News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
SpaceX Is Failing to Live Up to Wall Street's Hype
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A SpaceX vet raised $65M to pull wire harnesses out of the Cold War era
When Senra CEO Jordan Black was a SpaceX engineer, he took on the job of scaling up the company's wire harnesses to support production of Starship, the company's next-generation rocket. Wire harnesses are what they sound like: the internal electrical cabling that runs through a rocketship, car, plane, or tractor and becomes increasingly important the smarter those vehicles get. They're bespoke, put together by technicians who are, functionally, experienced craftspeople. "I traveled all over the world to go visit wire harness companies," Black told TechCrunch last month. "It really hasn't changed since the Cold War era of wooden tables [and] manual processes." Black and co-founder Benjamin Shanahan started Senra in 2023 to offer a more modern solution to vehicle manufacturers. Today, the startup is announcing a $65 million Series B round, co-led by Lowercarbon and Interlagos with participation from General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Founders Fund, among others. Serna isn't looking to take humans out of the handmaking process -- at least not while robots find manipulating wires a challenge and relevant training data remains scarce. Instead, it's turning to software tools and other forms of automation to modernize aspects of the traditional manual work. The company is benefiting from the surge of money into U.S. manufacturing, particularly the defense industrial base. While Black couldn't disclose customers, he said they include builders of "anything from submarines and maritime vehicles, to defense vehicle systems on land, to launch vehicles, to satellites." If it doesn't sound immediately important, consider a recent wire harness disaster. In 2023, Boeing discovered that its Starliner spacecraft's wiring was held together with flammable tape, forcing an expensive delay while the entire wiring system was redone. Black points to that experience as a reason to raise the standards for wire harnessing, using automated systems to track materials and engineering changes. "Having it all in the same software is probably the most important thing, because it's all the little inputs that happen that can make a catastrophic change down the road," he said. Senra uses Amp, a proprietary software platform, to standardize the inputs throughout the wiring process and produce a digital twin to guide its technicians, who are trained by the company in what Black says is the only federally certified wire harness training program. The company is also, as it scales, finding ways to automate more of the process. "It goes back to the Elon principle of, 'automation is last,'" Black told TechCrunch. "We're working on it now, but a lot of it the standardization and the foundation building that made SpaceX be able to scale something like rockets, which you could only build one a year if you were lucky, and now they do hundreds a year." Senra -- which, by the way, is "harness" spelled backwards, minus the "h" and "s," because Black says the company takes the "horsesh*t" out of harnesses -- produces 1,000 each month across two different factories and plans to increae production to 10,000 a month in 2027.
SpaceX's IPO Is Drifting Back Toward Its Offer Price
In an IPO, the offer price is the anchor many buyers judge the deal against, even though a new stock is still "finding" its level. SpaceX has cooled from its early pop: shares closed at $136.08 after dipping near $135, below the $150 opening trade, as investors debate how much future growth is already baked into big-name tech. Reuters notes that IPO banks often try to steady trading in the first few weeks through price-stabilization trades and the "gre.. enshoe" option, which lets underwriters buy shares to limit early selling pressure. That support is temporary, so if the stock is still leaning on $135 as the initial window fades, the market can start to focus more on the next wave of supply, like shares that can be sold later when lockups end. A clean break below the offer price can also change the story around the listing, making it harder for other mega-IPO hopefuls that bankers have been watching to justify aggressive valuations. Why should I care? For markets: SpaceX's $135 level becomes a bigger test once the early IPO "training wheels" come off. The offer price matters because it's where underwriters have the most incentive to keep the stock orderly right after the listing, when they can use stabilization and greenshoe-related buying to absorb some selling. But that backstop is time-bound. If SpaceX is still hovering around $135 as that period ends, the balance can tilt toward regular post-IPO forces, including later selling by early holders once lockups expire. And when a high-profile deal starts trading below its offer price in that phase, future issuers and banks often have to offer a larger discount to attract buyers, or delay a launch altogether, which is why the market is treating SpaceX as a read-through for the next big listings.
Reditus readies first spacecraft for SpaceX launch
"Hypersonics is one of the areas where there has been a tremendous amount of development in recent years," Crum said in an interview. Driving the news: Reditus recently completed construction of its first spacecraft, ENOS. It has been sent to Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, and is scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX rideshare this fall. * ENOS, weighing some 440 pounds, is expected to stay in orbit for two months, after which it will de-orbit and splash down off Florida for recovery. * "As we re-enter, we have the relatively unique capability of hitting the atmosphere at north of Mach 25," Crum said. "There are very few things in human existence that go that quickly." Zoom in: Reditus is billing this first mission, focused on commercial microgravity research and manufacturing, as a demonstration, proving to the world it can bring things back from space. * "Things are going to get higher in altitude, faster -- and this is just part of the infrastructure that is needed to keep up," Crum said. State of play: Reditus raised a little more than $7 million last year. * The startup, based in Atlanta, employs around 12 people. What we're watching: The progress of Trump 2.0's Golden Dome, and to what degree the $185 billion promise is influencing defense-industrial business decisions.
Why SpaceX Is Quietly Becoming an Infrastructure Giant
For years, SpaceX (SPCX) has been viewed as the world's leading commercial launch company, celebrated for reusable rockets that dramatically lowered the cost of reaching orbit. That description is still accurate, but it is no longer the whole story. The more interesting case to make is that SpaceX may be evolving into something far larger than an aerospace manufacturer. Through Starlink, Starshield, launch services, and an expanding artificial intelligence strategy, the company is steadily assembling businesses that look less like traditional industrial operations and more like critical infrastructure. That distinction matters because history shows infrastructure companies tend to become some of the most valuable businesses in the world. Railroads powered industrialization. Electric utilities enabled modern cities. Cloud computing became the backbone of the digital economy. The question investors should now be asking is whether SpaceX is beginning a similar transition. Infrastructure Has Changed When most people think about infrastructure, highways, bridges, airports, and power grids come to mind. But that definition has expanded considerably over the past two decades. Digital infrastructure now includes cloud computing platforms, payment networks, fiber-optic cables, and wireless communications, all systems that millions of individuals, businesses, and governments rely on every day without necessarily thinking about who owns them. Space is increasingly becoming another layer of that stack. Reliable launch services, global satellite communications, secure military networks, and eventually orbital computing are turning into strategic assets for both governments and private enterprises. SpaceX now operates across each of those areas, which makes the company increasingly difficult to classify as simply a rocket manufacturer. Rockets Are the Foundation, Not the Business SpaceX's breakthrough was never just about building rockets. It was about changing the economics of getting to space. Elon Musk has long argued that reusability is the key to making space commercially viable, drawing comparisons to every other major mode of transportation. "Every mode of transport is reusable," he has said, making the case that rockets should follow the same economic logic rather than being discarded after a single flight. That philosophy worked. The company's reusable Falcon rockets slashed launch costs and increased launch frequency, fundamentally reshaping the commercial space industry in the process. But lower launch costs created something more valuable than an efficient rocket business. They provided the economic foundation for SpaceX to build entirely new businesses that depend on affordable access to orbit. The rockets, in other words, are increasingly the enabling layer rather than the primary source of long-term value. Starlink Has Changed the Investment Narrative Nothing illustrates this transformation better than Starlink. Originally conceived as a satellite broadband network, it has evolved into a global communications platform serving residential customers, airlines, maritime operators, remote industrial sites, governments, and emergency responders. Unlike launch services, which generate revenue project by project, satellite connectivity produces recurring subscription income, and that changes the financial profile of the business considerably. Recurring revenue is more predictable, more scalable, and typically commands higher valuation multiples than cyclical industrial businesses. The importance of Starlink extends beyond its financial contribution. Every satellite launched strengthens the network, improves coverage, and expands the ecosystem, reinforcing SpaceX's competitive position in ways that are genuinely difficult to replicate. The company is also pursuing a substantial expansion of the constellation, recently seeking regulatory approval for a next-generation network that would dramatically increase the scale of its orbital infrastructure. Governments Are Becoming Long-Term Customers Infrastructure becomes especially valuable when governments depend on it, and SpaceX has been steadily deepening its public-sector relationships. Through NASA missions, defense launches, and national security programs, the company has built a government customer base that tends to be long-term and far less cyclical than commercial markets. Starshield, its government-focused satellite business, reflects a broader trend in which public agencies increasingly purchase commercial infrastructure rather than building every capability internally. As geopolitical tensions rise and nations prioritize resilient communications and space capabilities, commercial providers like SpaceX are becoming harder to replace. That raises a question worth sitting with: at what point does a private aerospace company effectively become part of a nation's critical infrastructure? The Platform Keeps Expanding SpaceX's ambitions are also stretching beyond communications and launch services. The company has outlined plans to leverage technology developed for Starlink to support future orbital AI computing, arguing that many of the building blocks are already in place. "There is not some magic that is necessary," Musk said during a company presentation. "A lot of this is technology we've already made for the Starlink V3 satellites. We don't think this is a super hard problem compared to the things we already do." Whether orbital computing becomes commercially viable in the near term remains an open question. Several Wall Street analysts believe SpaceX's more immediate AI opportunity lies in terrestrial computing infrastructure, and the company has already been investing heavily in that direction alongside its launch and satellite businesses. Either way, the strategic direction is becoming clearer. SpaceX increasingly treats launch, connectivity, and AI as interconnected businesses rather than separate ventures, each one reinforcing the others. Why It Matters for Investors Public market investors still cannot easily buy shares of SpaceX directly, but the company's evolution has implications well beyond its own valuation. Lower launch costs reshape the economics of satellite operators. Expanding communications networks influence telecommunications markets. Defense spending increasingly intersects with commercial space. Future advances in orbital infrastructure could create ripple effects across aerospace, semiconductors, and AI. History suggests investors often only recognize infrastructure businesses after they have already become indispensable. Railroads, electric utilities, cloud platforms, and payment networks all followed similar paths, underestimated early and irreplaceable later. SpaceX may now be entering that same category. If it is, the company's greatest achievement may not turn out to be making rockets reusable. It may be quietly building one of the defining infrastructure platforms of the twenty-first century.
SpaceX's slide risks turning blockbuster IPO into confidence test - AOL
NEW YORK, July 15 (Reuters) - SpaceX's slip close to its initial public offering price risks turning a marquee stock-market debut into a confidence test, potentially unsettling retail investors and complicating decisions for other companies weighing high-profile listings. Elon Musk's company, spanning rockets to AI, debuted on June 12 and soared in the ensuing days, at one point valuing the company at well above $2 trillion. Since then, trading has been rocky. The stock has slipped below its $150 opening price, but remained above the $135 offer price, with concerns about lofty tech stock valuations continuing to weigh on global indexes. SpaceX shares are at risk of falling below that level. They ended on Tuesday down 2.2% at $136.08, their lowest closing level since the IPO, a week after they started trading as part of the Nasdaq 100 index <.NDX>. The stock dipped as low as $135.52. A break below the IPO price would be a psychological blow for SpaceX shares, said Matthew Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak. "It raises the narrative that the stock is up on fluff, on speculation, on froth, and not on real fundamentals," Maley said. Investors who bought into the excitement around SpaceX's listing, "hoping to 'make a killing' will be disappointed," said Greg Halter, director of research at Carnegie Investment Counsel. He said weakness in SpaceX would put it more in line with 30 years of heavily hyped IPOs, where average and median returns over the first month are often negative. SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment. PRICE DISCOVERY NOT PANIC? A drop below the IPO price would not be unusual for a newly listed company. Shares of Cerebras Systems, which went public in May, have dropped below the IPO price, and Meta, formerly known as Facebook, fell similarly after its debut. Investors often fixate on IPO prices and early trading, said Ryan Lee, senior vice president of product and strategy at financial services firm Direxion. "The reality is, (SpaceX) is still undergoing some of this price discovery process," Lee said. A fall for SpaceX below $135 would reflect "normal, albeit painful" market mechanics, especially as investors, venture capitalists and employees sell shares after lockups expire, said Gabriel Shahin, CEO at Falcon Wealth Planning. "A near-term dip below the $135 threshold would not fundamentally alter our current positioning or cause us to panic-sell," he said. CAUTION OR GREEN LIGHT FOR NEXT IPOS Some investors think SpaceX's stock performance could influence the market for future public listings. OpenAI and Anthropic are eyeing the public markets. Neither company responded to a request for comment. Carnegie's Halter said companies and investment banks considering large IPOs this year are watching SpaceX closely. "No one wants an IPO to flop or have the initial price be ratcheted down," Halter said. He suspects some IPOs would be pulled rather than priced at lower valuations. But Direxion's Lee said SpaceX's capital raise could encourage some companies with large funding needs to move faster. "If I'm OpenAI or if I'm Anthropic and I'm in this true arms race to build the frontier AI model and I need capital, I'm going to try to beat the other one out the door," Lee said. RISKING RETAIL TRADERS' SKEPTICISM A drop below the IPO price could hit retail investors, who received about 20% of the allocation, hard. "Many novice investors have approached SpaceX with a 'meme stock' mentality, buying in with capital they cannot afford to lose," Shahin said, warning that losses could fuel perceptions that markets favor insiders. "The market needs to understand that post-IPO volatility is normal." SpaceX's first earnings report will be a major test for the stock. Underwriters typically support stocks in the first 30 days and may do more for SpaceX given the deal's size, the public attention and the fact other high-profile offerings are imminent, said Maria Llerena, director of financial research at Domini Impact Investments. "Loss-making companies without a clear path to profitability are typically volatile and can fall below their IPO price," said Llerena. (Reporting by Laura Matthews in New York; Additional reporting by Lewis Krauskopf in New York; editing by Megan Davies and Rod Nickel)
With a Nearly 7% Dividend Yield, Is Verizon Stock a Buy on SpaceX Fears?
Mobile operator Verizon (VZ 0.49%) has seen its shares sell off in the wake of the SpaceX (SPCX 2.24%) IPO, lifting Verizon's dividend yield to 6.7%. The sell-off looks overdone in my view, making the stock an attractive buy at current levels. Investors worry that SpaceX will use its leadership in satellite internet to challenge traditional mobile carriers like Verizon. However, there are multiple hurdles to this happening. Two of the biggest are technology constraints and regulatory issues. A look at the potential threat Cellular networks, like Verizon's, use dense, localized cell towers and small cell antennas that reuse spectrum thousands of times within a single city. Low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellites like those SpaceX deploys, on the other hand, project massive beams over large areas. If millions of people in a dense city or suburb tried to stream video via direct-to-cell satellite at the same time, capacity would collapse. Meanwhile, modern green building initiatives, such as reinforced concrete, steel, and low-e glass used in office buildings, block satellite signals. Even SpaceX's VP for satellite engineering, Michael Nicolls, stated this at the company's Mobile World Conference: "Satellite is complementary to terrestrial networks; it cannot provide the data density that terrestrial networks have. But it can augment terrestrial networks in areas where they cannot reach. Or when terrestrial networks need additional capacity." Meanwhile, after discussing the potential for SpaceX to offer a mobile network with a former FCC attorney, BNP Paribas analyst Sam McHugh concluded there were few ways for SpaceX to enter the mobile space unless those companies struck a deal with SpaceX. He noted that current FCC rules prevent Elon Musk's company from requiring carriers to enter wholesale network agreements or to provide roaming access. While there is a risk SpaceX gets into space by acquiring a carrier like T-Mobile, the three big carriers did form a joint venture to help address coverage gaps in the U.S. by pooling spectrum, looking to fend off any risk from satellite companies. Bundling opportunity ahead Putting aside SpaceX's concerns, Verizon has a big opportunity ahead as it starts to cross-sell and bundle wireless and broadband services to the customers it gained when it acquired Frontier Communications earlier this year. This should be a nice subscriber and revenue growth driver, as only about 20% of its customers have both wireless and broadband subscriptions. Meanwhile, Verizon's dividend is safe and well covered, with the company having low leverage and a dividend (around $12 billion projected this year) that is easily covered by its free cash flow ($21.5 billion forecast). With a nearly 7% yield and a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 8.6 based on 2026 earnings estimates, I think this dividend stock looks like a buy on its recent price dip.
SpaceX's slide risks turning blockbuster IPO into confidence test
NEW YORK, July 15 (Reuters) - SpaceX's (SPCX.O), opens new tab slip close to its initial public offering price risks turning a marquee stock-market debut into a confidence test, potentially unsettling retail investors and complicating decisions for other companies weighing high-profile listings. Elon Musk's company, spanning rockets to AI, debuted on June 12 and soared in the ensuing days, at one point valuing the company at well above $2 trillion. Since then, trading has been rocky. The stock has slipped below its $150 opening price, but remained above the $135 offer price, with concerns about lofty tech stock valuations continuing to weigh on global indexes. SpaceX shares are at risk of falling below that level. They ended on Tuesday down 2.2% at $136.08, their lowest closing level since the IPO, a week after they started trading as part of the Nasdaq 100 index <.NDX, opens new tab>. The stock dipped as low as $135.52. A break below the IPO price would be a psychological blow for SpaceX shares, said Matthew Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak. "It raises the narrative that the stock is up on fluff, on speculation, on froth, and not on real fundamentals," Maley said. Investors who bought into the excitement around SpaceX's listing, "hoping to 'make a killing' will be disappointed," said Greg Halter, director of research at Carnegie Investment Counsel. He said weakness in SpaceX would put it more in line with 30 years of heavily hyped IPOs, where average and median returns over the first month are often negative. SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment. PRICE DISCOVERY NOT PANIC? A drop below the IPO price would not be unusual for a newly listed company. Shares of Cerebras Systems, which went public in May, have dropped below the IPO price, and Meta, formerly known as Facebook, fell similarly after its debut. Investors often fixate on IPO prices and early trading, said Ryan Lee, senior vice president of product and strategy at financial services firm Direxion. "The reality is, (SpaceX) is still undergoing some of this price discovery process," Lee said. A fall for SpaceX below $135 would reflect "normal, albeit painful" market mechanics, especially as investors, venture capitalists and employees sell shares after lockups expire, said Gabriel Shahin, CEO at Falcon Wealth Planning. "A near-term dip below the $135 threshold would not fundamentally alter our current positioning or cause us to panic-sell," he said. CAUTION OR GREEN LIGHT FOR NEXT IPOS Some investors think SpaceX's stock performance could influence the market for future public listings. OpenAI and Anthropic are eyeing the public markets. Neither company responded to a request for comment. Carnegie's Halter said companies and investment banks considering large IPOs this year are watching SpaceX closely. "No one wants an IPO to flop or have the initial price be ratcheted down," Halter said. He suspects some IPOs would be pulled rather than priced at lower valuations. But Direxion's Lee said SpaceX's capital raise could encourage some companies with large funding needs to move faster. "If I'm OpenAI or if I'm Anthropic and I'm in this true arms race to build the frontier AI model and I need capital, I'm going to try to beat the other one out the door," Lee said. RISKING RETAIL TRADERS' SKEPTICISM A drop below the IPO price could hit retail investors, who received about 20% of the allocation, hard. "Many novice investors have approached SpaceX with a 'meme stock' mentality, buying in with capital they cannot afford to lose," Shahin said, warning that losses could fuel perceptions that markets favor insiders. "The market needs to understand that post-IPO volatility is normal." SpaceX's first earnings report will be a major test for the stock. Underwriters typically support stocks in the first 30 days and may do more for SpaceX given the deal's size, the public attention and the fact other high-profile offerings are imminent, said Maria Llerena, director of financial research at Domini Impact Investments. "Loss-making companies without a clear path to profitability are typically volatile and can fall below their IPO price," said Llerena. Reporting by Laura Matthews in New York; Additional reporting by Lewis Krauskopf in New York; editing by Megan Davies and Rod Nickel Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
SpaceX's slide risks turning blockbuster IPO into confidence test
SpaceX's (SPCX-Q) slip close to its initial public offering price risks turning a marquee stock-market debut into a confidence test, potentially unsettling retail investors and complicating decisions for other companies weighing high-profile listings. Elon Musk's company, spanning rockets to AI, debuted on June 12 and soared in the ensuing days, at one point valuing the company at well above US$2-trillion. Since then, trading has been rocky. The stock has slipped below its US$150 opening price, but remained above the US$135 offer price, with concerns about lofty tech stock valuations continuing to weigh on global indexes. SpaceX shares are at risk of falling below that level. They ended on Tuesday down 2.2 per cent at US$136.08, their lowest closing level since the IPO, a week after they started trading as part of the Nasdaq 100 index. The stock dipped as low as US$135.52. A break below the IPO price would be a psychological blow for SpaceX shares, said Matthew Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak. "It raises the narrative that the stock is up on fluff, on speculation, on froth, and not on real fundamentals," Maley said. Investors who bought into the excitement around SpaceX's listing, "hoping to 'make a killing' will be disappointed," said Greg Halter, director of research at Carnegie Investment Counsel. He said weakness in SpaceX would put it more in line with 30 years of heavily hyped IPOs, where average and median returns over the first month are often negative. SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A drop below the IPO price would not be unusual for a newly listed company. Shares of Cerebras Systems, which went public in May, have dropped below the IPO price, and Meta, formerly known as Facebook, fell similarly after its debut. Investors often fixate on IPO prices and early trading, said Ryan Lee, senior vice president of product and strategy at financial services firm Direxion. "The reality is, (SpaceX) is still undergoing some of this price discovery process," Lee said. A fall for SpaceX below US$135 would reflect "normal, albeit painful" market mechanics, especially as investors, venture capitalists and employees sell shares after lockups expire, said Gabriel Shahin, CEO at Falcon Wealth Planning. "A near-term dip below the US$135 threshold would not fundamentally alter our current positioning or cause us to panic-sell," he said. Some investors think SpaceX's stock performance could influence the market for future public listings. OpenAI and Anthropic are eyeing the public markets. Neither company responded to a request for comment. Carnegie's Halter said companies and investment banks considering large IPOs this year are watching SpaceX closely. "No one wants an IPO to flop or have the initial price be ratcheted down," Halter said. He suspects some IPOs would be pulled rather than priced at lower valuations. But Direxion's Lee said SpaceX's capital raise could encourage some companies with large funding needs to move faster. "If I'm OpenAI or if I'm Anthropic and I'm in this true arms race to build the frontier AI model and I need capital, I'm going to try to beat the other one out the door," Lee said. A drop below the IPO price could hit retail investors, who received about 20 per cent of the allocation, hard. "Many novice investors have approached SpaceX with a 'meme stock' mentality, buying in with capital they cannot afford to lose," Shahin said, warning that losses could fuel perceptions that markets favor insiders. "The market needs to understand that post-IPO volatility is normal." SpaceX's first earnings report will be a major test for the stock. Underwriters typically support stocks in the first 30 days and may do more for SpaceX given the deal's size, the public attention and the fact other high-profile offerings are imminent, said Maria Llerena, director of financial research at Domini Impact Investments. "Loss-making companies without a clear path to profitability are typically volatile and can fall below their IPO price," said Llerena.
xAI's Colossus 2 Power Plant Operated Without Federal Air Permits
Fifty-Nine Turbines, No Federal Permits Elon Musk's xAI installed 59 natural gas turbines to power its Colossus 2 data center without securing federal clean air permits, according to correspondence between regulators and company representatives. That number is roughly double what the company has publicly acknowledged. At least 57 of the turbines run in Southaven, Mississippi, minutes across the state line from the Memphis facility they feed. Their potential emissions land far above the threshold that triggers a federal permit requirement, in communities already carrying high rates of lung disease. Key Takeaways * Manufacturer emissions profiles for just 30 of the 59 turbines indicate they could release nearly 2,500 short tons of nitrogen oxide, 4,000 short tons of carbon monoxide, and 22 short tons of formaldehyde annually at 80 percent capacity, against a Clean Air Act permitting threshold of 100 short tons. * Within five miles of the Mississippi site, roughly 46 percent of DeSoto County residents are Black against 33 percent countywide; across the Tennessee line, about 94 percent are Black against 52 percent in Shelby County. * The Justice Department filed on June 15 arguing that restricting the turbines could threaten national security because xAI's systems support US military operations, including operations involving Iran. The company said in January it was running 27 unpermitted turbines for Colossus 2 and has argued throughout that no permits are needed. The records tell a different count. Those records came from a public records request and include emails between Trinity Consultants, representing xAI and subsidiary MZX Tech, and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality. They show 57 off-grid turbines installed in Southaven and two more at an unidentified site. xAI did not respond to a request for comment. How Big This Is Ben King, an analyst at the think tank Rhodium Group, reviewed the emissions analysis. "This looks to be an unprecedented level of behind-the-meter gas being installed in one place," he said, using the term for off-grid gas plants serving a single customer. Nicholas Mailloux, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies air quality, said the nitrogen oxide figure for roughly half the plant would put the facility "up there with some of the heaviest polluting natural gas power plants across the entire country." He said it would rank on par with the top 25 US gas plants for nitrogen oxide, citing EPA data on actual emissions. Nitrogen oxides feed smog and inflame airways. Carbon monoxide starves the body of oxygen. Formaldehyde causes cancer. The Mobile Turbine Argument Mississippi regulators issued a permit in March for 41 permanent gas-fired turbines at the site, three weeks after the state's only public hearing on the project. The 59 now running are separate and unpermitted. xAI and state regulators argue in court filings that the turbines are exempt because they are mobile and meant to operate on site for less than a year. "MDEQ has determined that portable/temporary turbines do not require an air permit," the agency told reporters. The Environmental Protection Agency said in January 2026 that temporary turbines exceeding emissions thresholds must be permitted. The agency now says it is weighing "regulatory flexibilities" for portable units while protecting public health. A Clean Air Act permit would have exposed the project to years of review and public comment. The Lawsuit The NAACP and the Southern Environmental Law Center, represented by Earthjustice, sued xAI in April to stop the turbines, arguing the emissions fall under the Clean Air Act and are polluting homes, schools, and churches. "The scale of it is astonishing," said Patrick Anderson, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. "This is an absolutely huge Clean Air Act violation that threatens public health." "This sets up scenarios where the government can create sacrifice zones and tell communities they have to breathe illegal air pollution," said Mary Rock, a senior attorney for Earthjustice. The complaint filed on behalf of the national NAACP and its Mississippi State Conference asks the court to halt the unpermitted units, order best available control technology, and assess penalties for every day of violation. An earlier round of legal pressure worked: after a notice of intent to sue over the original Colossus site, xAI pulled its unpermitted turbines there and permitted the remainder. Advocates noted at the time that the Southaven build repeated the same sequence a few miles south, with no public input and no notice to neighbors. xAI, now owned by SpaceX, has not detailed how a planned third Memphis-area data center would be powered. The People Living With It In Colonial Hills, a Southaven neighborhood, the turbines run around the clock and fire off bursts residents compare to jet engines. Ervin Laws, a resident in his 20s, said the noise wakes him at night. "I can't do anything about it, because he's got more money than me," he said, referring to Musk. The health baseline was already poor. In 27 of 28 census tracts within five miles of the site, spanning both states, estimated asthma rates exceeded countywide figures. In 24 tracts, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease rates did too. Five miles is a standard radius in environmental health research for capturing populations exposed to a stationary source. Shelby County and parts of DeSoto County have previously failed federal ozone standards and remain under EPA-approved plans to keep them from slipping back. Nitrogen oxide is a key ingredient in ozone formation. "Given this community struggles with high asthma rates, additional NOx exposure at such high rates could exacerbate public health issues in a community that is already seeing more than its fair share of exposure to toxic air pollution," said Victoria Nelson, an independent environmental engineer formerly at EPA. "This is a massive amount of turbines and an unfathomable amount of air pollution," Southaven resident Shannon Samsa said. "It's not a hypothetical," she added, "that air pollution is bad for you." Jayajit Chakraborty, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said the demographic analysis matches research showing communities of color face higher exposure to fossil fuel pollution. A 2022 study by UCLA and Columbia researchers published in Nature Energy found that previously redlined neighborhoods now face disproportionately high exposure to pollutants from fossil fuel facilities. "Air pollution from these and other sources contributes to systemic racial disparities in chronic disease and ultimately shorter lives," Lara Cushing, a UCLA public health professor who co-authored the study, said. Sarah Gladney, 72, has watched xAI expand from her home in Boxtown, a historically Black Memphis neighborhood near the original Colossus site built in 2024. "Once they got their foot in the door in Memphis, I feel like it's going to be a continuous movement of xAI into these other communities," she said. "It's all about the money, and it's not about the health or wellness of the people that live in or near these communities." Why This Case Matters Beyond Memphis The turbines are one node in a national buildout. Scores of off-grid power plants for data centers are proposed or under construction across the country, and local authorities routinely approve them in weeks rather than the years of study grid-connected plants face. xAI's cluster is already among the largest of them. Noise has been its own front. Residents living near the Southaven plant spent months documenting the sound before the company built a barrier, and neighbors nicknamed the $7 million wall the "Temu sound wall" after it failed to help. That episode also surfaced how thin the paper trail is: records requests to the city about noise ordinance exemptions came back empty. The same pattern of fast approvals and thin oversight is why communities across the country have started blocking data center projects outright. The commercial stakes explain the hurry. Colossus and Colossus 2 together supply roughly one gigawatt of compute, and analysts now argue that SpaceX's near-term AI value rests on those ground facilities rather than orbital plans, with compute contracts projected above $28 billion a year. The Memphis clusters also run Musk's Macrohard project, an agent system built to imitate entire software companies. Every quarter of delay costs money, and permits take years. xAI, the MDEQ, and the EPA did not answer questions about pollution impacts on communities of color. The court will decide how environmental law applies to an industry building faster than the rules were written for.
SpaceX's slide risks turning blockbuster IPO into confidence test By Reuters
NEW YORK, July 15 (Reuters) - SpaceX's slip close to its initial public offering price risks turning a marquee stock-market debut into a confidence test, potentially unsettling retail investors and complicating decisions for other companies weighing high-profile listings. Elon Musk's company, spanning rockets to AI, debuted on June 12 and soared in the ensuing days, at one point valuing the company at well above $2 trillion. Since then, trading has been rocky. The stock has slipped below its $150 opening price, but remained above the $135 offer price, with concerns about lofty tech stock valuations continuing to weigh on global indexes. SpaceX shares are at risk of falling below that level. They ended on Tuesday down 2.2% at $136.08, their lowest closing level since the IPO, a week after they started trading as part of the Nasdaq 100 index (NDX). The stock dipped as low as $135.52. A break below the IPO price would be a psychological blow for SpaceX shares, said Matthew Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak. "It raises the narrative that the stock is up on fluff, on speculation, on froth, and not on real fundamentals," Maley said. Investors who bought into the excitement around SpaceX's listing, "hoping to 'make a killing' will be disappointed," said Greg Halter, director of research at Carnegie Investment Counsel. He said weakness in SpaceX would put it more in line with 30 years of heavily hyped IPOs, where average and median returns over the first month are often negative. SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment. PRICE DISCOVERY NOT PANIC? A drop below the IPO price would not be unusual for a newly listed company. Shares of Cerebras Systems, which went public in May, have dropped below the IPO price, and Meta, formerly known as Facebook, fell similarly after its debut. Investors often fixate on IPO prices and early trading, said Ryan Lee, senior vice president of product and strategy at financial services firm Direxion. "The reality is, (SpaceX) is still undergoing some of this price discovery process," Lee said. A fall for SpaceX below $135 would reflect "normal, albeit painful" market mechanics, especially as investors, venture capitalists and employees sell shares after lockups expire, said Gabriel Shahin, CEO at Falcon Wealth Planning. "A near-term dip below the $135 threshold would not fundamentally alter our current positioning or cause us to panic-sell," he said. CAUTION OR GREEN LIGHT FOR NEXT IPOS Some investors think SpaceX's stock performance could influence the market for future public listings. OpenAI and Anthropic are eyeing the public markets. Neither company responded to a request for comment. Carnegie's Halter said companies and investment banks considering large IPOs this year are watching SpaceX closely. "No one wants an IPO to flop or have the initial price be ratcheted down," Halter said. He suspects some IPOs would be pulled rather than priced at lower valuations. But Direxion's Lee said SpaceX's capital raise could encourage some companies with large funding needs to move faster. "If I'm OpenAI or if I'm Anthropic and I'm in this true arms race to build the frontier AI model and I need capital, I'm going to try to beat the other one out the door," Lee said. RISKING RETAIL TRADERS' SKEPTICISM A drop below the IPO price could hit retail investors, who received about 20% of the allocation, hard. "Many novice investors have approached SpaceX with a 'meme stock' mentality, buying in with capital they cannot afford to lose," Shahin said, warning that losses could fuel perceptions that markets favor insiders. "The market needs to understand that post-IPO volatility is normal." SpaceX's first earnings report will be a major test for the stock. Underwriters typically support stocks in the first 30 days and may do more for SpaceX given the deal's size, the public attention and the fact other high-profile offerings are imminent, said Maria Llerena, director of financial research at Domini Impact Investments. "Loss-making companies without a clear path to profitability are typically volatile and can fall below their IPO price," said Llerena.
SpaceX IPO Wobbles: Market Confidence Tested as Shares Slide
SpaceX's Slipping Share Price Turns IPO Into Test of Market Confidence Market Reaction to SpaceX's IPO Performance By Laura Matthews NEW YORK, July 15 (Reuters) - SpaceX's slip close to its initial public offering price risks turning a marquee stock-market debut into a confidence test, potentially unsettling retail investors and complicating decisions for other companies weighing high-profile listings. Elon Musk's company, spanning rockets to AI, debuted on June 12 and soared in the ensuing days, at one point valuing the company at well above $2 trillion. Since then, trading has been rocky. The stock has slipped below its $150 opening price, but remained above the $135 offer price, with concerns about lofty tech stock valuations continuing to weigh on global indexes. SpaceX shares are at risk of falling below that level. They ended on Tuesday down 2.2% at $136.08, their lowest closing level since the IPO, a week after they started trading as part of the Nasdaq 100 index <.NDX>. The stock dipped as low as $135.52. Investor Sentiment and Psychological Impact A break below the IPO price would be a psychological blow for SpaceX shares, said Matthew Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak. "It raises the narrative that the stock is up on fluff, on speculation, on froth, and not on real fundamentals," Maley said. Investors who bought into the excitement around SpaceX's listing, "hoping to 'make a killing' will be disappointed," said Greg Halter, director of research at Carnegie Investment Counsel. He said weakness in SpaceX would put it more in line with 30 years of heavily hyped IPOs, where average and median returns over the first month are often negative. SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Price Discovery and Market Mechanics PRICE DISCOVERY NOT PANIC? A drop below the IPO price would not be unusual for a newly listed company. Shares of Cerebras Systems, which went public in May, have dropped below the IPO price, and Meta, formerly known as Facebook, fell similarly after its debut. Investors often fixate on IPO prices and early trading, said Ryan Lee, senior vice president of product and strategy at financial services firm Direxion. "The reality is, (SpaceX) is still undergoing some of this price discovery process," Lee said. A fall for SpaceX below $135 would reflect "normal, albeit painful" market mechanics, especially as investors, venture capitalists and employees sell shares after lockups expire, said Gabriel Shahin, CEO at Falcon Wealth Planning. "A near-term dip below the $135 threshold would not fundamentally alter our current positioning or cause us to panic-sell," he said. Implications for Future IPOs CAUTION OR GREEN LIGHT FOR NEXT IPOS Some investors think SpaceX's stock performance could influence the market for future public listings. OpenAI and Anthropic are eyeing the public markets. Neither company responded to a request for comment. Carnegie's Halter said companies and investment banks considering large IPOs this year are watching SpaceX closely. "No one wants an IPO to flop or have the initial price be ratcheted down," Halter said. He suspects some IPOs would be pulled rather than priced at lower valuations. But Direxion's Lee said SpaceX's capital raise could encourage some companies with large funding needs to move faster. "If I'm OpenAI or if I'm Anthropic and I'm in this true arms race to build the frontier AI model and I need capital, I'm going to try to beat the other one out the door," Lee said. Retail Investors and Volatility Risks RISKING RETAIL TRADERS' SKEPTICISM A drop below the IPO price could hit retail investors, who received about 20% of the allocation, hard. "Many novice investors have approached SpaceX with a 'meme stock' mentality, buying in with capital they cannot afford to lose," Shahin said, warning that losses could fuel perceptions that markets favor insiders. "The market needs to understand that post-IPO volatility is normal." SpaceX's first earnings report will be a major test for the stock. Underwriters typically support stocks in the first 30 days and may do more for SpaceX given the deal's size, the public attention and the fact other high-profile offerings are imminent, said Maria Llerena, director of financial research at Domini Impact Investments. "Loss-making companies without a clear path to profitability are typically volatile and can fall below their IPO price," said Llerena. (Reporting by Laura Matthews in New York; Additional reporting by Lewis Krauskopf in New York; editing by Megan Davies and Rod Nickel)
What time is SpaceX's Starship Flight 13 launch on July 16? (Full mission timeline)
SpaceX will launch its next Starship, carrying the first V3 Starlink satellites, on the Flight 13 test mission on July 16. SpaceX is just a day away from its first Starship test flight of the summer, and if you're hoping to watch the world's largest rocket lift off, you'll need to know where and when to tune in. But don't worry -- we've got you covered. The next Starship test flight, called Flight 13 (SpaceX doesn't appear to be superstitious), is scheduled to launch from the company's test site in Starbase, Texas near Boca Chica Beach on Thursday, July 16. Liftoff is set for 6:45 p.m. EDT (2245 GMT). As its name suggests, the upcoming flight will be the 13th test launch overall of SpaceX's Starship megarocket. It will be the second such flight this year, after the May 22 launch of Starship Flight 12. SpaceX is designing Starship, which stands more than 400 feet (121 meters) tall, to be a fully reusable rocket capable of launching missions to the moon, Mars or beyond. NASA picked Starship to land its Artemis IV astronauts on the moon by 2028, and SpaceX has sold at least one Starship passenger flight to Mars as well. But before SpaceX can carry astronauts to other worlds with Starship, it has to complete a series of suborbital flights and, eventually, reach Earth orbit for in-flight fueling tests, docking demonstrations and more. SpaceX's Starship Flight 13 is a suborbital test that will be the second flight of SpaceX's new V3 Starship. Below you'll find details on what time Flight 13 will launch, what the mission will do and a full timeline for the mission. What time is SpaceX's Starship Flight 13 launch? SpaceX is currently targeting the launch of Starship Flight 13 for no earlier than 6:45 p.m. EDT (2245 GMT) on Thursday, July 16. However, the exact timing of the launch could change. That's because SpaceX has a 90-minute window in which to launch Flight 13 from Starbase Pad 2. Liftoff could occur anytime between 6:45 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. EDT (2245 to 0015 GMT). SpaceX's launch webcast will begin 30 minutes before liftoff. And remember, SpaceX has at least one backup day, so the launch could slip to July 17 if needed. In that case, it would likely lift off at the same time -- 6:45 p.m. EDT -- and have a 90-minute window, as on the first attempt. Related: Read our SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy guide for a detailed look Can I watch SpaceX's Starship Flight 13 launch? Yes, you'll be able to watch SpaceX's Starship Flight 13 launch online, but you'll have your pick on where to watch. SpaceX will provide its own livestream of the launch via its X account and the official Flight 13 mission page. If everything is on time, that livestream will begin at 6:15 p.m. EDT (2215 GMT) -- 30 minutes before the planned Flight 13 liftoff. Space.com will simulcast the SpaceX Flight 13 launch webcast on this page, as well as an our homepage and YouTube channel. A prelaunch show Now, if you need to get your Starship Flight 13 fix earlier than SpaceX's stream, a good place to look is the NASASpaceflight preshow. They'll have a livestream the day before launch, then constant live views of the pad on launch day many hours ahead of SpaceX's livestream. The NASASpaceflight preflight show will begin on July 15 at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT). NASASpaceflight has a wealth of cameras installed around SpaceX's Starbase test facility, and the company will share up-close views and live commentary for all preflight activities. In-person launch options While SpaceX does not have an official Starship launch viewing site, there are several places where you can see the launch in person around the Starbase area. For first-time spectators, I recommend watching Starship launch from near the Cameron County Amphitheater at Isla Blanca Park on South Padre Island, which is just across the bay from Starbase. The rocky beaches around the amphitheater offer a clear line of sight of the Starship launch pad, and there are often spectators on boats out of nearby Port Isabel offering a picturesque view. It's about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the launch site, and the park has bathrooms. The traffic getting to South Padre Island (if you're not staying at a hotel on the island) can be heavy on launch days, so another option is watching from the shore in Port Isabel, which is home to Hopper Haus, a SpaceX-themed bar and grill that I can confirm makes awesome burgers. There is also a shoreline stretch of Highway 48 between Brownsville and Port Isabel, from 6 to 8 miles (10 to 13 km) from the launch site, where you can pull up for the day to watch the launch. It's just the side of the highway, so you won't find amenities like bathrooms there. You can learn more about that at the site SpaceLaunchSchedule.com. If you're looking for a more rustic experience (and have cash for a $200 ticket, though kids under 17 are $40), you can camp at the Rocket Ranch, which is 3.8 miles (6.1 km) from the Starbase launch site, and camp there for one day and night. It has two viewing locations available, one at an "Outpost" and the other on the campground itself. The Outpost location is the closest and has "unmatched media service," so you can stay connected. Larger four-day camping packages are also available. The ticket includes bus transportation from the ranch campground to a viewing site and back for one launch attempt. I've actually never visited this ranch, but I wanted to include it so you know it's an option. Be sure to read the full Rocket Ranch FAQ so you know what to expect. How long is SpaceX's Starship Flight 13? SpaceX's Starship Flight 13 test flight will last just over 1 hour and 5 minutes and should follow the same mission profile as the company's last test, Flight 12, in May. This will be the second flight of SpaceX's new Starship Version 3, or V3. During Flight 12, the giant Super Heavy booster stage failed to return to Earth properly for a controlled landing and splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico (which the Trump Administration has renamed the Gulf of America). Instead, the booster crashed into the ocean. "The booster's primary test objective will be executing a successful launch, ascent, stage separation, boostback burn, and landing burn at an offshore landing point in the Gulf of America," SpaceX wrote in a mission overview. "There have been several modifications to hardware and software to address issues seen on the previous flight." Starship Flight 13 will launch from SpaceX's new Pad 2 at Starbase, which the company upgraded with shorter, faster "chopsticks" -- capture arms that can catch returning Starship Super Heavy boosters and Ship upper stages during landing, as well as lift vehicles into place on the pad for launch. Check out our full overview on how SpaceX changed Starship for V3 here. SpaceX will not try to reach orbit with Starship Flight 13 or return its Ship back to Earth for a capture at the launch pad. Instead, both vehicles aim to make controlled descent and water landings, before falling over and sliding into the sea. While the Super Heavy booster will splash down in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Boca Chica, the Ship upper stage will follow a suborbital trajectory for a target splashdown in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia. During the flight, the Ship vehicle will attempt to deploy 20 Starlink V3 satellites, the company's newer and larger satellite-internet units, but they won't reach orbit. They will follow Starship's suborbital trajectory back down to Earth and burn up in the atmosphere. Six of the Starlink V3 satellites are equipped with cameras to record live views of Starship and its heat shield and beam them back to Earth for analysis. "For the first time, Starship will carry V3 Starlink satellites to space, which aim to greatly expand the network's capacity and user speeds. As part of this initial test, Starship is planned to deploy 20 satellites which will extend solar arrays and antennas and will attempt to connect with the larger Starlink constellation via high-capacity lasers," SpaceX wrote in the mission overview. "The Starlink satellites will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship and are expected to demise upon reentry approximately 20 minutes after deployment." What if Starship Flight 13 can't launch? If SpaceX can't launch Starship Flight 13 on July 16, the company does have at least one backup day available. According to a Starship town beach closure notice, SpaceX is targeting both July 16 and July 17 as launch days for Flight 13. So, it bad weather or a minor technical issue delays launch, SpaceX could try again on Friday, July 17, at the same time as the original target. It is possible that SpaceX may have additional backup days beyond July 17. That was the case in May for Flight 12, when a series of delays postponed launch from May 19 to May 22. Whichever date SpaceX launches Starship Flight 13, you will be able to follow the mission on Space.com. Be sure to return to Space.com on launch day for complete Starship Flight 13 coverage.
SpaceX's slide risks turning blockbuster IPO into confidence test
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. designs, manufactures, launches, and operates products and services built on technologies, including rockets and spacecraft. The Company's segments include Space, Connectivity, and artificial intelligence (AI). Its Space segment designs, manufactures, and launches reusable rockets to provide access to space. Its Connectivity segment operates broadband data and communications network powered by approximately 9,600 Starlink broadband and mobile satellites in Low-Earth orbit, delivering connectivity to consumer, enterprises, and government customers over 164 countries, territories, and other markets. In its AI segment, it operates a vertically integrated AI platform spanning its truth-seeking frontier model Grok, AI solutions for consumer and enterprise customers, X-its real-time information, entertainment, and free speech platform and AI computational infrastructure.
xAI Ran 59 Unpermitted Gas Turbines in Black Communities, DOJ Now Shields Them
DOJ's national-security defense would let any White House override Clean Air Act citizen suits Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI operated 59 natural gas turbines without a single required federal clean-air permit to power its Colossus 2 supercomputing campus on the Tennessee-Mississippi border -- nearly double the 27 turbines the company had publicly acknowledged -- according to regulatory communications reviewed by Reuters and published July 14. The turbines' potential annual emissions run roughly 25 times the federal threshold that triggers mandatory permitting, and the pollution falls on predominantly Black neighborhoods that federal data already show face cancer risk approximately four times the national average. What happens next in the Northern District of Mississippi could determine whether any community near any polluting facility in America retains the legal right to enforce the Clean Air Act when regulators refuse to act -- because the U.S. Department of Justice is not just defending xAI's turbines. It is arguing in federal court that the Executive Branch can permanently terminate congressionally-authorized citizen suits under the Clean Air Act whenever a project is deemed a political priority, according to the DOJ's June 15 motion to intervene and dismiss. Regulators Counted Twice What xAI Admitted Running The disclosure comes from a public-records request that surfaced regulatory emails to MDEQ between Trinity Consultants, acting on behalf of xAI and its energy-infrastructure subsidiary MZX Tech, and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality. At least 57 of the 59 turbines are located in Southaven, Mississippi -- just across the state line from the Colossus 2 data center in Memphis, Tennessee -- with two additional units at an unidentified second site. xAI had stated in January 2026 that it was running 27 unpermitted turbines at Southaven and has maintained throughout the dispute that no permits were required. Reuters' analysis of manufacturer emissions profiles for 32 of the 59 turbines found that 30 units at Southaven alone could emit close to 2,500 short tons of nitrogen oxides annually, along with 4,000 short tons of carbon monoxide and 22 short tons of formaldehyde, assuming continuous operation at 80 percent of capacity -- the load level the EPA identifies as typical for efficiency, according to the Reuters emissions analysis. The Clean Air Act requires federal permits for any facility capable of emitting more than 100 short tons of nitrogen oxides per year, according to the EPA permitting threshold under 40 CFR. Nicholas Mailloux, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Reuters that a facility emitting at that rate would rank among the 25 highest nitrogen oxide emitters of any gas plant in the United States, measured against the EPA's actual-emissions database, in the University of Wisconsin analysis. By May 2026, the 495-megawatt cluster was generating electricity equal to the output of a conventional utility power plant -- for a single private customer. Ben King, an analyst with the Rhodium Group who reviewed the Reuters analysis, called it "an unprecedented level of behind-the-meter gas being installed in one place," in Ben King's analysis. How "Portable" Turbines Became a Half-Gigawatt Power Plant With No Permit The permit dispute turns on a technical classification. xAI and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality have argued throughout that the Solar Turbines SMT-130 trailer-mounted units at Southaven are "portable" or "temporary" equipment that qualifies for an exemption from federal permitting requirements -- because the turbines are mounted on flatbed trailers and nominally capable of being moved, they have been classified as mobile sources rather than stationary sources under MDEQ's permit determination. The technical reality is different. Gas turbines of this class -- packaged industrial combustion units -- produce electricity through the continuous combustion of natural gas. That combustion produces nitrogen oxides through a high-temperature reaction between atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen; without best pollution controls such as selective catalytic reduction technology, which can cut NOx output by 90 percent, the turbines emit at full rates. The 59 turbines at the Southaven site have been running continuously as primary power sources -- not backup generators -- for the Colossus 2 data center since at least October 2025, a duration that EPA's January 2026 ruling said exceeds the permanence threshold that defines a stationary source regardless of trailer mounting. The U.S. EPA took that position explicitly: temporary turbines exceeding federal emissions thresholds must obtain permits, regardless of their mobility, per EPA's permit requirement. The agency is now, separately, considering changes that would create "regulatory flexibilities" for portable units -- a reconsideration that environmental groups describe as a quiet rollback tailored to the AI industry, according to EPA's regulatory flexibility review. A Pattern Replicated From Colossus 1 This is not xAI's first time running unpermitted turbines in the Memphis area. The company's original Colossus facility in South Memphis followed the same sequence: aerial imagery from April 2025 showed more than 30 unpermitted turbines operating at the site, and the company eventually obtained a Shelby County Health Department permit for only 15 of them in July 2025, after SELC threatened a citizen suit, per SELC's Colossus 1 account. The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, in a letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin launched by Ranking Member Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse on April 15, 2026, documented that xAI's senior manager Brent Mayo had explicitly described the approach to Colossus 2 as "copy and past[e] what [it] did at the Colossus 1 site," per Whitehouse's EPW investigation. Rather than respond to the February notice of intent to sue from the NAACP, SELC, and Earthjustice on February 13, 2026, xAI added turbines -- growing the count from 27 at the time of the notice to 33 by the time the lawsuit was filed in April, to 46 as of May, and now to 59 as documented by Reuters. Whitehouse and Sens. Martin Heinrich and Chris Van Hollen had separately launched a broader probe of eight AI companies on March 13, 2026, covering gas-powered data center plans at Meta, OpenAI, xAI, and five others, also per the Senate probe of AI companies. Who Is Breathing the Emissions Both of xAI's Memphis-area turbine sites sit adjacent to predominantly Black neighborhoods that already carry disproportionate pollution burdens. Within five miles of the Southaven turbines on the Tennessee side of the state line, approximately 94 percent of residents are Black -- compared with 52 percent of Shelby County's overall population; on the Mississippi side, about 46 percent of residents within that radius are Black, compared with 33 percent countywide, according to the Reuters demographic analysis. In 27 of 28 census tracts within five miles of the site, estimated asthma rates exceed their respective countywide figures; in 24 of 28, rates of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease also run above countywide levels, per Reuters CDC health data. Shelby County, Tennessee and DeSoto County, Mississippi both received an "F" for ozone pollution from the American Lung Association ratings, and Memphis was separately named an "asthma capital" by that organization. A 2022 study by researchers at UCLA and Columbia University, published in Nature Energy, found that neighborhoods historically subject to redlining continue to experience higher exposure to pollutants from fossil-fuel facilities. In the Colonial Hills neighborhood of Southaven, where the turbines can be heard around the clock, Ervin Laws said the noise wakes him at night. Laws told Reuters: "I can't do anything about it, because he's got more money than me," referring to Musk. Sarah Gladney, 72, watching from her home in Boxtown -- the historically Black Memphis neighborhood a few miles from Colossus 1 -- Gladney told Reuters she sees a pattern: "Once they got their foot in the door in Memphis, I feel like it's going to be a continuous movement of xAI into these other communities. It's all about the money, and it's not about the health or wellness of the people that live in or near these communities." On April 14, 2026, the NAACP -- represented by Earthjustice and the Southern Environmental Law Center -- filed a Clean Air Act lawsuit against xAI and MZX Tech in the Northern District of Mississippi, seeking an order to halt turbine operations, installation of Best Available Control Technology, and civil penalties of approximately $124,000 per day for each violation of federal law, per NAACP's April 2026 complaint. Residents in Colonial Hills filed a separate lawsuit over turbine noise. Anderson told Reuters: "The scale of it is astonishing," said Patrick Anderson, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. DOJ's Intervention: The Iran Operations Claim, and What It Could Mean for All Citizen Suits The legal fight took an extraordinary turn when the Department of Justice, on June 15, 2026, filed a motion to intervene and dismiss the NAACP's Clean Air Act lawsuit outright -- not as a third party offering perspective, but as a plaintiff moving to terminate the case, according to DOJ's June 15 filing. Notably, DOJ's 33-page filing did not dispute the NAACP's core allegation that xAI is operating without required Clean Air Act permits. The filing rests on two distinct arguments. The first is national security: Cameron Stanley, the Department of Defense's Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer, submitted a declaration stating that Grok is one of only four proprietary AI models currently capable of supporting national security applications, and that during what he identified as Operation Epic Fury, the Grok model enabled U.S. forces to deploy over 2,000 munitions to 2,000 distinct targets within 96 hours -- making the Colossus 2 power supply, in the DOJ's framing, a matter of paramount national security, per Stanley's Pentagon declaration. The second argument is structural and goes further. The DOJ contends that under Article II of the Constitution, the Executive Branch holds exclusive authority over enforcement discretion under the Clean Air Act, and that this authority extends to terminating citizen suits whenever they conflict with "federal policy, national security, and the public interest," per DOJ's Article II argument. Harvard Law School senior staff attorney Erika Kranz noted in Kranz's Harvard analysis that this marks "the first time" the United States has intervened in a citizen suit against a private defendant specifically seeking dismissal. David M. Uhlmann, who served as Assistant Administrator for EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, warned in Uhlmann's EPN statement that DOJ was "trying to rewrite the Clean Air Act and turn the public's right to bring citizen suits into a permission slip the Executive Branch can revoke." Michael Gerrard, an environmental law professor at Columbia Law School, Gerrard told CNN the intervention was "highly unusual," adding that the future legal ramifications "could be much broader than this case, effectively taking away an important route for people to fight against pollution in their neighborhoods." Gerrard further noted: if AI data centers can power themselves through mobile turbines without permits, "that's going to be replicated in many other places, and these mobile turbines are horribly polluting and will have a very negative health effect." For 50 years, Clean Air Act citizen suits -- used in thousands of cases and responsible for billions in fines and settlements -- have been the primary backstop when EPA and state regulators decline to act, the EPN's June 2026 warning noted. The DOJ's theory, if accepted by the court, would give any administration the power to shut down that backstop whenever a favored project is in the crosshairs. Grok's actual competitive standing provides context for the weight of Stanley's national security claims. As of mid-2026, the model ranks ninth on a major multi-domain AI leaderboard and last in coding among the models tracked there -- well behind the leading systems from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. Tennessee State Rep. Justin J. Pearson, a Democrat who lives a few miles from the data center, called the DOJ intervention "unconscionable," with Pearson telling CNN: "The DOJ seeks to remove any recourse Americans have to protect themselves from harm." How AI Infrastructure's Energy Strategy Compares Across the Industry xAI's approach sits at the extreme end of a spectrum of strategies that AI companies have used to address their surging power demands. Microsoft signed a deal to restart a retired nuclear unit at Three Mile Island; Google has made substantial investments in next-generation geothermal energy; Amazon has pursued large-scale renewable energy contracts. xAI's strategy -- deploying trailer-mounted gas turbines and litigating the permitting question afterward -- represents the most aggressive approach in the industry in terms of speed and regulatory risk. SpaceX's S-1 disclosure, which now covers xAI as a combined entity, disclosed plans to purchase an additional $2.8 billion worth of gas turbines over the next three years, with at least $2 billion earmarked for "mobile" units -- the exact category at the center of the litigation. Mississippi has approved plans for a third xAI data center, Colossus 3, in Southaven, per Colossus 3 approvals, which would bring xAI's total Memphis-area power demand to nearly 2 gigawatts -- roughly the equivalent of two large utility power plants running simultaneously. Roughly one-third of all planned new U.S. data center power capacity is now designed to bypass the shared grid through on-site gas generation -- a pattern the Senate probe characterized in April 2026 as an emerging industry trend, not a corporate anomaly, per the TechTimes grid emergency report. The DOE has used a 1935 wartime law three times in 2026 to manage grid emergencies driven directly by AI data center demand growth, per TechTimes grid emergency analysis. What Comes Next for the Communities and the Law The NAACP lawsuit is proceeding in the Northern District of Mississippi with the DOJ's dismissal motion pending judicial review. The EPA's reconsideration of its January 2026 position on portable turbines is ongoing, and its outcome could reshape permitting requirements for behind-the-meter gas generation at AI data centers nationwide. For the communities near the turbines, the legal complexity competes with immediate physical reality. In 27 of the 28 census tracts within five miles of the Southaven site, asthma rates already run above countywide levels -- before any formal emissions measurements from the 59-turbine array have been completed, per Reuters health data. If the court accepts the DOJ's argument, those communities would lose the citizen-suit enforcement tool that has been their primary legal recourse in environmental disputes for half a century -- leaving them with no practical remedy even if regulators continue to decline action, even if xAI adds more turbines, and even if Colossus 3 follows the same permitting-optional playbook its predecessors did. Frequently Asked Questions Why does DOJ's intervention matter beyond xAI's turbines specifically? The DOJ is not simply defending xAI on the facts of this case. It is advancing a constitutional argument -- rooted in Article II of the Constitution -- that the Executive Branch holds exclusive authority to terminate congressionally-authorized citizen suits under the Clean Air Act whenever those suits conflict with federal policy, national security, or the public interest. If the federal court in Mississippi accepts this theory, it would give any presidential administration veto power over citizen enforcement actions against any polluter whose project the government deems a priority -- not just AI companies, not just this administration. Legal scholars including a former EPA enforcement chief and environmental law professors at Columbia and Harvard have described this as the most consequential threat to citizen-suit environmental enforcement in the law's 50-year history. Are there 59 turbines now, or is that a historical count? As of Reuters' July 14, 2026 disclosure -- which is the most current reporting available -- 59 unpermitted turbines have been documented at xAI's Southaven operation through regulatory correspondence, including manufacturer emissions profiles for 32 of them. At least 57 are confirmed at the Southaven address (2875 Stanton Road South) and two additional units are at an unidentified second site. The NAACP's preliminary injunction request from May 2026 cited 33 turbines; subsequent WIRED and ESG Dive reporting placed the count at 46 as of mid-May. Reuters' figure of 59 represents the most current and most thoroughly sourced count available. Who has the legal right to challenge this in court if Clean Air Act citizen suits are struck down? Under the current legal framework, Clean Air Act citizen suits are the primary recourse when the EPA and state environmental agencies decline to take enforcement action. If DOJ's argument succeeds, that backstop disappears: only the federal government could pursue enforcement, and only when it chooses to do so. Communities near polluting facilities -- whether AI data centers, refineries, power plants, or industrial operations -- would have no independent legal standing to force compliance. This is the precedent Columbia Law Professor Michael Gerrard and Harvard Law's Erika Kranz identified as the case's truly broad consequence, extending far beyond the specific turbines in Mississippi. What can residents near AI data centers do right now? For residents near existing or planned AI data centers with gas-fired power sources: monitor local air quality through EPA's AirNow platform and community sensor networks such as PurpleAir; contact your state environmental agency to ask whether any behind-the-meter gas generation at nearby data centers holds a valid air permit; contact your congressional representatives about the Senate probe of AI company energy practices and EPA's pending decision on portable turbine "regulatory flexibilities"; and follow NAACP v. xAI (Case 3:26-cv-00074, Northern District of Mississippi) for the court's decision on both the injunction and the DOJ's dismissal motion, which will set the precedent applicable to future cases nationwide.
Elon Musk's SpaceX Won't Turn Profitable Until 2027, Analyst Says: 'Still Not Sure What People See...' - Sp
Black Says Valuation Still Doesn't Add Up "It's already a megacap ($1.8T market cap) so upside is limited," Black said in a post on X, adding that SpaceX is not expected to turn profitable until 2027 despite trading at about 47 times projected 2026 enterprise value-to-revenue and 110 times value-to-EBITDA. Black shared a Bloomberg News report that said SpaceX shares had fallen to within $1 of their $135 IPO price after giving up roughly one-third of their post-listing gains. SpaceX is expected to unlock about 20% of its eligible pre-IPO shares after second-quarter earnings next month, with roughly 44% becoming eligible for sale by early September. Black said the staggered releases would increase the tradable float by about 900%, adding that "valuation has to matter at some point." After reaching a record high of $225.64 on June 16, the company's stock has now retreated roughly 40%. Veteran market strategist George Noble, a former Peter Lynch protégé, said the lockup schedule, and not the company's valuation, is the biggest near-term risk for the stock. Chamath Makes the Bull Case Speaking on CNBC, venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya called SpaceX "an incredible company," having backed the business since its early years and continuing to believe in Elon Musk's long-term vision. Last week, JPMorgan said SpaceX's public listing could make a potential acquisition of Tesla easier because the company can use its stock as currency. Palihapitiya expects SpaceX to build "an enormous business" in the domestic cellular market before many of the company's other revenue streams begin to materialize. Black Still Sees Long-Term Opportunity Black acknowledged SpaceX's long-term opportunity, particularly as more airlines follow Frontier Group Holdings Inc's (NASDAQ:ULCC) Frontier Airlines in adopting Starlink as their standard in-flight Wi-Fi offering. Frontier Airlines announced Tuesday that it plans to offer SpaceX's Starlink as its standard in-flight Wi-Fi service, with deployment set to begin in early 2027. Price Action: Shares of SpaceX fell 2.20% on Tuesday at $136.08, while it climbed back 1.17% in early pre-market trading on Wednesday. Benzinga edge rankings indicate SPCX has a negative price trend across the short, medium and long term. Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Photo courtesy: Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.
SpaceX (SPCX) Stock Receives Bullish Coverage from Morgan Stanley and Evercore After IPO Quiet Period
* Following the post-IPO quiet period, Morgan Stanley launched coverage on SpaceX with an Overweight rating and $300 price target * The company's shares currently trade 9.7% beneath their initial public offering closing price * The Starlink network encompasses more than 10,000 satellites, delivering broadband service to approximately 12 million customers worldwide across over 160 nations * Morgan Stanley projects revenue expansion from $45 billion in 2026 to a staggering $3.3 trillion by the year 2040 * Evercore ISI joined with an Outperform designation and established a $230 price objective Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPCX) captured significant attention from Wall Street analysts this week as the mandatory post-IPO quiet period concluded, allowing major financial institutions to publish their initial research reports. The company's shares currently sit 9.7% lower than where they closed on their first trading day. Space Exploration Technologies Corp., SPCX Morgan Stanley launched its coverage with an Overweight recommendation and established a $300 price objective, characterizing SpaceX as a vertically integrated enterprise that bridges space access, global connectivity, and artificial intelligence infrastructure. During a CNBC appearance, analyst Adam Jonas emphasized that SpaceX's launch capabilities deliver cost efficiencies that are twenty times superior to competitors when measured by cost-per-kilogram to orbit. The investment bank incorporated SpaceX into its Space 60 compilation -- a curated collection of publicly listed entities representing various segments of the space industry value chain. Joining SpaceX on the list this quarter were HawkEye 360, Applied Aerospace & Defense, and Satellogic. Meanwhile, Qorvo, Iridium, Globalstar, and Teck Resources were dropped from the index due to ongoing merger and acquisition transactions. With approximately 650 orbital missions completed through March 2026, SpaceX maintains an impressive 99% mission success rate. This exceptional operational record forms a fundamental pillar of the investment thesis. Jim Cramer offered his perspective on Morgan Stanley's analysis, observing that Jonas "likes SpaceX the company more than he likes SpaceX the stock." This represents an important nuance -- strong belief in the underlying business model doesn't necessarily equate to immediate stock price appreciation. Starlink Network Powers Revenue Projections The Starlink satellite constellation stands as SpaceX's primary revenue generator. With over 10,000 satellites in operation, Starlink accounts for approximately 75% of all operational maneuverable satellites currently orbiting Earth. The service delivers high-speed internet to roughly 12 million subscribers spanning more than 160 countries, while Starlink Mobile connects approximately 7.4 million unique devices each month. Morgan Stanley's revenue projections paint an ambitious picture: starting at $45 billion in 2026, climbing to $319 billion by 2030, and ultimately reaching $3.3 trillion by 2040. These growth expectations come with substantial infrastructure requirements, as the firm anticipates capital expenditure needs approaching $300 billion annually by 2031. ClearBridge Large Cap Growth Strategy, an IPO participant, identified SpaceX's reusable rocket technology as its fundamental competitive advantage. Their second-quarter investor communication highlighted how integrating launch services with Starlink creates opportunities to expand into AI infrastructure and space-based data center computing capabilities. Evercore Issues Outperform Rating Evercore ISI published its inaugural coverage report this week, assigning an Outperform rating alongside a $230 price target -- representing a more moderate valuation than Morgan Stanley's $300 assessment. While Evercore conceded that "the feasibility of certain ambitions and timelines can be debated," the firm stated emphatically that SpaceX qualifies as "an extraordinary company on a real path to reshaping the future of humanity." Their financial models project revenue and EBITDA growing at compound annual rates of 106% and 157% respectively through 2028, with acceleration expected as the decade advances. SpaceX shares currently trade 9.7% below their first-day IPO closing price, now supported by two significant analyst initiations -- one establishing a $300 target and another at $230.
SCATMAN hack: SpaceX breach and brand-token crime
The whole operation took less than an hour, and the most valuable thing the attacker stole was not money. It was credibility. On Sunday, July 12, the verified X accounts of SpaceX and Starlink, with two million and 1.6 million followers between them, reposted promotional content for a memecoin called SCATMAN. The repost sat in the normal flow of the accounts' output, alongside routine posts about Grok model updates, with no defacement, no changed banner, none of the usual tells of a takeover. It simply looked like SpaceX had something to say about a token.Buyers responded the way buyers respond. In the first twenty minutes the token rose 575%. By the time the posts came down on Sunday evening and the accounts were restored, the attacker had minted ten trillion SCATMAN, sold the supply across two wallets for roughly 73.7 ether, and walked away with about $135,000. Everyone who bought on the strength of a SpaceX repost held a worthless token. The dollar figure is almost embarrassing. A hundred and thirty five thousand dollars is a rounding error next to the eight figure hacks that define crypto's security discourse, and it is nothing at all next to the $1.16 billion in bitcoin sitting on SpaceX's own balance sheet. That gap between the scale of the brand exploited and the size of the payday is the actual story, and it points at something the industry has not solved: the cheapest attack surface in crypto is not a smart contract or a bridge. It is a login. Every serious defense crypto has built assumes the attacker must beat cryptography, economics, or code. The July 12 attacker beat none of those. They beat a password, borrowed a decade of accumulated public trust for roughly forty minutes, and converted it directly into ether at the expense of anyone who believed what a verified account told them. What happened, in order The sequence, reconstructed from onchain analytics and screenshots circulated before the posts were deleted, is short enough to fit in a paragraph and repeatable enough to fit in a playbook.An account calling itself Sam Catman appeared, displaying an affiliation badge that falsely tied it to SpaceX's artificial intelligence work. The name was a pun on Sam Altman, timed to the ongoing public feud between Elon Musk and the OpenAI chief executive, a feud that had produced a $150 billion lawsuit and had Musk himself posting about scamming the day before the breach. The joke did work that the token itself could not: it made the promotion feel like something SpaceX might plausibly amplify. Musk's companies post irreverently. A crude swipe at a rival chief executive, delivered as a memecoin, sits within the observed behavior of the brand, and that plausibility was engineered rather than lucky. The SCATMAN token was deployed on Robinhood Chain, the trading platform's layer 2 network that had gone live eleven days earlier and permits anyone to deploy a token without approval. The SpaceX and Starlink accounts then reposted the Sam Catman promotion, complete with the contract address and ticker. Trading exploded. Reported peak market capitalization varies sharply by source and by measurement window, from roughly $800,000 in the first twenty minutes to $2 million on some trackers to $32 million at the high water mark reported by onchain analysts, with twenty four hour volume around $5.7 million. The spread itself tells you something about the quality of the market: on a token this thin, market capitalization is a number generated by the last trade, not a measure of anything real.The attacker sold. Onchain analytics firm Lookonchain traced ten trillion tokens dumped for 59 ether, worth about $108,000, from one wallet, and a further 59.28 million tokens sold for 14.7 ether, about $27,000, from a second wallet controlled by the same actor. Liquidity drained. The price collapsed. The posts were removed, the Sam Catman account was suspended, and control of the SpaceX and Starlink handles was restored the same evening. As of publication, neither SpaceX nor X has explained how the accounts were compromised. Robinhood has not commented on its chain hosting the token. Every figure in the paragraphs above comes from third party onchain analysis, not from any company disclosure, which is itself worth noticing: the only institution that produced a public account of what happened was the blockchain. Credibility arbitrage is the business model Strip away the specifics and the attack has one moving part. Attackers are not building audiences. They are borrowing them, for the length of a single post, and converting borrowed trust into ether before the loan comes due.The economics are brutal in their simplicity. A memecoin launched by an anonymous wallet reaches nobody. The same token, reposted by an account with two million followers that has spent a decade earning the right to be believed, reaches a market instantly. The attacker does not need the trust to last. They need it to survive for the length of a candle. This is why the payday size is misleading as a measure of severity. The constraint on the attacker's profit was not the audience or the credibility. Those were enormous. The constraint was market depth: there simply were not enough buyers with enough capital in the pool to absorb ten trillion tokens at a higher price. The attacker extracted essentially all the liquidity that existed. On a deeper chain, or with a slower response from Musk's security team, the same attack with the same inputs produces a much larger number. The record supports that reading. When attackers seized the dormant account of Keith Gill, better known as Roaring Kitty, in May, they launched a token on Solana and cleared more than $600,000 in half an hour. When the Pump.fun account was compromised in February 2025, one wallet made over $135,000 in under a minute. A hijacked account belonging to former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad produced $1.7 million in losses. The pattern list is long and its membership is indiscriminate. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission's own account announced a fake bitcoin ETF approval in January 2024, moving the entire market. Scroll co-founder Ye Chen's account was taken over in January 2026. Pepe creator Matt Furie's account pushed a scam token months later. World Liberty Financial co-founder Zach Witkoff, the leader of Myanmar's junta, and a BBC presenter have all been used as unwitting distribution. What unites them is not an industry, a chain, or a security posture. It is a follower count. The defense industry has no product for this. There is no audit that certifies a chief executive's password manager. There is no bug bounty covering a social media platform's session token handling. The security spend that protects a protocol treasury, multisig thresholds, hardware wallets, timelocks, all of it terminates at the edge of the chain, and the attack originates one layer above, in a consumer product operated by a company with no stake in crypto's outcomes. The industry has outsourced its most important trust primitive to a social network and has no contractual relationship with it whatsoever. Why the defenses that exist do not cover this Crypto has spent years building defenses against a different threat model. Audits check contract code. Bug bounties surface protocol flaws. Formal verification proves that a program does what its specification says. Timelocks and multisigs guard treasuries, a lesson the industry learned expensively when a single vote drained a DAO, which crypto.news examined in its explainer on what a governance attack is. All of that machinery assumes the attack comes through the chain. The SCATMAN attack came through a social media account. There was no contract to audit, because the contract did exactly what it was written to do. There was no protocol to exploit, because no protocol was exploited. Robinhood Chain worked as designed: it let someone deploy a token permissionlessly, and it let that token trade. Every component behaved correctly, and buyers still lost their money, because the failure happened in the layer nobody in crypto controls and everybody depends on, the layer where reputation is stored. Consider what a diligent buyer could actually have done in the twenty minute window. Check the contract? It was a standard token; the exploit was the promotion, not the code. Check holder concentration? The attacker held everything, which describes most tokens in their first minutes and is not by itself proof of fraud. Check the liquidity lock? There was liquidity, briefly. Check the source? The source was SpaceX. That was the whole point. The honest conclusion is that the standard retail checklist offers close to zero protection against this specific attack, because the checklist assumes the promotion is the least trustworthy input and the chain data is the most trustworthy. Here the chain data looked ordinary and the promotion looked impeccable. The only defense that works is a rule rather than an inspection: no verified account's post, from any brand, is a reason to buy a token minted minutes earlier. That rule costs its holder every genuine celebrity token launch, which is a price most people should be delighted to pay. The Robinhood Chain problem The venue is not incidental. SCATMAN landed on a chain in its second week of life, and the chain's condition shaped the outcome.Robinhood Chain launched on July 1 as a permissionless layer 2 aimed at onchain finance and real world asset tokenization. What arrived instead, at least first, was memecoins: more than 75% of trading volume in the opening week, with the network's memecoin market capitalization briefly topping $244 million, more than $3 billion in cumulative decentralized exchange volume, and 19,586 new tokens created in a single day by July 13, second only to Solana. Cross chain interoperability provider Relay Protocol publicly warned about honeypot tokens proliferating on the network, coins hardcoded so buyers cannot sell or whose transfers route funds to an attacker, and said it was blocking them as they appeared. That is the environment SCATMAN exploited: a young chain with real retail attention, minimal mature tooling, and an inflow of tokens far exceeding anyone's ability to screen them. It is not a Robinhood specific failure. It is what permissionless launch infrastructure looks like at week two, and Solana's own history through the rise of memecoin launchpads documents the same arc. The difference is the brand on the door. A chain carrying the name of a mainstream retail brokerage, whose users skew toward people who have never evaluated a token contract in their lives, inherits a duty of care that a purely crypto native chain never had, and the network's design offers no obvious way to discharge it. Robinhood's silence on the incident is therefore the most interesting non-event of the week. The company did not deploy the token, did not promote it, and cannot in any technical sense prevent the next one. It also cannot escape the fact that a scam bearing SpaceX's stolen credibility used its chain to reach its users. The gap between what a chain operator controls and what a chain operator is blamed for is about to become a live commercial question, not a philosophical one. The tell that was there, and why it did not help There was one genuine signal available in real time, and almost nobody could use it.The Sam Catman account was new. Its affiliation badge, the marker that ties an account to a parent organization on the platform, was fraudulent, claiming a link to SpaceX's artificial intelligence work that did not exist. Someone who knew how badge inheritance works, who checked the account's age, and who understood that a legitimate SpaceX subsidiary would not announce itself through a pun account, could have identified the fraud before buying. That describes a vanishingly small population, and it describes them under conditions that made the knowledge useless. The window was twenty minutes. The signal required domain expertise in social media platform mechanics, not crypto. And the accounts amplifying the fraud were the exact accounts a user would check to verify it. The verification path led straight back to the attack. This is what makes brand token crime structurally different from the failure modes retail has been trained on. A rug pull on a random token asks a buyer to evaluate a stranger and get it wrong. A hijacked account asks a buyer to evaluate an institution and get it right, then punishes them for the institution's operational security failure. The buyer's diligence was not insufficient. It was aimed at the wrong entity, because the entity that failed was never one they could inspect. The generic advice to check holder distribution and creator history, sound guidance across the meme coins landscape, simply does not reach a case where the creator's history is a forged badge and the distribution looked normal for sixty seconds. The case that this does not matter much There is a serious argument that the industry should be relaxed about all of this, and it deserves a fair hearing.Start with the numbers. The total damage was $135,000, spread across an unknown number of buyers who chose to purchase a token named after a joke about a lawsuit, minted an hour earlier, on a chain eleven days old. Compare that to the $11 billion in crypto related losses the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reported in 2025, or the industrial scale of romance and investment fraud operations. Account takeover memecoin scams are, in aggregate, a rounding error against the frauds that destroy people's lives. Continue with responsibility. Nobody was tricked into revealing a private key. No wallet was drained. Buyers made a voluntary purchase of a speculative asset in an unregulated market on the basis of a social media post, which is a decision the market is entitled to price. The permissionless systems performed exactly as advertised: anyone can create a token, anyone can buy it, nobody is protected. That is the deal, and it is disclosed in every interface. Add that the response worked. The accounts were recovered within hours. The posts were deleted. The fake account was suspended. Lookonchain published both wallet addresses, meaning the proceeds are now permanently marked and traceable, an outcome that traditional financial fraud rarely delivers. Exchanges can flag those addresses. Investigators have a starting point. Compare the transparency of that aftermath to a wire fraud of equivalent size, where the money simply disappears into correspondent banking. Upbit's freeze of proceeds after a recent onchain treasury attack shows that marked funds are not merely symbolic, and exchanges do act on published addresses when the trail is clean enough. Finish with proportion. The attack is self limiting. Its profit is capped by the depth of the pool it dumps into, and thin pools are thin precisely because the market has correctly assessed these tokens as worthless. The scam succeeds only against buyers who ignore every rule the industry has spent a decade writing down.None of that is wrong. It is also, taken together, an argument for doing nothing, which is why the counterargument matters more. The case that it matters a great deal The dismissive reading treats $135,000 as the measure of the harm. It is the measure of the attacker's revenue, which is a different quantity entirely.The harm is the erosion of the only verification mechanism retail actually uses. Ordinary people do not read contracts. They read who is saying it. That heuristic, trust the verified account of a company that builds rockets, is the single most reliable signal available to a non technical person on the internet, and each successful hijacking teaches the market that the signal is unreliable. A world in which no institutional account can be believed is a world in which every genuine announcement, every legitimate product launch, every real partnership arrives pre-discounted. The industry is spending down a shared reputational asset it did not build and cannot replenish, one $135,000 withdrawal at a time. Then consider the trajectory. This attack costs almost nothing to attempt, carries low apparent consequence, and produces a payday in minutes. The rate of attempts is a function of expected value, and expected value is rising as more mainstream brands acquire crypto surfaces. SpaceX now holds 18,712 bitcoin and trades as a Nasdaq-100 component whose price is discovered partly on crypto rails, a structural reality crypto.news examined when the stock joined the index. Every corporate account with a crypto adjacent story is now a live financial instrument, whether the company knows it or not, and the compromise of such an account is no longer a public relations incident. It is a market event. Notice too what the attacker actually needed: no capital, no code, no confederates, and roughly one hour. Meanwhile, the defenders needed exactly what they did not have, which is a way to un-say something to millions of people faster than a bot can buy. Deletion is not a remedy when the trade has already cleared. The asymmetry is total: the attack executes at the speed of a repost, and the correction executes at the speed of a corporate security team noticing, escalating, and regaining access. In the interval, an irreversible ledger records everything. And the regulatory exposure is asymmetric in an ugly way. Attackers face weak enforcement against pseudonymous wallets. The chains, the brokerages, and the exchanges hosting the activity face regulators who are actively deciding, this month, how much responsibility infrastructure operators bear for what runs on top of them. Every SCATMAN is evidence in that proceeding, and it is evidence that arrives conveniently packaged: a household brand, a retail brokerage's chain, an unsophisticated victim class, and a perpetrator who will probably never be identified. The industry's argument for permissionless infrastructure gets harder to make each time permissionless infrastructure is the medium through which a stolen brand robs retail buyers, and the regulatory window in which those arguments are being weighed is measured in weeks, not years. What would actually change the math Nothing in the current toolkit addresses the root cause, which is that a verified account's authority transfers instantly and totally to whoever controls the login at a given moment. The platform side is straightforward and unattempted. Hardware key enforcement for accounts above a follower threshold. Delay windows on posts containing contract addresses from accounts that have never posted one. Loss of affiliation badge inheritance for accounts created within a defined period. None of these is technically hard. All of them are commercially unattractive to a platform that monetizes velocity, and none has been implemented despite three years of nearly identical incidents. The absence is not a technology gap. It is a revealed preference about whose losses count. The chain side is more interesting because it cuts against the ideology. A permissionless chain cannot vet tokens, but the interfaces on top of it can, and increasingly do: Relay Protocol's honeypot blocking is exactly that, a voluntary screening layer occupying the gap between what the protocol permits and what users can survive. Expect more of it, and expect the resulting fight over whether interface level screening is prudent stewardship or the reintroduction of the gatekeepers the entire architecture was built to remove. The user side is the only one available today, and it is a single sentence: the credibility of the messenger tells you nothing about the token, because the messenger's credibility is exactly what is being stolen. A verified account promoting a token minted minutes ago is not evidence of legitimacy. Under current conditions it is closer to evidence of the opposite. The ledger nobody wants to read Here is the uncomfortable arithmetic of July 12. A brand worth over a trillion dollars in public market value was used, without consent, to sell a worthless asset. The theft netted about the price of a modest car. The proceeds are permanently visible on a public ledger. The victims have no recourse. The platform has said nothing. The chain has said nothing. The brand has said nothing. And the mechanism that made it all possible remains completely intact, available to anyone who compromises the next account. The scam economy has discovered that the most valuable asset in crypto is not any token. It is a moment of unearned belief, and belief is the one thing on this market with no smart contract protecting it, no audit verifying it, and no liquidity lock keeping it in place. Until that changes, $135,000 is not a measure of the damage. It is a receipt for the trial run. Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Figures on wallet activity, token supply, and market capitalization derive from third party onchain analytics reported by Lookonchain, GeckoTerminal, and DEX Screener, not from official company disclosures, and reported peaks vary between sources. No company involved has confirmed the breach mechanism. Details reflect information current as of July 14, 2026, and are subject to change. Always do your own research.
SpaceX's Blow-It-Up Testing Won't Fly on Starship
SpaceX's willingness to blow stuff up and learn from the failures has propelled it from a cash-strapped startup to one of the world's most valuable companies (and kick-started a commercial space revolution along the way). The development of the Falcon 9 rocket was achieved over a relatively short ...
SpaceX Fell Below Its Debut Price. History Says a $10,000 Investment Will be Worth This Much in a Year.
Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX) splashed onto the scene just a few weeks ago when it completed the world's biggest initial public offering, raising more than $85 billion after the exercise of an overallotment option. Of course, SpaceX wasn't new to investors -- the company had been making headlines for years, particularly for its rocket launches for NASA. But this was the first time investors, from retail to professional, could easily invest in the company. Demand was high during the IPO -- it was greatly oversubscribed -- and during the first days of trading. The stock soared 50% from its $150 debut price to a peak of $225 on June 16. In recent days, though, SpaceX has lost the positive momentum. In fact, the stock has slipped below its debut price. Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a "Double Down" signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same "Total Conviction" signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue " If you had invested $10,000 in SpaceX's early days of trading, how much would this investment be worth in a year? History offers us a very clear answer. Image source: Getty Images. Exciting growth businesses First, though, let's take a quick look at the SpaceX story. The company has attracted investors thanks to its exciting growth businesses and its ambitious leader, Elon Musk. SpaceX operates in rocket launches, satellite-based internet, and artificial intelligence (AI), areas that each could drive significant revenue gains if they reach certain goals. And speaking of goals, many are ambitious, but if the company can accomplish them, they could be game changers. For example, SpaceX aims to develop data centers in space, and its most ambitious goal may be to colonize Mars. What's interesting about this mix of businesses is that they fit together nicely, with accomplishments of one driving gains in another. SpaceX's work to make reusable rockets and drive down the costs of launches will help it launch equipment more cheaply and quickly into space for its other businesses. Elon Musk is the chief executive officer behind these ambitions, and while some investors aren't fans of his strategies, others are -- and they generally rush to bet on Musk. The popularity of the SpaceX IPO is proof of this. $18 billion in revenue SpaceX has made progress in various areas -- it aims to launch its fully reusable rocket, Starship, with payloads later this year -- and is delivering growth. Revenue last year climbed more than 30% to $18 billion. But SpaceX needs to invest heavily to support the development of its technology, and this pushed the company to a $4.9 billion loss. This may continue, considering the complexity of the technology involved in the company's businesses. Now, let's consider the potential value of a $10,000 investment in SpaceX after the stock's first full year of trading. A look at some of the biggest IPOs, from Meta Platforms to Uber Technologies, shows that eight out of 10 fell in their first 12 months on the stock market. Seven of them delivered double-digit declines, and the average drop was 12%. We might consider SpaceX's performance as falling into the average, and here's why: On its first day of trading, it climbed nearly 20%. According to a study by Jay Ritter of the University of Florida, the average first-day return of more than 6,000 IPOs between 1990 and 2025 was just over 21%. So if we also apply the average drop seen in our look at 10 major IPOs to SpaceX, we come up with the following: History shows us that your $10,000 investment in SpaceX would be worth $8,800 after 12 months. Major IPOs in general haven't delivered gains after their first year on the market, and the greatly popular SpaceX could follow unless it breaks with this historical trend, which, of course, is possible. Still, all of this means that investors shouldn't necessarily rush to get in on IPO stocks, as there may be better entry points down the road. Should you buy stock in Space Exploration Technologies right now? Before you buy stock in Space Exploration Technologies, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now... and Space Exploration Technologies wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $398,160!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,249,202!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 918% -- a market-crushing outperformance compared to 209% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors. See the 10 stocks " *Stock Advisor returns as of July 15, 2026. Adria Cimino has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Meta Platforms and Uber Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
