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• The Pentagon is betting on relative newcomers like Anduril to mass-produce cheap missiles for future wars.
• US officials are chasing low-cost cruise missiles and low-cost hypersonics amid stockpile concerns.
• The push explores whether “disruptive new entrants” can scale weapons production fast enough for war.

The Pentagon is preparing to test low-cost missiles from a handful of “disruptive” defense tech companies in hopes of rapidly scaling the US military’s stockpile of affordable cruise and hypersonic missiles.

The Department of Defense announced agreements Wednesday with four companies — Anduril, CoAspire, Leidos, and Zone 5 Technologies — to launch the “Low-Cost Containerized Missiles” (LCCM) program aimed at producing large numbers of cheap cruise missiles.

Another defense startup, Castelion, will support the development and production of low-cost hypersonic weapons.

The effort, focused on “disruptive new entrants,” reflects a broader Pentagon push to expand the US military industrial base beyond the traditional defense giants — “prime” contractors like Lockheed Martin or RTX — amid growing concerns about America’s ability to produce sufficient munitions during a major conflict.

Those concerns are not theoretical. The US war against Iran has shown how quickly a serious fight can burn through high-end munitions and has raised concerns about how long US missile stockpiles could last in a prolonged conflict.

The Department of Defense is looking to “cheap mass” — inexpensive missiles built in large numbers — that could give the military more staying power when demand for precision strike capabilities outpaces traditional production. The war in Ukraine has demonstrated repeatedly the value of that cheap mass when other stocks run dry.

The Pentagon said in a release that it hopes to procure more than 10,000 low-cost cruise missiles over three years beginning in 2027, via firm-fixed-price production contracts “creating a pathway for rapid and repeatable production of high‑volume, lethal strike capabilities.”

The department plans to begin buying test missiles from all four LCCM companies in June 2026, ahead of military assessments.

Castelion, a defense startup developing the Blackbeard hypersonic missile, is set to receive a multi-year procurement contract for at least 500 of its hypersonic weapons annually once those munitions pass testing.

Several participating firms, which were not named in the release, are expected to scale production without direct military investment, a model officials described as designed to reward speed, innovation, and private capital.

Officials framed the initiative as part of the Trump administration’s effort to build what they refer to as an “Arsenal of Freedom,” leveraging private-sector investment rather than relying solely on government-funded development.

The hunt for low-cost munitions extends beyond this initiative. The Pentagon’s research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is also searching for solutions to develop low-cost missiles that can be built in a mere days rather than months.

“We are moving beyond the traditional prime contractors to expand our industrial base, accelerating testing timelines, and sending a clear, long-term demand signal to innovative new entrants,” said Michael Duffey, Under Secretary of War for Acquisition and Sustainment, in Wednesday’s release on the new DoD effort.

• American Airlines and United Airlines are flying to Venezuela again.
• It comes after US officials tore up a 2019 order barring US carriers from flying in the country.
• Caracas airport used to be a bustling gateway, but economic turmoil had pushed airlines to retreat.

Venezuela is open again, and American Airlines and United Airlines aren’t wasting time restarting service.

Both carriers have announced they will return to Caracas, the capital city, after yearslong hiatuses. The airlines last flew to Venezuela in 2019 and 2017, respectively. Delta also left in 2017 but has not announced plans to return.

American resumed flights from Miami to Caracas on April 30; the flight uses an Embraer E175 operated by the carrier’s wholly owned regional subsidiary Envoy Air. American will add a second daily E175 flight to Caracas starting May 21.

United will resume daily flights to Caracas from its Houston George Bush Intercontinental hub on August 11, using a Boeing 737 Max 8.

American’s return to Venezuela is initially limited to the capital, Caracas, though service to Maracaibo — a coastal city in the northwest where it also used to fly — has also been cleared by the Department of Transportation. United has only applied for Houston so far.

The reopening comes after Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy rescinded a prior order barring operations in Venezuela amid security concerns and political instability.

These are American and United’s Caracas flight schedules:

American, effective April 30.

• Depart Miami: 10:16 a.m. | Arrive Caracas 1:36 p.m.
• Depart Caracas 2:40 p.m. | Arrive Miami: 6:13 p.m.

The second daily frequency, effective May 21, will leave earlier in the day.

• Depart Miami: 8:55 a.m. | Arrive Caracas 12:15 p.m.
• Depart Caracas 1 p.m. | Arrive Miami: 4:34 p.m.

United, effective August 11, subject to government approval:

• Depart Houston: 11:45 p.m. | Arrive Caracas 5:30 a.m.
• Depart Caracas 8 a.m. | Arrive Houston: 12:30 p.m.

Data from the aviation analytics company Cirium shows American has about 680 scheduled flights between Miami and Caracas this year.

Before 2019, it flew up to 5,000 flights annually from cities like Dallas-Fort Worth, New York, and San Juan, and was the largest US operator in Venezuela.

United’s flight is not yet showing in Cirium, but based on the August launch date, it’ll run roughly 280 flights between Houston and Caracas through 2026.

United has historically had a much smaller presence in Venezuela than American. It operated 225 flights on the route in 2017, though it operated for only half the year; it flew about 500 in 2016.

Demand is expected to be driven primarily by “VFR” (visiting friends and relatives) traffic among the large Venezuelan diaspora in Florida, though the nation is also bracing for more international tourists and business travelers.

While United won’t face any competition from Houston, American will compete in Miami with the Venezuelan carrier Laser Airlines, which relaunched flights on May 1 using a leased Airbus A320 from US-based Global Crossing Airlines. The jet can hold about twice as many people as Envoy’s E175.

Laser cannot operate its own aircraft in the US because Venezuela’s aviation regulator is rated below international safety standards by US authorities.

Nearly two dozen other foreign airlines also serve Venezuelan cities, with about 40,000 flights collectively scheduled for 2026, per Cirium — less than a third of the roughly 130,000 the airport handled at its 2013 peak, during its era as a key gateway for oil, business, and international travel.

Revived service to Venezuela comes after Duffy, in January, tore up a 2019 order restricting flights and reopened its skies to commercial flights.

The decision followed the removal of then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a US military raid that helped reset relations between the Trump administration and the remaining Venezuelan leadership.

“By restarting service to Venezuela, American will offer customers the opportunity to reunite with families and create new business and commerce with the United States,” Nat Pieper, American’s chief commercial officer, said in January.

The airline said it worked with regulators and other key stakeholders to assess security and ensure a safe return.

The Trump administration has targeted undocumented Venezuelans living in the US as part of its mass deportation effort, and accused some of being violent gang members. Direct commercial flights offer Venezuelans a way to self-deport, should they choose to.

Some airlines that had continued serving Venezuela despite the country’s crisis briefly suspended flights earlier this year during US military operations.

Many have since returned, including LATAM, Avianca, and Copa Airlines, as well as European carriers like TAP Air Portugal, Iberia, and Turkish Airlines.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in April when the first US airline resumed Venezuela flights, and has been updated.

• Alexandr Wang said that tensions between some AI leaders are “unfortunate.”
• He hopes the rivalries will cool. “Maybe it gets worse, then it gets better,” he said.
• Wang, who faced criticism from Meta’s former chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, said he had since met with the AI researcher.

Tensions are high in AI.

The leaders of AI don’t seem to be on the best of terms. Feuds abound, from Sam Altman and Dario Amodei to Altman and Elon Musk — the latter of which is playing out in court.

Meta’s chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, has his own rivalries. On the “Core Memory” podcast, Wang called any hostilities in the AI industry “unfortunate.”

“My real hope is that all these animosities subside over time and then people sort of come together and realize we are building this incredibly important technology,” Wang said. “It’s important for all of us to be really thoughtful about that as we build it.”

Yann LeCun, Wang’s former colleague, is one of his primary critics. The ex-Meta chief AI scientist called Wang “inexperienced” and said that he didn’t fully understand AI researchers.

On the podcast, Wang said that he saw LeCun in India a few weeks after the comment. LeCun also congratulated the Meta Superintelligence Labs on its launch of Muse Spark AI model, he said.

“Yann is a notable, very outspoken person,” LeCun said. “I think everyone always knows what Yann is thinking.”

Wang applied his optimistic philosophy to his relationship with LeCun: hopefully, as the company nears superintelligence, it will get better. LeCun did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Host Ashlee Vance said that it seemed like relationships in the AI community were getting worse.

“Maybe it gets worse, then it gets better,” Wang replied.

Vance also referenced another AI leader: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The duo was once roommates. Then Wang’s Superintelligence Lab launched a poaching campaign — armed with Meta’s checkbook — that targeted staff of major AI labs, including OpenAI.

In June, Altman said that Meta’s luring of talent via large compensation packages could hurt them. “I don’t think that’s going to set up a great culture,” Altman said.

On the podcast, Vance said that he texted Altman about the interview with Wang. “He did not have flattering things to say,” Vance said.

Wang didn’t directly comment on his relationship with Altman. OpenAI didn’t respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

The Meta AI leader voiced empathy for his fellow AI heads. There are “various mischaracterizations about them,” he said.

“What’s out there is never always correct,” Wang said. “It can be frustrating, but I choose to just channel it into the work that we’re doing.”

• Scott Goodwin, the founder of $30 billion Diameter Capital, spoke Tuesday at the Sohn conference.
• Goodwin has been a critic of private credit funds that are overly exposed to software.
• He identified three areas where his firm is investing to capitalize on some funds’ pain.

Diameter Capital founder Scott Goodwin opened his Sohn conference presentation Tuesday with a blunt assessment of private credit.

Goodwin, whose firm manages $30 billion and invests across different credit opportunities, has been critical of private credit managers that have loaded up on loans to asset-light companies exposed to disruption from artificial intelligence. In a letter to investors from earlier this year, he predicted a “reckoning” in the private credit space.

Tuesday’s presentation went further, as Goodwin said the portfolio construction of private credit portfolios overly exposed to sectors like software is “almost criminal.”

After years of rapid growth in private credit, concerns over credit quality and about how AI could disrupt software have driven record-high investor redemption requests at some of the biggest funds.

“A lot of things were missed, but mostly the pace of technology change,” he said. The most “acute” problems will emerge from private credit funds raised in 2021 and 2022, when software valuations were near their peak, and growth in the asset class pushed managers to seek out bigger and bigger deals.

“You cannot have 40, 50, 60% of your portfolio in a single sector,” he said.

Now, there are opportunities for managers like himself.

Diameter’s analysis found that between $150 billion and $200 billion of loans from private credit funds in need of liquidity will be sold on the secondary market in the coming years. The firm has already done 15 of these deals over the last two months, Goodwin said, including picking up some loans to companies that Diameter was already lending to.

The sell-off in publicly traded BDCs has left some portfolios with strong underlying holdings undervalued, and Diameter expects to scoop up some of them at the right price, Goodwin said. And the pullback in direct lending over the coming years should allow firms with staying power the ability to negotiate better terms with companies in need of capital.

“This is not a systemic issue,” Goodwin said about the credit markets as a whole, but new funds need to “know the names” of companies they’re lending to.

• Sam Altman faced intense, at times awkward, cross-examination from Elon Musk’s attorney.
• Altman was peppered with questions over whether he lies to advance his business interests.
• “I believe I am an honest and trustworthy business person,” he testified in the Musk v. Altman trial.

Sam Altman on Tuesday came under fierce grilling from Elon Musk’s lead trial attorney in an increasingly awkward courtroom exchange that saw the OpenAI CEO confronted with allegations of lying and deception.

Musk’s attorney, Steven Molo, opened his cross-examination of Altman with the blunt question: “Are you completely trustworthy?”

“I believe so,” Altman told the federal California jury in the civil trial of Musk’s lawsuit against Altman and OpenAI.

“You don’t know whether you’re completely trustworthy?” Molo followed up, forcing Altman to respond, “I’ll just amend my answer to yes.”

Molo then peppered Altman with questions about whether the billionaire chief executive tells the truth, lies to advance his business interests, or misleads the people he works with.

“I believe I am an honest and trustworthy business person,” Altman testified.

Molo told Altman that he’s been repeatedly called “deceptive and a liar” by people he’s done business with as the attorney pointed to previous testimony from former OpenAI insiders like Mira Murati and Tasha McCauley.

“She accused you of creating a toxic culture of lying in OpenAI,” Molo said, referring to McCauley. “You’re aware of that, aren’t you?”

Altman said he wasn’t aware of “those words” and added he did “not hear” McCauley’s testimony in the case.

“Is it important to you to find out what’s going on in this trial?” Molo questioned Altman, who responded: “Yes, although I have a very busy day job and have not been able to be here every day.”

“I certainly care about this trial,” Altman said.

In his line of questioning, Molo cited Musk’s claims accusing Altman of “lying” about his commitment to OpenAI’s founding mission as a nonprofit.

“I don’t know if he has accused me of lying or not being committed to that mission,” Altman said, prompting Molo to respond: “Did you read this lawsuit?”

“Many, many versions of it, sir,” Altman responded.

• Venmo has always been a privacy dumpster fire.
• Finally, it’s changing privacy settings so new users’ transactions will be set to be seen by “friends only.”
• But your contacts are still public by default — which is a nightmare.

Call me a grouch, but I find it really hard to make any compelling argument for why anyone needs to see a feed of their friends’ activity on Venmo.

Is it really so interesting seeing that your friend paid someone for pizza?

Venmo’s new redesign adds features that lean into that supposed social element. Transactions in your payments feed get larger images and even animated GIFs.

I really wish Venmo would focus more on what users deserve — privacy by default! — instead of more emojis.

The newest update finally does something Venmo should have done at least a decade ago: It makes the default setting for transactions “visible to friends only” instead of “public” for new users when they sign up for the app.

Keep in mind that it isn’t even really private — the default isn’t set to “only me.”

When I put my concerns to Venmo, the company said the new settings give people more choice.

“Venmo customers have full control over what they share and who can see their activity, and the new app experience enhances how customers can manage their privacy settings,” Erin Mackey, a spokesperson for Venmo, told Business Insider. “New users will also default to ‘friends only,’ reflecting what we heard from customers. Whether they prefer to share publicly, with friends, or keep their activity private, privacy settings are easy to find and update at any time.”

When Venmo first launched, having a social element seemed like a fun gimmick, a playful and cute relic of the early 2010s when adding a social layer to everything was a big trend. But in 2026, I have no idea why any reasonable person would want anyone — even friends — to view their financial transactions.

All your contacts are still public by default when you sign up

That’s not even my biggest gripe. Venmo isn’t making a change for its new users that I think it absolutely should: making friends lists private by default.

Keep in mind there’s no such thing as a “private” Venmo account — people can generally find your account if they have your name or phone number. (Although new users won’t have transactions public to strangers by default anymore.) But there’s another way that people can find you: by searching other people’s friend lists.

That’s how, in 2021, my colleague found Joe Biden’s personal Venmo account — combing through the contact lists of other White House affiliates and family. In 2024, Wired found Vice President JD Vance’s Venmo account, which included all his public contacts.

At the time, there was no way to make your contacts private — or to opt out of appearing in other people’s contact lists. This was a huge privacy loophole — even if you kept your transactions private, people could find all sorts of information about you by seeing who your friends were.

There are tons of examples of people who have been affected by this: people who were being stalked by an abusive ex, therapists, or sex workers whose client lists were made essentially public, etc.

Thankfully, after the Joe Biden incident, Venmo made a change and now allows people to make their contact lists private — but it’s buried waaaaaaay deep in your user settings (here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do it).

But it’s still not the default for new users, and most existing users probably don’t know you can hide contacts. (Did you? I really, really recommend you do it now!)