Top Stories This Morning: The U.S. Reveals Details of a Deal with Venezuela; Apple Escalates Its Dispute with OpenAI

The White House has revealed details of an oil deal with Venezuela: The U.S.-backed NABEP received 100-year concessions for 17 oil fields with reserves of 65 billion barrels, while the U.S. government secured a 35% stake in the parent company and priority rights to purchase the oil produced. Apple has escalated its legal dispute with OpenAI, accusing the AI giant of destroying evidence in a case involving the theft of trade secrets. Read about these and other topics in our roundup of key events as of the morning of September 1.

The White House has revealed details of the U.S.-Venezuela oil deal that Donald Trump announced in late August, according to CNBC. Venezuela’s interim government granted the U.S.-backed NABEP 100-year concessions for 17 oil fields with reserves of about 65 billion barrels, while the U.S. government received a 35% stake in the parent company and the right to purchase 20% of the oil produced at cost.

NABEP plans to invest up to $100 billion in Venezuela's oil infrastructure and pay the country approximately $200 billion in taxes and royalties over the first 25 years.

The tanker sustained damage after being struck by three unidentified projectiles while passing through the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Oman, according to CNBC. There were no casualties. The incident has heightened fears of a new escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, the network notes.

The day before, Iran attacked two U.S. bases in Jordan in response to a U.S. strike on the Iranian island of Larak. This marked the first exchange of strikes between the two countries in more than a month. Amid the escalation, Brent crude rose above $90 per barrel and was trading around $91 on Tuesday.

Apple has alleged that OpenAI is destroying important evidence in a trade secret theft case, according to Bloomberg. In a new document filed in court by the iPhone maker, it is alleged that former Apple engineer Chang Liu downloaded a confidential electronic circuit diagram belonging to the company and used it in his work after moving to OpenAI. According to Apple’s lawyers, this was revealed by an analysis of the laptop Liu used, which Apple was “only recently” provided with for examination, “after several weeks of delay.” The company believes that Liu and other OpenAI specialists were aware of his unauthorized access to Apple’s cloud storage. In addition, Liu allegedly sent a colleague instructions on how to destroy evidence.

A spokesperson for OpenAI did not respond to Bloomberg's request for comment.

Apple accuses OpenAI of systematically stealing trade secrets and confidential information to develop its own gadgets.

The Polymarket prediction markets platform will raise $1 billion in a new funding round led by 1789 Capital, according to Bloomberg. The fund will invest approximately $300 million, and Polymarket’s valuation following the deal will be $21 billion, up from $15 billion in April.

Polymarket is seeking to attract more institutional investors and is working to obtain approval for margin trading in the U.S., the agency reports. However, the company lags behind its competitor Kalshi, which was valued at $22 billion in May and is now discussing a funding round at a $40 billion valuation, Bloomberg notes.

Anthropic has reached an agreement with Lambda, an Nvidia-backed cloud provider, to lease $35 billion worth of computing power, according to Bloomberg. For the project, Hut 8 is building a data center in Texas, the lease for which, according to The Wall Street Journal, will be covered by Nvidia.

Anthropic is rapidly expanding its AI infrastructure: Last week, the company agreed to spend $45 billion on Nscale’s computing power, and earlier signed contracts worth $50 billion with Fluidstack and $45 billion with SpaceX.

— Japan's broad-based Topix index rose 0.5%, while the Nikkei 225 fell 0.3%.

— Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 1%, while mainland China's CSI 300 Index rose 0.2%.

— In South Korea, the Kospi rose 0.1%, while the Kosdaq fell 1.8%.

— Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.2%.

— Futures on the major U.S. stock indices were up slightly.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor