I’ve been an SNL fan since high school, and Saturday’s cold open truly resonated with me. James Austin Jackson was playing President Donald Trump standing behind a podium and trying to explain the justification for the U.S. military operation that launched in Iran in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Jackson’s Trump said that people had been asking about the timing of the strikes. He joked that there were two reasons: the stock market had closed for the weekend, and to cause chaos in the SNL writers’ room.

“They probably had a big State of the Union address thing they were gonna do. Not anymore!” Jackson said. “...Put the whole thing in the trash and start fresh!”

TV writers aren’t the only ones who have spent the weekend refocusing on what seems to be a nonstop news cycle, in which market-moving headlines can pop up and replace each other by the hour. So if you were hoping to read in this newsletter about what last week’s State of the Union might mean for businesses today, for instance, you’ll want to look elsewhere. I’m always striving to offer the most consequential news of the week for business leaders, and these days it can be a challenge. But success is about adaptation, and given the last several years, adapting is a skill we all have had to master.

SaaS platforms have always had to adapt to technology and the needs of different enterprises. Atlassian has been a top provider of collaboration platforms for more than two decades, and cofounder and CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes told me in an interview late last year about the ways they’ve been using AI to their advantage. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.

This is the published version of Forbes’ CEO newsletter, which offers the latest news for today’s and tomorrow’s business leaders and decision makers. Click here to get it delivered to your inbox every week.

The U.S. partnered with Israel and in the early hours of Saturday, began an extensive military campaign in Iran. U.S. and Israeli bombs hit targets in several cities across the country, killing hundreds—including Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Throughout the weekend, the war spread, with at least four Americans killed and reports of counterstrikes in Israel and consular locations in countries including Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The attacks have heightened instability in the Middle East, as the UAE, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait reported deaths in the hostilities.

Wall Street opened a bit down on Monday, though the major indexes rebounded and were relatively flat by midday Monday. Oil futures spiked, as Brent Crude spiked to nearly $79 a barrel on Monday morning, reaching its highest level in 12 months. Analysts predicted oil prices to continue escalating as the week continues, especially considering Iran’s influence over the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping lane. (Forbes senior contributor Gaurav Sharma writes it is unlikely this conflict will shut the strait down completely because of military and economic reasons.)

Also trading higher on Monday: Gold—up 2.4% since markets closed on Friday.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

This weekend saw the explosive expansion of two wars. One was the U.S. and Israel beginning armed conflict with several air strikes against Iran. The other was between the federal government, Anthropic and OpenAI. And in the war over AI, at the moment, it’s unclear who is the victor.

The Pentagon reportedly wanted to have unrestricted access to Anthropic’s AI........

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