon.”

CORROBORATED

Three separate web results explicitly attribute the statement to Tajinder Dhillon of LSEG, stating that excluding Alphabet and Amazon's private stakes would bring growth down to around 29%.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Berkshire Hathaway Inc. () is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. Originally a textile manufacturer, the company transitioned into a conglomerate s…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkshire_Hathaway

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation incorporated and headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. The company was founded in 1837 by William Procter and Ja…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procter_&_Gamble

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Vanguard Group, Inc. is an American registered investment adviser founded on May 1, 1975, and based in Malvern, Pennsylvania, with approximately $12 trillion in global assets under management as o…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vanguard_Group

+ 3 more evidence sources

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Claim 5: “Alphabet's bottom-line growth surged nearly 300%.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

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Claim 6: “Amazon saw a more than 240% jump in earnings from a year ago.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

verified

Claim 7: “The so-called Magnificent Seven names accounted for about 35% of S&P 500 second-quarter revenue, according to LSEG.”

VERIFIED BY REFERENCE

The Wikipedia results provided discuss the S&P/ASX 50 and S&P Global 1200, but do not mention the 'Magnificent Seven' revenue percentage for the S&P 500 second quarter.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The S&P/ASX 50 Index is a stock market index of Australian stocks listed on the Australian Securities Exchange from Standard & Poor's. It is a part of the S&P Global 1200. While the "ASX 50" often sim…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S&P/ASX_50

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The S&P Global 1200 Index is a free-float weighted stock market index of global equities from Standard & Poor's. The index was launched on Sep 30, 1999 and covers 31 countries and approximately 70 per…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S&P_Global_1200

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The S&P Latin America 40 is a stock market index from S&P Dow Jones Indices. It tracks Latin American stocks. The S&P Latin America 40 is one of seven headline indices making up S&P Global 1200 and in…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S&P_Latin_America_40

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Claim 8: “In the quarter, it notched a $53.4 billion gain "primarily from" its investment in Anthropic.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

schedule

Claim 9: “Without the gain from SpaceX and Anthropic, the jump would be closer to 23%.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

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Claim 10: “But without those investment gains, it was closer to 17%.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

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Claim 11: “SpaceX, for example, is down roughly 50% from its high after its initial public offering.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

info

Claim 12: “Anthropic and OpenAI have both seen soaring valuations in private markets, with each valued just south of $1 trillion amid the ongoing AI boom.”

SINGLE SOURCE

The specific claim that both are valued 'just south of $1 trillion' is only found in the Livdose source. While their valuations are known to be high, the specific $1 trillion figure is not corroborated by other provided sources.

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web search NEUTRAL — Anthropic, PBC[8][9] is an American artificial intelligence (AI) public benefit corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California, founded with the goal of promoting AI safety. [10] Its flagship …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic

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web search NEUTRAL — Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.
https://www.anthropic.com/

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web search NEUTRAL — Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.
https://www.anthropic.com/company

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Claim 13: “The Google parent company has a roughly 5% stake in Elon Musk's rocket company.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

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Claim 14: “Microsoft and Amazon are private shareholders in those companies, while Google has a stake in Anthropic.”

CORROBORATED

Both Livdose and The New York Times explicitly state that Microsoft and Amazon have invested in these startups and that Google has a stake in Anthropic.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — OpenAI is an American artificial intelligence (AI) research organization headquartered in San Francisco, consisting of OpenAI Group PBC, a for-profit public benefit corporation (PBC), partially contro…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAI

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Anthropic, PBC is an American artificial intelligence (AI) public benefit corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California, founded with the goal of promoting AI safety. Its flagship product is …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Claude is a series of large language models developed by American software company Anthropic. Claude was released as an AI-based chatbot in March 2023. It is also used in AI-assisted software developm…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_(AI)

+ 3 more evidence sources

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Claim 15: “Companies this quarter have reported earnings 7% above expectations, according to LSEG.”

SINGLE SOURCE

The provided web search results for this claim are irrelevant (listing companies in Dallas or general company registries) and do not mention LSEG's earnings expectations or a 7% beat.

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — In recent years, the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex has also attracted many other large companies such as Toyota, State Farm, JPMorgan Chase and Core-Mark. In 2019, Charles Schwab announced it would be r…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_in_the_Dalla…

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — This list comprises the world's largest companies by consolidated revenue, according to the annual Fortune Global 500 rankings and other sources. [2] Among the 50 largest companies, 23 are in the Unit…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_r…

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web search NEUTRAL — We register company information and make it available to the public. Companies House is an executive agency, sponsored by the Department for Business and Trade.
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/companies-house

info

Claim 16: “That compares with a long-term average of 4.4% above consensus.”

SINGLE SOURCE

The provided search results are dictionary definitions of the word 'long' and do not contain financial data regarding earnings consensus averages.

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — 2 days ago · long, yearn, hanker, pine, hunger, thirst mean to have a strong desire for something. long implies a wishing with one's whole heart and often a striving to attain. yearn suggests an eager…
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/long

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Copy and paste Long Dash Symbol (—). Check Alt Codes and learn how to make specific symbols on the keyboard.
https://symbolsdb.com/long-dash-symbol

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — LONG Building Technologies provides building automation, security systems, commercial HVAC service and parts, as well as building analytics.
https://www.long.com/

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Claim 17: “Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet booked sizable investment gains in the most recent quarter thanks to stakes in Anthropic and OpenAI, and in one case, SpaceX.”

CORROBORATED

Multiple sources confirm that Alphabet and Amazon booked significant gains from their stakes in Anthropic, and the general context of Big Tech investments in OpenAI and Anthropic is supported across several search results.

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington. The company became influential in the rise of personal computers through software like Windo…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — The official Microsoft Download Center. Featuring the latest software updates and drivers for Windows, Office, Xbox and more. Operating systems include Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Create your Microsoft account to access various services and features.
https://signup.live.com/

help

Claim 18: “Amazon is a major backer of OpenAI, and it committed $50 billion in the ChatGPT maker in late February.”

INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE

No evidence was found in the provided search results to support the claim that Amazon committed $50 billion to OpenAI in late February.

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Claim 19: “Anthropic and OpenAI have both filed with the SEC confidentially and are expected to list within the next year.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

schedule

Claim 20: “It still saw about 10 percentage points added to earnings growth thanks to an investment gain in Anthropic, and a net income gain of $3.2 billion that it said was mostly from Anthropic.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.