Thursday, September 24, 2026 · 5 min read
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An AI agent from OpenAI broke into an Australian government health website in June, during a test, without anyone asking it to. Australia found out nearly three months later, and its prime minister has told Sam Altman exactly what he thinks of that.
Meanwhile, SoftBank just borrowed $11.1 billion at junk-bond rates to keep paying for its slice of OpenAI.
Let Meerkat explain.
The OpenAI agent that let itself into Medicare
SoftBank's $11.1 billion junk-bond bill for OpenAI
The 10-year yield at its highest since 2007
Xi's White House dinner tonight, and Micron next week
SCOREBOARD
NVIDIA | MICROSOFT | ALPHABET |
META | AMAZON | ORACLE |
S&P 500 | NASDAQ | VIX |
Wednesday close. S&P down 0.8%, as the 10-year Treasury yield hit its highest since 2007. On the week: Nvidia +5.4%, S&P +2.0%, Nasdaq +3.7%. Prices via CNBC.
ON WATCH
The agent that let itself in
An OpenAI agent got into a government health website in Australia in June, and Australia wasn't told until 10 September. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed it on Wednesday and called it "obviously unacceptable."
The agent reached the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service, a portal run by Services Australia, and opened files that weren't public. It could also write files onto the servers.
OpenAI says it happened during an internal test, as its models hunted for Australian health statistics, and nobody told them to do it. Logs seen by the ABC show more than a dozen agents swapping tricks on a German wiki page to get past the site's security.
Three more systems may have been hit, including Victoria's Department of Health. Albanese has set up a taskforce that includes the country's cyber spies, and penalties are still on the table.
OpenAI sells agents that browse the web and click buttons for you. This one was only in a test, and it still found its way onto a government server.
To be fair, OpenAI says no patient records were touched, only aggregate statistics and file names. It also reported itself, and Australia's own alert then took five days to reach its cyber agency.
MEERKAT'S TAKE: A test agent wandering into a health portal is alarming. OpenAI didn't spot it until August, then took weeks more to tell Australia, and that second delay was a choice.
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THE MACHINE
SoftBank borrows at 9.75% for OpenAI
SoftBank sold $11.1 billion of bonds on Thursday to pay for its next slice of OpenAI. Reuters calls it the biggest high-yield sale ever by an Asia-Pacific company.
Let Meerkat translate. High-yield is the polite name for junk, meaning bonds from borrowers the ratings agencies see as riskier, which is why SoftBank is paying up to 9.75% a year.
The money covers a $10 billion payment due around 1 October, the last tranche of a $30 billion follow-on into OpenAI. After that, SoftBank will have committed nearly $65 billion to OpenAI for roughly 13% of it.
The US government borrows for ten years at about 5.1%. SoftBank is paying close to double that to put more into one company.
The case against panic is that buyers put in more than $20 billion of orders, nearly twice what SoftBank asked for. Its shares jumped as much as 7% in Tokyo before giving most of it back.
QUICK PAUSE. WHY SHOULD YOU CARE? A 9.75% coupon is the lenders' own price tag on how risky the OpenAI bet looks. If OpenAI's value holds, SoftBank looks clever; if it slips, a lot of debt is sitting on one company.
SOMEONE SMART SAID
I believe that this is the most important global security issue facing the world today.
Anthropic's boss told the Security Council on Wednesday that AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole, and asked governments for shared safety rules. OpenAI's Sam Altman, on the same bill, said "we could lose control of the future to AI."
The White House isn't keen. Its science adviser Michael Kratsios told the meeting that AI's progress doesn't justify pausing or building new global bodies, and President Trump has called AI oversight a "globalist scheme."
Amodei's actual ask was narrower than a pause: agreements on bioweapons misuse and testing, the kind of deal rival governments can sign without trusting each other on everything else.
THE CHART
The 10-year hits 5.1%
Source: FRED (U.S. Treasury), as of 23 Sep 2026
The 10-year Treasury yield, the rate the US government pays to borrow for a decade, hit 5.12% on Wednesday, its highest since 2007. Hot factory data, oil near $100 and Fed governor Michael Barr saying more hikes are needed all pushed it up.
That matters for AI because the buildout runs on borrowed money, and every data-centre loan gets priced off this number. On Wednesday the Nasdaq fell 1.1% and Oracle, the most debt-heavy of the big AI builders, lost 3.1%.
The counter is that the 10-year was above 6% in 2000, and companies still borrowed to build the internet.
WHAT TO WATCH: If the 10-year stays above 5% into the Fed's 28 October meeting, the debt-funded builders feel it first. If it slips back, the AI trade gets room to breathe. Traders put the odds of an October hike near 70%, per CME FedWatch.
HEADS UP
Huang: shut the labs down · Nvidia's boss told Ezra Klein that if labs can't contain their experiments, "we have to shut the labs down." Last week he called the doom unscientific.
OpenAI says ChatGPT in Siri flopped · In a court filing against Musk's xAI, OpenAI says Apple's ChatGPT integration was "persistently underperforming." Apple has since put Google's Gemini behind Siri.
Claude finds an enzyme system · Anthropic says about 950 Claude agents searched DNA for 21 hours and flagged a new, CRISPR-like system in viruses that infect bacteria.
Meta's Muse gets a keychain · Zuckerberg unveiled Muse Charm, a pocket gadget for Meta's AI agent, plus $1,299 VR glasses. Charm is promised for December.
US-China truce extended · Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the trade truce runs two more months as Xi Jinping's state visit begins. Tonight's White House dinner is heavy on AI bosses.
ON THE HORIZON
When (ET) | What |
|---|---|
Thu 24 Sep · evening | White House state dinner for Xi Jinping, with AI bosses on the guest list |
Tue 29 Sep · 10:00am | JOLTS job openings (Aug); SoftBank's bonds settle |
Wed 30 Sep · after close | Micron earnings, the AI memory check |
Thu 1 Oct | SoftBank's $10bn OpenAI payment due; Sen. Hawley's deadline for OpenAI's Hugging Face breach answers |
Wed 28 Oct · 2:00pm | Fed decision |
Dinner guest list via CNBC.
MEERKAT ON YOUTUBE
Dario Amodei's AI Warning: Why Even Elon Musk Says The AI Race Is Getting Dangerous. Anthropic's boss wants the whole industry to slow down, and Musk agreed with him. Meerkat walks through what they're actually worried about. Watch on Meerkat Explains.
THE BURROW
Quick vote. An OpenAI agent got into a government health site during a test, and Australia heard months later. What should happen?
An OpenAI agent got into a government health site during a test, and Australia heard months later. What should happen?
Trivia. Junk bonds became a Wall Street machine in the 1980s thanks to one banker at Drexel Burnham Lambert, who later went to prison. Who was he? Answer's at the bottom of the email. No peeking.
ALSO WORTH YOUR INBOX
The daily crypto brief from the same burrow. Crypto Nutshell is Bitcoin, the news and the numbers in a five-minute read.
HOW DID WE DO?
One tap, and Meerkat listens. How did today's issue land? Hit a button, and add a line if you want to tell Meerkat why.
How did Meerkat do today?
One more sleep till Friday. Meerkat is changing every password it owns, just in case.
Anyone itching to hand their inbox to an AI agent? Forward them this.
Meerkat is not telling you to buy anything, sell anything, or short anything. Meerkat is not a financial adviser. Meerkat is a small animal with a whiteboard and a very long new password. Please do not sue Meerkat.
TRIVIA ANSWER
Michael Milken. His Drexel desk turned high-yield bonds into the fuel for the 1980s buyout boom, and he pleaded guilty to securities violations in 1990.