News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
Google Engineer Charged Over $1.2M Polymarket Insider Trading Scheme - Memeburn
Congress has since opened a formal probe into Polymarket and Kalshi, raising the stakes for the fast-growing prediction market industry. A Google engineer just caught federal charges for a $1.2 million Polymarket insider trading scheme -- and the way it unravelled says as much about crypto's transparency as about one person's bad judgment. Federal prosecutors charged Michele Spagnuolo, 36, on May 27, 2026, with turning confidential Google search data into $1.2 million in Polymarket winnings. It's the second federal insider trading case tied to Polymarket this year. Here's exactly what happened, how he got caught, and what it means for the future of prediction markets. The Google Engineer Behind the Polymarket Insider Trading Scheme Spagnuolo operated under the alias "AlphaRaccoon." Specifically, he allegedly traded on Polymarket using confidential Google business information. The SDNY complaint lays it all out. In fact, he's an Italian citizen living in Switzerland. Authorities arrested him on Wednesday and charged him with commodities fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and other counts. According to the complaint, he placed bets on Google search trends using internal company data. Spagnuolo appeared before a federal magistrate, who released him on a $2.25 million bond. Meanwhile, Google confirmed it cooperated with the investigation. A spokesperson said: "The employee accessed our marketing material using a tool available to all employees, but using such confidential information to place bets is a serious breach of our policies. We've placed the employee on leave and will take appropriate action." How the Scheme Actually Worked This wasn't a complicated hack. In fact, Spagnuolo didn't need to break into any system. Rather, he already had legitimate access. Every year, Google publishes its Year in Search report. It reveals the most-searched people, topics, and trends of the year. Crucially, employees can view this data before any public release. So Spagnuolo allegedly used that access window on Polymarket -- a platform where users place real-money bets on real-world events using cryptocurrency. He bet through the AlphaRaccoon account. Specifically, his trades were YES and NO bets on who would top Google's most-searched list. In one example, he placed $381.12 on the singer D4vd, ranking among the year's most-searched people. He also put just $5 on D4VD to be number one -- at an implied probability slightly above 0%. The edge was devastating. As the indictment puts it: Spagnuolo "knew the outcome of these wagers before the trading public did because he had accessed Google's confidential, commercially valuable internal data." He wasn't guessing. Instead, he was collecting. Crypto Made It Traceable -- Not Anonymous Here's the twist many crypto newcomers don't expect: trading on a blockchain doesn't make you invisible. In fact, it can make you more visible. Polymarket's chief legal officer, Olivia Chalos, said in a statement that the platform is "the only prediction platform to date whose cooperation has led to insider trading charges in the United States." She added that, since users trade with crypto, activity is "transparent, traceable, and bad actors leave footprints." Meanwhile, someone moved part of the funds to a payment processor account in Italy. Investigators then traced that account back to an ID card belonging to Spagnuolo. Together, that trail -- part on-chain, part paper -- sealed the case. Polymarket, which recently partnered with Nasdaq to bring more institutional legitimacy to prediction markets, flagged the suspicious trading and worked directly with the DOJ. That cooperation now anchors its public case for self-regulation. This Is the Second Case -- and Congress Is Watching Last month, SDNY charged a US special forces soldier. According to prosecutors, he used classified knowledge of a planned military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The soldier bet on Polymarket ahead of the raid and pocketed over $400,000. Still, he has pleaded not guilty. Two federal cases in under six weeks got Congress's attention fast. As a result, the House Oversight Committee opened an investigation into Polymarket and Kalshi. Specifically, lawmakers want to know how both platforms handle identity checks, geographic restrictions, and unusual trades. The stakes are real. After all, prediction market volumes hit $51 billion last year and could reach $240 billion in 2026. That kind of growth attracts serious capital -- and bad actors. Consequently, enforcement is accelerating. In March 2026, both platforms announced new anti-insider rules aligned with recent CFTC guidance on prediction market manipulation. For example, new restrictions now bar politicians from trading on their own campaigns, athletes from betting on their own sports, and employees from trading on contracts tied to their employers. What This Means for Prediction Markets Going Forward The Spagnuolo case isn't about one rogue engineer. Rather, it tests a bigger question: does insider trading law -- built for stock markets -- cover prediction markets too? Traditionally, insider trading rules grew up around securities. However, the CFTC issued a February 2026 advisory on how these rules apply to prediction platforms. The Spagnuolo charges use commodities fraud and wire fraud -- not traditional securities law -- and that shows prosecutors have found a path that works. For Google, moreover, this exposes a real data governance gap. After all, every employee reportedly had access to the same internal tool Spagnuolo used. That's a systemic policy failure, not a one-off incident. For crypto broadly, the case makes one thing clear: the blockchain cuts both ways. Specifically, every bet is public and permanent -- and federal investigators can read it too. In fact, data transparency was a theme Google itself put front and centre at Google I/O 2026, and the parallels to this case are hard to ignore. Meanwhile, the CFTC separately filed a civil case against Spagnuolo. As a result, he now faces criminal and regulatory pressure at the same time. Altogether, the prediction market industry is officially on notice. FAQs What is Polymarket? Polymarket is a prediction market platform where users bet real money -- via cryptocurrency -- on real-world events. For example, that includes election results, search trend rankings, and geopolitical outcomes. The CFTC regulates it in the US. What exactly did Michele Spagnuolo do? Prosecutors allege he accessed confidential Google search data and used it to place profitable bets on Polymarket. As a result, he faces charges of commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. The DOJ filed a criminal case; the CFTC filed a separate civil one. Is prediction market insider trading actually illegal? Yes. Even though prediction markets don't follow the same rules as stock exchanges, misusing confidential information to profit from trades still breaks federal anti-fraud and commodities law. Furthermore, the CFTC reinforced this with formal guidance in February 2026. How did investigators identify Spagnuolo? Polymarket cooperated with the DOJ and flagged the unusual trades. Additionally, blockchain transparency played a key role -- crypto transactions are traceable. Investigators then linked the funds to a payment account in Italy opened using Spagnuolo's own government ID. What happens to Polymarket now? Polymarket faces a congressional probe alongside rival platform Kalshi. Both have already introduced new rules against insider trading. Nevertheless, the platform's best defence is cooperation -- it's trying to prove it can police itself before regulators step in.
SpaceX Wants Even More Profits Ahead of Its IPO
SpaceX has picked June 12 as its IPO date. Even before the initial public offering happens, however, SpaceX is laying the foundations for becoming the most profitable space company in history. As I reported in March, SpaceX raised the price on Falcon 9 launches for the fourth time, to $74 million, a 21% increase over the original price. That's a significant price hike, but despite what you might think, rocket launches have become a smaller and smaller part of SpaceX's business over time. SpaceX today is much more of a Starlink company than a rocket company. And as it just so happens, SpaceX's latest round of price hikes is happening at Starlink. Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue " Image source: SpaceX. SpaceX's most important business: Starlink In 2025, the SpaceX satellite internet service called Starlink generated roughly 61% of SpaceX's $18.7 billion in revenue. In 2026, this percentage is expected to grow. This won't happen automatically, however. SpaceX is growing its Starlink user base as one method of growing revenue. Another method is raising prices. (Note that these two actions may work at cross-purposes, though.) We learned this last week, when PCMag.com laid out a series of six tiers of Starlink "personal" (non-business) service and their respective price increases. Ranging from $5 to $10 per tier, per month, the price hikes look modest at first glance. Percentage-wise, most prices are changing only in the mid-single digits (6.1%) to the low double digits (10%) -- with two notable exceptions. The price for owning a Starlink terminal and keeping it in standby mode (which pauses high-speed internet service but permits download speeds of about 0.5 megabits per second (Mbps)) has doubled from $5 to $10 per month. But the price of the 300 gigabits-per-second (Gbps) roaming service remains unchanged at $80 per month. Data source: PCMag. It should be noted that prices may vary by location, and that in some locations, Starlink continues to advertise prices and plan names on its website that differ significantly from those noted above. Moreover, these rates are for personal service. Starlink also offers a wide array of business plans for fixed and mobile users, as well as for maritime and aviation service. Business versus personal What's gone largely unreported so far is that, at the same time that Starlink is raising prices for its personal customers, it's cutting prices for business customers. Here are the rates offered for four fixed-site, "local priority" business tiers with varying amounts of total monthly usage today: * Local Priority 50 gigabytes (GB) (per month) costs $55 * Local Priority 500 GB costs $155 * Local Priority 1 terabyte (TB) costs $280 * Local Priority 2 TB costs $530 In each case, this is a $10 reduction from prices advertised as recently as April, according to an April 8 snapshot found on the Internet Wayback Machine. What it means for SpaceX In the run-up to its IPO, SpaceX will obviously want to make itself look as attractive as possible to investors -- which is to say as profitable and fast-growing as possible -- in order to fetch as high a share price as possible on IPO day (and thereafter). Raising prices for residential customers helps with profits, but it risks curtailing subscriber growth. Charging lower rates on Starlink business customers, on the other hand, may have the effect of accelerating growth among Starlink's most well-heeled customers -- the ones who can pass on prices to their customers, and also deduct them as business expenses. What's more, a $10 price reduction there results in significantly smaller percentage price declines (and thus, less profit lost) than Starlink is implementing in its residential plans. On balance, I see this less as a story of "SpaceX raising prices" and more as a story of SpaceX tweaking prices across multiple Starlink markets to optimize its growth relative to its profits. Long term, I expect this to make SpaceX stock more profitable, not less. Where to invest $1,000 right now When our analyst team has a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, Stock Advisor's total average return is 978%* -- a market-crushing outperformance compared to 211% for the S&P 500. They just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy right now, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the stocks " *Stock Advisor returns as of May 30, 2026. 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.
SpaceX, OpenAI windfall fuels fresh bets on next-wave Asian AI winners
Hardware firms in the region are already among the biggest winners of the data-center buildout | Image: Bloomberg By Abhishek Vishnoi and Winnie Hsu The hunt is on for companies that could benefit from the tailwinds of an unprecedented wave of stock offerings in the US, and investors are increasingly honing in on the Asian supply chain. Their thesis is that the billions of dollars that SpaceX, Anthropic PBC and OpenAI are set to raise will kick off a fresh round of technology spending -- with a good chunk of that finding its way to the makers of server parts, specialized materials, cooling components and power equipment. For stock markets in Asia, that could be the catalyst for the next leg of a historic rally. Hardware firms in the region are already among the biggest winners of the data-center buildout, which has propelled chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. into the trillion-dollar club. But after their breakneck gains, some investors have become uneasy about those lofty valuations and are now betting that the next phase will create a new class of champions. "AI IPOs could further fuel the capex boom at a time when Asian chip stocks look stretched," said Ken Wong, an Asian equity portfolio specialist at Eastspring Investments Hong Kong Ltd. "We're currently underweighting semiconductors in our Asia technology strategy and focusing more on the electronic component makers." Also Read Danish pension fund blacklists SpaceX over 'catastrophic governance' Best of BS Opinion: Quad relevance, fuel pricing, and a Cockroach Party Profitable products in AI world possible, says Thomas Jeng of OpenAIpremium SpaceX lowers IPO valuation target to at least $1.8 trillion Founder supremacy is eroding the discipline of corporate governance The battle for AI leadership has driven massive expenditures on computing networks by the likes of Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. The pending equity offerings could provide some relief on market concerns over funding sustainability as debt levels rise. The listings of SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic may mean a total of $70 billion in AI spending on top of the more than $750 billion already committed by the biggest hyperscalers, according to Fabien Yip, a market analyst at IG International. Broadening Trade "The flow-through to Asia is prominently visible" in the latest chipmaker earnings reports, she said. "As the AI rally matures, the broadening beyond pure-play names is underway." Some of the region's hottest stock trades have been makers of electronic components used in servers as well as providers of materials and techniques used in making semiconductors. South Korea's Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co. and Japan's Ibiden Co. are among the top performers on MSCI Inc.'s broadest Asia equity index this year. Among more far-flung plays, IG's Yip highlights Japanese toilet maker Toto Ltd., which supplies ceramic materials for chipmaking equipment. Asian chipmakers have reported windfall profits on AI, on strong pricing power as the new source of demand creates dramatic semiconductor shortages. Supply crunches are now starting to appear further down the supply chain, and the trend may deepen with the continued inflow of capex funding. Greater investor awareness of new bottlenecks has combined with technical factors to drive broadening of the AI trade beyond the biggest chipmakers. Given concentration risks and limits on how much funds can invest in single stocks, money managers are looking at where earnings are only beginning to reflect the scale of AI infrastructure spending. Sam Konrad, a portfolio manager at Jupiter Asset Management, sees opportunities in Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. and Quanta Computer Inc., which assemble servers, as well as chip designer MediaTek Inc. "The AI capex cycle is going to last multiple years," he said. "Investors are likely to look for companies that are direct beneficiaries, but that are still trading at low valuation multiples." BNP Paribas Asset Management's Song Zhe said the next leg of the rally "should be stock-specific, not a blanket semiconductor trade." His team is focused on advanced packaging, substrates, testing, optical connectivity, power, cooling and server-related companies across Taiwan and China "where earnings upgrades can still justify valuations." Others are investing in applications of AI beyond chatbots, in areas including robotics and self-driving vehicles. This burgeoning "physical AI" field has gotten a push from Nvidia Corp.'s efforts to develop related businesses, boosting shares of partners like LG Electronics Inc. Power Supply The supply of power is seen as another key area. Nuclear and alternative energy have gained attention for their potential as data centers proliferate, especially as the Iran war drives up oil prices. Solar firm HD Hyundai Energy Solutions Co. and nuclear play Daewoo Engineering & Construction Co. are among the top stocks in South Korea's world-beating market this year. Adani Group's push into green-powered data centers is driving gains in its energy units, providing India with one of its few AI bets. Jian Shi Cortesi, a fund manager at Gam Investment Management, sees power as "the most under-owned bottleneck," but cautions that the next phase of the AI frenzy may carry bigger risks than the first. If AI demand fails to justify the scale of spending, companies may cut capex and leave the market facing excess infrastructure and sharp valuation declines. Brian Ooi, a portfolio manager at Swiss-Asia Financial Services Pte., sees the SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic capital raisings as a positive signal to remain invested in AI stocks. He also likes power, with particular interest in transformers, fuel cells, cables, gas turbines and other equipment. The three big AI-related IPOs "will provide them more liquidity to further invest in capital expenditure, and they have significant spending plans in place," he said. "Asian suppliers will benefit." More From This Section Trump vents about federal judge who blocked renovation of Kennedy Centre Trump plans to appeal order allowing tariff refunds for all importers US says it stopped another merchant ship attempting to breach Iran blockade IMF, World Bank, others warn West Asia conflict straining energy supplies 'Russian spies aggressively seeking Western technology as sanctions bite'
Anthropic just topped OpenAI on a major metric ahead of rival IPOs
Anthropic is nearing a $1 trillion valuation, topping rival OpenAI and making it the most valuable artificial intelligence startup, as the two competitors head toward their initial public offerings. Most Read from Fast Company On Thursday San Francisco-based Anthropic announced it had raised $65 billion in Series H funding, bringing it to a $965 billion valuation. The latest round was led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, and Sequoia Capital, and included $15 billion of prior commitments, $5 billion of which came from Amazon. In just the past few months, Anthropic has nearly tripled its worth from $380 billion in February, CNBC reported. Meanwhile, rival OpenAI, considered the heavyweight in the fight to dominate AI -- and the more talked-about company just a year ago -- now trails behind, valued at $852 billion (including $122 billion in funding raised in March). Anthropic's dizzying rise is in large part due to its agentic AI coding assistant Claude Code. On May 28 the company released Claude Opus 4.8, its latest version, and confirmed plans to roll out Claude Mythos models with advanced cybersecurity capability, which had been delayed due to security risks. So far, Claude Mythos has been made available only to a select group of companies. And Anthropic keeps innovating. As Fast Company reported, earlier this month the company launched Claude for Small Business, a new package of agentic workflows that includes skills to automate small-business tasks like payroll, marketing, invoicing, contracts, and content strategy. The sky-high valuations and lighting speed at which these companies are raising money speaks to the absolute feeding frenzy that is the AI boom. But will the average investor benefit from their upcoming IPOs? "At the potential prices that have been reported, it would be very difficult for an investor to come out ahead in a three-year period," economist Jay Ritter, an IPO expert at the University of Florida, told The New York Times. "They may be great as companies, but when you buy shares in them you should pay attention to their price." This post originally appeared at fastcompany.com Subscribe to get the Fast Company newsletter: http://fastcompany.com/newsletters
SpaceX Wants Even More Profits Ahead of Its IPO
SpaceX has picked June 12 as its IPO date. Even before the initial public offering happens, however, SpaceX is laying the foundations for becoming the most profitable space company in history. As I reported in March, SpaceX raised the price on Falcon 9 launches for the fourth time, to $74 million, a 21% increase over the original price. That's a significant price hike, but despite what you might think, rocket launches have become a smaller and smaller part of SpaceX's business over time. SpaceX today is much more of a Starlink company than a rocket company. And as it just so happens, SpaceX's latest round of price hikes is happening at Starlink. SpaceX's most important business: Starlink In 2025, the SpaceX satellite internet service called Starlink generated roughly 61% of SpaceX's $18.7 billion in revenue. In 2026, this percentage is expected to grow. This won't happen automatically, however. SpaceX is growing its Starlink user base as one method of growing revenue. Another method is raising prices. (Note that these two actions may work at cross-purposes, though.) We learned this last week, when PCMag.com laid out a series of six tiers of Starlink "personal" (non-business) service and their respective price increases. Ranging from $5 to $10 per tier, per month, the price hikes look modest at first glance. Percentage-wise, most prices are changing only in the mid-single digits (6.1%) to the low double digits (10%) -- with two notable exceptions. The price for owning a Starlink terminal and keeping it in standby mode (which pauses high-speed internet service but permits download speeds of about 0.5 megabits per second (Mbps)) has doubled from $5 to $10 per month. But the price of the 300 gigabits-per-second (Gbps) roaming service remains unchanged at $80 per month. Data source: PCMag. It should be noted that prices may vary by location, and that in some locations, Starlink continues to advertise prices and plan names on its website that differ significantly from those noted above. Moreover, these rates are for personal service. Starlink also offers a wide array of business plans for fixed and mobile users, as well as for maritime and aviation service. Business versus personal What's gone largely unreported so far is that, at the same time that Starlink is raising prices for its personal customers, it's cutting prices for business customers. Here are the rates offered for four fixed-site, "local priority" business tiers with varying amounts of total monthly usage today: * Local Priority 50 gigabytes (GB) (per month) costs $55 * Local Priority 500 GB costs $155 * Local Priority 1 terabyte (TB) costs $280 * Local Priority 2 TB costs $530 In each case, this is a $10 reduction from prices advertised as recently as April, according to an April 8 snapshot found on the Internet Wayback Machine. What it means for SpaceX In the run-up to its IPO, SpaceX will obviously want to make itself look as attractive as possible to investors -- which is to say as profitable and fast-growing as possible -- in order to fetch as high a share price as possible on IPO day (and thereafter). Raising prices for residential customers helps with profits, but it risks curtailing subscriber growth. Charging lower rates on Starlink business customers, on the other hand, may have the effect of accelerating growth among Starlink's most well-heeled customers -- the ones who can pass on prices to their customers, and also deduct them as business expenses. What's more, a $10 price reduction there results in significantly smaller percentage price declines (and thus, less profit lost) than Starlink is implementing in its residential plans. On balance, I see this less as a story of "SpaceX raising prices" and more as a story of SpaceX tweaking prices across multiple Starlink markets to optimize its growth relative to its profits. Long term, I expect this to make SpaceX stock more profitable, not less.
SpaceX Wants Even More Profits Ahead of Its IPO
SpaceX has picked June 12 as its IPO date. Even before the initial public offering happens, however, SpaceX is laying the foundations for becoming the most profitable space company in history. As I reported in March, SpaceX raised the price on Falcon 9 launches for the fourth time, to $74 million, a 21% increase over the original price. That's a significant price hike, but despite what you might think, rocket launches have become a smaller and smaller part of SpaceX's business over time. SpaceX today is much more of a Starlink company than a rocket company. And as it just so happens, SpaceX's latest round of price hikes is happening at Starlink. 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 " SpaceX's most important business: Starlink In 2025, the SpaceX satellite internet service called Starlink generated roughly 61% of SpaceX's $18.7 billion in revenue. In 2026, this percentage is expected to grow. This won't happen automatically, however. SpaceX is growing its Starlink user base as one method of growing revenue. Another method is raising prices. (Note that these two actions may work at cross-purposes, though.) We learned this last week, when PCMag.com laid out a series of six tiers of Starlink "personal" (non-business) service and their respective price increases. Ranging from $5 to $10 per tier, per month, the price hikes look modest at first glance. Percentage-wise, most prices are changing only in the mid-single digits (6.1%) to the low double digits (10%) -- with two notable exceptions. The price for owning a Starlink terminal and keeping it in standby mode (which pauses high-speed internet service but permits download speeds of about 0.5 megabits per second (Mbps)) has doubled from $5 to $10 per month. But the price of the 300 gigabits-per-second (Gbps) roaming service remains unchanged at $80 per month. Data source: PCMag. It should be noted that prices may vary by location, and that in some locations, Starlink continues to advertise prices and plan names on its website that differ significantly from those noted above.
Elon Musk's SpaceX Cuts IPO Target To $1.8 Trillion: What's The Prediction Market Forecast?
Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. Elon Musk's SpaceX is targeting a valuation of at least $1.8 trillion in what may be the largest IPO ever, down from an earlier goal above $2 trillion, according to Bloomberg. The cut follows heavy losses from SpaceX's February merger with xAI. The company posted a $4.28 billion net loss in the first quarter of 2026, with AI infrastructure driving most of the burn, according to the S-1 filing. Investors are piling in anyway. Since mid-December, when Musk first confirmed IPO plans, a net $14 billion has flowed into three mutual funds and four ETFs holding slices of the rocket maker, per Morningstar data via the Financial Times. Prediction market traders are going the other way. Polymarket's "SpaceX IPO Closing Market Cap Above" contract currently assigns 63% odds that the company closes its first trading day above $2.2 trillion. SpaceX has reportedly earmarked up to 30% of IPO shares for retail investors, roughly three times the typical mega-cap allocation. Retail Piles Into Proxy Funds The Destiny Tech100 Fund surged 27% earlier this month, as investors raced to get exposure to the space company. The Tema Space Innovators ETF, which launched in late March, tripled its assets to roughly $1.3 billion the week SpaceX filed its S-1. The ERShares Private-Public Crossover ETF holds SpaceX through a special-purpose vehicle and carries approximately $292 million in exposure, or roughly 23% of the fund, according to ERShares. Trending: Avoid the #1 Investing Mistake: How Your 'Safe' Holdings Could Be Costing You Big Time Telecoms firm EchoStar Corp, which received SpaceX equity in a spectrum sale, is up over 500% in the past year, the Financial Times reported. Auditor KPMG flagged substantial doubt about EchoStar's ability to continue as a going concern in its 2025 annual report. A Spaghetti Cannon Of New ETFs Morningstar's Ben Johnson likened the wave of new SpaceX-themed ETF filings to an "ETF spaghetti cannon" approach of "ready, fire, aim." Neuberger Berman's Renos Savvides told the Financial Times the speculative activity "feels a bit like 2021," the year before a major market slump. SpaceX is expected to begin formal IPO marketing as soon as June 4 with pricing as early as June 11.
OpenAI, SpaceX funding fuels bets on next-wave Asian AI winners
Wealthy Asian investors are pouring billions into AI supply chain companies, betting that massive US fundraising rounds will lift the boats of Asian chipmakers and component suppliers. When OpenAI closed its record $122 billion funding round on March 31, the biggest winners might not have been in San Francisco. They might have been in Seoul, Taipei, and Tokyo. The money trail from Silicon Valley to Asia In 2025, wealthy Asians poured $24.3 billion into global AI private funding rounds. That's nearly triple what they invested the year before. By April 2026, they had already committed an additional $950 million. OpenAI's latest round valued the company at $852 billion post-money, with backing from Amazon, NVIDIA, and SoftBank. SpaceX has filed for what could become the largest IPO in history, targeting a valuation between $1.75 trillion and $2 trillion, with a listing anticipated around mid-June 2026. South Korean chipmakers Samsung and SK Hynix have reportedly secured supply agreements tied to OpenAI's Stargate project, the ambitious infrastructure buildout designed to power the next generation of AI models. Asia's own AI ecosystem is heating up AI startup funding across Asia hit a record $11.2 billion in the first quarter of 2026 alone, heavily concentrated in Chinese companies. Anthropic, OpenAI's most prominent competitor, is reportedly working toward its own IPO while expecting its first profitable quarter on the back of strong revenue growth. Why this matters for investors The risk, of course, is concentration. If AI spending plateaus or the Stargate project encounters delays, the same supply chain exposure that looks brilliant today could become a liability. And the geopolitical overlay is impossible to ignore: trade tensions, export controls on advanced chips, and shifting alliances between the US and Asian manufacturing hubs add layers of uncertainty that pure financial analysis can't fully capture.
OpenAI, SpaceX funding fuels bets on next-wave Asian AI winners
Massive US tech IPOs and AI infrastructure deals are sending billions toward Asian chipmakers, with Samsung and SK Hynix emerging as the biggest beneficiaries. The biggest tech fundraises in history are happening in the US. The biggest winners might be in Asia. A wave of capital flowing into American AI companies, headlined by OpenAI's Stargate project and SpaceX's impending IPO, is creating a gravitational pull on Asian component suppliers. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, South Korea's memory chip titans, have seen their stock prices explode this year as investors connect the dots between US AI ambitions and the Asian companies that actually build the hardware making it all possible. The trillion-dollar supply chain On October 1, 2025, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix signed letters of intent with OpenAI to supply high-bandwidth memory chips for the Stargate project. The estimated value of the Stargate-related chip supply deals exceeds $71 billion over four years, roughly 100 trillion Korean won. OpenAI's infrastructure roadmap calls for 900,000 semiconductor wafers to be produced by 2029, with discussions underway about potentially establishing data centers in South Korea itself. The market has noticed. SK Hynix shares have climbed 258% year-to-date, while Samsung Electronics is up 158% over the same period. Both companies now carry valuations exceeding $1 trillion. South Korea's benchmark KOSPI index hit record highs in May 2026, propelled almost entirely by AI-related capital expenditure optimism and the performance of memory chip stocks. SpaceX enters the picture SpaceX, which merged with Elon Musk's xAI, filed for its IPO in May 2026 with a target valuation between $1.75 trillion and $2 trillion. The company aims to raise up to $80 billion during its offering, which would make it the largest IPO in history by a considerable margin. The planned Nasdaq debut is set for June 12, under the ticker SPCX. Samsung and SK Hynix are two of approximately three companies on Earth capable of producing the high-bandwidth memory that modern AI systems require. The third is Micron, based in Idaho. The Asian AI trade takes shape The $71 billion in Stargate-related deals alone represents a transformative amount of revenue for Samsung and SK Hynix. OpenAI isn't the only buyer. Anthropic is advancing its own IPO timeline. Meta, Google, and Microsoft continue to pour billions into AI infrastructure. Each of these companies needs the same type of advanced memory chips, and the supply base is remarkably concentrated. The KOSPI's record highs reflect this concentration of demand meeting a narrow supply base. South Korean markets have effectively become a leveraged bet on global AI spending, with memory chip stocks acting as the primary vehicle for that exposure. What this means for investors On the bullish side, the demand visibility is exceptional. Samsung and SK Hynix have signed agreements with specific delivery timelines stretching to 2029. The bearish case centers on valuation and concentration risk. Both companies are already up triple digits year-to-date. The 258% run in SK Hynix means a lot of the good news is already reflected in the share price, and any hiccup in AI spending plans could trigger sharp reversals. There's also geopolitical risk that shouldn't be ignored. South Korea's chipmakers sit at the intersection of US-China tech competition. Export controls, trade tensions, or shifts in US industrial policy could complicate the narrative of Asian suppliers riding the American AI wave.
SpaceX, OpenAI Windfall Fuels Bets on Next-Wave Asian AI Winners
Their thesis is that the billions of dollars that SpaceX, Anthropic PBC and OpenAI are set to raise will kick off a fresh round of technology spending -- with a good chunk of that finding its way to the makers of server parts, specialized materials, cooling components and power equipment. For stock markets in Asia, that could be the catalyst for the next leg of a historic rally.
The 180-Day Lease Holding Up SpaceX's $2 Trillion IPO
Buried on page 13 of SpaceX's S-1 prospectus is the line item that has done more to justify a reported $2 trillion valuation than any other single disclosure in the filing. Anthropic, the rival AI company that Elon Musk publicly called "evil" earlier this year, is paying SpaceX $1.25 billion every month for compute capacity inside the Colossus 1 and Colossus 2 data centers in Memphis. The filing describes the payments running through May 2029. Annualized, that amounts to $15 billion a year. Spread across the full term, the deal totals roughly $45 billion. More News from Barchart Analyst notes have rapidly translated that disclosure into the bull case for SpaceX, which will trade under the ticker symbol SPCX after its planned IPO in June. The company can now tout secured revenue; bona fides for an AI infrastructure pivot; and a floor under the $4.28 billion in quarterly losses that an otherwise-profitable rocket and satellite business is now carrying. One pre-IPO research desk even called it "the strategic masterstroke ahead of the IPO." Then Elon Musk got on X and clarified the terms. "SpaceX has not committed to leasing Colossus for years, although it's possible that may be what happens," Musk wrote. "The agreement is a 180-day lease with a mutual 90-day cancellation notice thereafter." In other words, the $45 billion deal is actually a six-month rental. What the S-1 Actually Says, and What It Leaves Out The prospectus describes monthly payments of $1.25 billion through May 2029 and discloses that either party can terminate with 90 days' notice. It does not disclose that the underlying commitment is a 180-day lease. Given that, investors reading the document without Musk's X clarification would reasonably model a multi-year contract with cancellation optionality. However, they would be wrong. The distinction matters because of the way the rest of the SPCX valuation math works. SpaceX generated $18.7 billion in revenue in 2025. Starlink contributed $11.4 billion of that and posted a $4.4 billion operating profit, making it the only segment consistently profitable on a GAAP basis. The rocket business (i.e., Falcon, Dragon, Starship) generated $4.1 billion in revenue and lost $657 million, with $3 billion of that flowing into Starship research and development.
After Blue Origin rocket explosion, NASA's entire moon exploration program depends on SpaceX for now as Musk eyes blockbuster IPO soon
With a record-setting IPO in just a few weeks, SpaceX saw its rival in a contest to put astronauts on the lunar surface go up in flames, reinforcing its dominance in the space race and its primacy in NASA's plans to go back to the moon. On Thursday, a New Glenn rocket belonging to Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin exploded during an engine-firing test at the launch pad in Cape Canaveral, ahead of a satellite launch scheduled for next week. Blue Origin also planned to use the rocket to launch landers to the moon for NASA, delivering payloads and astronauts to the surface. SpaceX is jockeying to be selected by NASA for the lunar mission too, and may emerge as the only remaining option to meet an ambitious schedule. The vulnerability highlights the multiple steps -- and contractors -- a lunar landing would entail. While NASA successfully sent astronauts around the moon last month in a Lockheed Martin Orion capsule launched by Boeing's massive Space Launch System rocket, landing on the moon's surface requires a separate spacecraft. Next year, NASA plans to send astronauts into Earth orbit via the Orion and Space Launch System as part of its Artemis III mission. While in orbit, NASA expected to dock the Orion with either SpaceX's lunar lander, a variant of the Starship, and/or Blue Origin's lander, the Blue Moon. But the New Glenn is supposed to launch the Blue Moon into space, and the rocket is now grounded as the cause of the explosion is investigated. Just days before the explosion, NASA awarded Blue Origin launch contracts, including one this fall for a Blue Moon lander mission to put NASA payloads on the surface. "Blue Origin's inability to launch Blue Moon anytime soon is likely to put the company out of the running for Artemis III," wrote Wendy Whitman Cobb, a professor at the U.S. Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, in the Conversation on Friday. "This setback means that Artemis III, and NASA's entire lunar exploration program, is likely to be dependent on SpaceX for the time being." Meanwhile, SpaceX is still developing the Starship. While a next-generation version of the giant rocket completed a test flight this month that was largely successful, more work needs to be done to produce a lunar-lander variant. Whitman Cobb warned that if SpaceX can't get Starship ready in time, then NASA may need to delay the Artemis III orbital-docking test by a year to 2028 -- meaning the Artemis IV mission to put astronauts on the moon will miss its 2028 timeline. Further delays could also open the door again to Blue Origin, if it can get the New Glenn back on track soon and test out its lunar lander.
Visa's Replit Investment Links AI Agents To Future Commerce Growth
Track your investments for FREE with Simply Wall St, the portfolio command center trusted by over 7 million individual investors worldwide. * Visa (NYSE:V) has made an undisclosed investment in AI software platform Replit. * The companies are working to integrate Visa Intelligent Commerce into Replit's environment. * They are also exploring Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol to support agent driven commerce. For investors watching how large payment networks position around artificial intelligence, this move gives fresh context to Visa's role beyond card swipes and tap to pay. Visa already connects consumers, merchants and financial institutions globally, and AI driven development platforms such as Replit sit closer to where new commerce applications are being built. This collaboration highlights how software agents could eventually initiate and complete payments using embedded Visa capabilities inside coding environments. For holders or watchers of NYSE:V, an important consideration is how deeply Visa's tools become part of everyday AI powered software creation and what that could mean for the company's relevance in emerging digital commerce setups. Stay updated on the most important news stories for Visa by adding it to your watchlist or portfolio. Alternatively, explore our Community to discover new perspectives on Visa. 📰 Beyond the headline: 1 risk and 4 things going right for Visa that every investor should see. Investor Checklist: What This Means For Visa Quick Assessment * ✅ Price vs Analyst Target: Visa trades at US$326.36, around 18% below the US$398.74 analyst price target. * ✅ Simply Wall St Valuation: Shares are described as trading 12.9% below the estimated fair value. * ❌ Recent Momentum: The stock is down 2.5% over the past 30 days. There is only one way to know the right time to buy, sell or hold Visa. Head to Simply Wall St's company report for the latest analysis of Visa's Fair Value. Key Considerations * 📊 The Replit tie up connects Visa to AI driven software creation, which could influence how often its payment tools are embedded into new applications. * 📊 Watch how management reports adoption of Visa Intelligent Commerce and Trusted Agent Protocol alongside revenue, net income and P/E of 27.90. * ⚠️ One flagged risk is significant insider selling over the past 3 months, which some investors may weigh against the 12.9% valuation discount. Dig Deeper For the full picture including more risks and rewards, check out the complete Visa analysis. Alternatively, you can check out the community page for Visa to see how other investors believe this latest news will impact the company's narrative.
After Blue Origin rocket explosion, NASA's entire moon exploration program depends on SpaceX for now as Musk eyes blockbuster IPO soon
With a record-setting IPO in just a few weeks, SpaceX saw its rival in a contest to put astronauts on the lunar surface go up in flames, reinforcing its dominance in the space race and its primacy in NASA's plans to go back to the moon. On Thursday, a New Glenn rocket belonging to Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin exploded during an engine-firing test at the launch pad in Cape Canaveral, ahead of a satellite launch scheduled for next week. Blue Origin also planned to use the rocket to launch landers to the moon for NASA, delivering payloads and astronauts to the surface. SpaceX is jockeying to be selected by NASA for the lunar mission too, and may emerge as the only remaining option to meet an ambitious schedule. The vulnerability highlights the multiple steps -- and contractors -- a lunar landing would entail. While NASA successfully sent astronauts around the moon last month in a Lockheed Martin Orion capsule launched by Boeing's massive Space Launch System rocket, landing on the moon's surface requires a separate spacecraft. Next year, NASA plans to send astronauts into Earth orbit via the Orion and Space Launch System as part of its Artemis III mission. While in orbit, NASA expected to dock the Orion with either SpaceX's lunar lander, a variant of the Starship, and/or Blue Origin's lander, the Blue Moon. But the New Glenn is supposed to launch the Blue Moon into space, and the rocket is now grounded as the cause of the explosion is investigated. Just days before the explosion, NASA awarded Blue Origin launch contracts, including one this fall for a Blue Moon lander mission to put NASA payloads on the surface. "Blue Origin's inability to launch Blue Moon anytime soon is likely to put the company out of the running for Artemis III," wrote Wendy Whitman Cobb, a professor at the U.S. Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, in the Conversation on Friday. "This setback means that Artemis III, and NASA's entire lunar exploration program, is likely to be dependent on SpaceX for the time being." Meanwhile, SpaceX is still developing the Starship. While a next-generation version of the giant rocket completed a test flight this month that was largely successful, more work needs to be done to produce a lunar-lander variant. Whitman Cobb warned that if SpaceX can't get Starship ready in time, then NASA may need to delay the Artemis III orbital-docking test by a year to 2028 -- meaning the Artemis IV mission to put astronauts on the moon will miss its 2028 timeline. Further delays could also open the door again to Blue Origin, if it can get the New Glenn back on track soon and test out its lunar lander.
Blue Origin rocket explodes during test, setback for bid to catch Musk's SpaceX
An uncrewed Blue Origin New Glenn rocket exploded on the launchpad during a test on Thursday, in a major setback for Jeff Bezos' space venture as it seeks to narrow the gap with Elon Musk's IPO-bound SpaceX. Video posted by NASASpaceflight, a YouTube channel that livestreams launches from Florida, showed the New Glenn igniting on the pad at about 2100 ET (0100 GMT on Friday) before erupting into a massive fireball that billowed skyward, sending a towering plume of flames and smoke into the air. Blue Origin said it had experienced an "anomaly", a term commonly used by rocket companies to describe a launch failure or explosion. "We experienced an anomaly during today's hotfire test. All personnel have been accounted for. We will provide updates as we learn more," the company said in a post on X. A hot-fire test is where a rocket engine is fired up while anchored to the ground. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the agency was aware of the incident. "Spaceflight is unforgiving, and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is extraordinarily difficult. We will work with our partners to support a thorough investigation of this anomaly, assess near-term mission impacts, and get back to launching rockets," he said on X. Isaacman also added that NASA would provide information on any impacts to its Artemis and Moon Base programs. Earlier this week, NASA awarded Blue Origin a $188 million contract to deliver rovers to the moon's surface using its uncrewed cargo lunar lander, Mark 1, as part of NASA's broader Artemis lunar exploration missions. In a separate X post, Bezos said it was "too early to know the root cause" of the incident. "Very rough day, but we'll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It's worth it," he said. 'ROCKETS ARE HARD' Musk's SpaceX and Bezos' Blue Origin, in the latest competition between the billionaire-run companies, have been racing to help return people to the moon ahead of a planned crewed mission by China in 2030 by designing the lunar landers NASA will use. SpaceX, which unveiled its plans for an IPO earlier this month and is set to become the first trillion-dollar U.S. market debut, has also faced setbacks. In June last year, its massive Starship spacecraft exploded in a similarly dramatic fireball during testing in Texas while preparing for a test flight. SpaceX was partly successful in its 12th test flight of a Starship prototype last week after it deployed a clutch of mock satellites and executed a controlled splashdown of the spacecraft in the Indian Ocean. But the Musk-owned company failed to achieve a controlled landing of the Super Heavy booster, which tumbled into the Gulf of Mexico. Musk responded on X to a video of the Blue Origin explosion, saying: "Most unfortunate. Rockets are hard." Blue Origin had said on Wednesday it was preparing the New Glenn rocket to launch 48 Amazon Leo satellites into low-Earth orbit, part of efforts to build a broadband constellation to rival Musk's Starlink network. It did not provide a launch date. The company has spent billions of dollars and roughly a decade developing New Glenn, a rocket 29-stories high with a reusable first stage meant to compete with SpaceX's Falcon fleet and its more powerful Starship. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said it was aware of the incident, but added that it was outside its scope and did not impact air traffic in the region.
How Perplexity's 'Personal Computer' Marketing is Turning Apple's Mac Mini Into the Hottest Hardware in AI
The scramble to secure computing power for artificial intelligence is no longer confined to billion-dollar data centers and advanced Nvidia chips. Increasingly, it is spilling into the consumer hardware market, where an unlikely device has emerged as a favorite among AI developers, power users and technology enthusiasts: Apple's Mac Mini. That trend is now being amplified by Perplexity, which has been sending Mac Minis to select users as part of an effort to showcase its new AI agent platform, Personal Computer. A handful of technology-focused creators began posting online in recent weeks that they had received Mac Minis from Perplexity. The company later confirmed it had distributed a small number of devices to people interested in exploring the full capabilities of Personal Computer, its newest push beyond AI search and into autonomous digital assistants. The campaign may appear at first glance to be a straightforward influencer-marketing exercise. In reality, it highlights a much larger shift underway in the AI industry: the growing importance of personal computing infrastructure as AI agents become capable of performing increasingly complex tasks on behalf of users. Perplexity's Personal Computer, which began rolling out in April, expands on the company's browser-based AI agent technology by allowing AI to operate across local files, native applications, and web services. Unlike traditional chatbots that simply answer questions, the system is designed to interact directly with a user's digital environment. Perplexity has described the Mac Mini as "one of the best ways to experience Personal Computer." "On a mini, Personal Computer stays available 24/7 for work that needs a persistent machine or secure local access to your files and native apps," the company wrote in an April blog post. That statement offers a glimpse into where AI development is headed. For years, most advanced AI services have relied almost entirely on cloud computing. Users submit requests to remote servers, which process information and return answers. But as AI agents evolve from conversational tools into software capable of carrying out multi-step actions, there is a growing demand for systems that remain continuously available, retain access to local files, and operate with lower latency. The Mac Mini has emerged as an attractive platform for that transition. Its appeal stems from a combination of factors: powerful Apple silicon processors, relatively low energy consumption, quiet operation, and the ability to remain online continuously. Those characteristics make it particularly suitable for running AI agents that need persistent access to applications, documents, and workflows. Perplexity Chief Communications Officer Jesse Dwyer underscored that use case, telling Business Insider that he uses his Mac Mini constantly and accesses it remotely through other Apple devices regardless of location. The enthusiasm around the machine is not limited to Perplexity. Across the AI ecosystem, developers and hobbyists have increasingly embraced the Mac Mini as a dedicated AI workstation capable of running agent-based systems, coding assistants, and local AI applications. What was once considered Apple's most overlooked desktop product is increasingly being viewed as an affordable gateway into AI-powered productivity. The surge in interest has become significant enough to affect supply. During a March earnings call, Tim Cook highlighted strong demand for the product. Availability has tightened in recent weeks as more consumers, developers, and AI enthusiasts seek out the device. Apple's base-model Mac Mini has become increasingly difficult to find, leaving many buyers with higher-priced configurations. The phenomenon illustrates a broader shift in how AI is being commercialized. Much of Wall Street's attention remains focused on companies building large language models, AI chips, and cloud infrastructure. Yet a parallel market is emerging around the hardware required to run AI agents in everyday environments. As those systems become more autonomous, users may want dedicated machines that function as personal AI hubs. That could create new opportunities not only for Apple but also for software companies seeking to build ecosystems around AI-native computing. For Perplexity, this strategy also means expanding beyond its roots as an AI-powered search engine into a broader platform designed to compete for users' daily workflows. By promoting Personal Computer through influential technology creators, the company is attempting to position itself at the center of the emerging agent economy. The move comes as rivals race to build similar capabilities. Companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google are all developing increasingly sophisticated AI agents capable of carrying out tasks rather than merely generating responses.
Anthropic raises $65 billion at a $965 billion valuation in a new funding round
Anthropic raised $65 billion in a Series H funding round announced Thursday, May 28, 2026, valuing the artificial intelligence company at $965 billion post-money, according to the company and multiple reports. The funds, led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, and Sequoia Capital, will be used primarily to expand computing capacity and product offerings, officials said. The Series H funding round was led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, and Sequoia Capital, according to Anthropic's announcement and multiple reports from Reuters and CTech. Additional major co-leads included Capital Group, Coatue, D1 Capital Partners, GIC, ICONIQ, and XN, as reported by CTech. The round also incorporated $15 billion of previously committed investments from hyperscalers, including $5 billion from Amazon, which is part of a broader multi-year commitment by the e-commerce giant, according to Reuters and NBC. Existing institutional investors Clal Insurance and Migdal, both Israeli insurers, participated again, with Clal investing $120 million and Migdal contributing an additional $50 million, CTech reported. The funding round values Anthropic at $965 billion post-money, surpassing OpenAI's reported valuation of about $852 billion in March, making Anthropic the most valuable AI startup by several accounts. Amazon is identified as a key strategic cloud and infrastructure partner in the round. The company had previously announced intentions to invest up to $25 billion in Anthropic, supplementing an earlier $8 billion commitment, according to Reuters and CTech. NBC's coverage noted participation from Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix as strategic infrastructure partners, supplying compute and memory resources critical to Anthropic's operations. Bloomberg reported that both Amazon and Google returned as investors in this round, with their prior commitments counted within the total funding. The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal confirmed the $965 billion figure includes the newly raised $65 billion. Bloomberg television coverage highlighted that Anthropic's valuation eclipses OpenAI's for the first time, signaling a shift in the competitive landscape of artificial intelligence companies. Some outlets, including CTech, reported a $900 billion valuation figure, which reflects a pre-money valuation excluding the new capital, according to their analysis. Anthropic plans to use the proceeds to expand its computing capacity and product offerings, officials said. Reuters reported that the company aims to significantly increase AI training and inference compute, the main cost drivers for deploying large-scale models such as its Claude chatbot. The Wall Street Journal cited projections indicating that Anthropic is expected to reach $50 billion in annualized revenue as early as June 2026, based on recent sales trends, and noted that its revenue run rate grew roughly 80-fold in the first quarter of the year. The capital raise positions Anthropic to scale infrastructure, accelerate model development, and prepare for a potential initial public offering, although no specific IPO date has been announced, according to multiple reports including Bloomberg and the Financial Times. The company's plans include allocating more than $100 billion over the next decade to Amazon's cloud technologies, reflecting a deepening partnership between the two firms, Reuters reported in April. Before this Series H round, Anthropic had raised substantial capital through multiple funding rounds and strategic investments from firms including Amazon and Google, according to Sacra's funding overview. The new $65 billion round increases Anthropic's cumulative funding to well over $70 billion, though exact lifetime totals vary by source. Reuters and the Financial Times framed the funding round as part of a broader "arms race" in AI development, where leading labs compete to secure the resources necessary for compute-intensive training of foundation models. Both Anthropic and OpenAI are moving toward anticipated public offerings, with their massive private valuations setting expectations for potential market caps if and when they list, The Wall Street Journal reported. Media coverage has emphasized that Anthropic's near-trillion-dollar private valuation represents an unprecedented peak in investor expectations for generative AI and foundation-model businesses, according to multiple sources including Bloomberg and the Financial Times.
Anthropic Is Now Worth More Than OpenAI
In a blog post on Thursday, Anthropic wrote that it "has raised $65 billion in Series H funding led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, and Sequoia Capital, valuing the company at $965 billion post-money." The most recent blog post along similar lines from OpenAI places its valuation at $852 billion. That means the top of the leaderboard has flipped. Among AI-first tech companies, Anthropic, "the Claude one," is now technically more valuable than OpenAI, "the ChatGPT one." There are, however, some mitigating factors to keep in mind about these valuations. First of all, as critics like Ed Zitron avidly and constantly point out (as well as more staid, mainstream critics like HSBC), AI as a core business is -- to say the leas -- unproven as a strategy for long-term profitability. Anthropic claims to have just turned an operating profit for one quarter, as the Wall Street Journal reported, but that story also notes that "it is unclear what accounting methods Anthropic has used to book revenue and costs," and that, "The company might not remain profitable for the full year as it plans spending increases due to its vast computing needs." So it would be a stretch to call Anthropic a profitable company. Those aforementioned "vast computing needs" are no secret. It has committed hundreds of billions of dollars to companies like Amazon, Google, and Broadcom over the next decade, and it's made a short term commitment of $1.5 billion per month to SpaceX. Investors are no doubt aware of all that spending, but they also know Anthropic's revenue exploded around the start of the 2026 calendar year because of an influx of enterprise clients. Vibe coding is the apparent norm now, creating a narrative in which companies supposedly no longer need young coders to do menial work thanks to Claude Code -- along with competitor products like OpenAI's Codex. Announcements of small changes to Anthropic's Claude Code product have started to have huge impacts on the stock market, particularly the valuations of software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies. Rather than leading lately, OpenAI is seen to be playing catch-up. However, another thing to keep in mind about Anthropic being the new valuation champion is that OpenAI's most recent valuation was calculated based on a funding round from two months before Anthropic's. So this is a little like when a sports team overtakes a rival in league rankings having played one more game than the other. There's more ball still to come. Since OpenAI and Anthropic are -- for now -- both privately held companies, price discovery is scattered and a bit sketchy, especially since the companies still don't have to report their earnings and expenditures publicly. For what it's worth, Anthropic's valuation on Forge Global, a secondary market for private shares overtook OpenAI's last month, with Anthropic's estimated value at around $1 trillion, and OpenAI's at $880 billion. Want an even sketchier estimate? Polymarket places the odds of Anthropic having a higher valuation than OpenAI at the end of June at 89% as of this writing. Some degree of clarity is probably on its way. A May 20 New York Times article citing "two people with knowledge of the matter" said OpenAI was expected to file for an IPO "in the coming weeks." In fact, it may have filed confidentially on May 22. Meanwhile, Forbes says Anthropic's IPO could come "as soon as October." So perhaps in fall there'll be a clearer winner in this contest. By then, the pricing of shares in OpenAI and Anthropic will be publicly available in real time. If people dispute that one publicly traded AI company is "worth more" than the other, they can, and probably will, fire up an app like Robinhood and vote with their life savings. And then, well, God help them.
SpaceX IPO Nears and Retail Makes a Comeback
In this episode of Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing, Motley Fool contributors Travis Hoium, Lou Whiteman, and Jon Quast discuss: * SpaceX S-1. * Nvidia earnings. * Target's and Walmart's results. * Software's comeback. To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. When you're ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy. Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue " A full transcript is below. Should you buy stock in Nvidia right now? Before you buy stock in Nvidia, 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 Nvidia 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 $463,900!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,294,401!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 978% -- a market-crushing outperformance compared to 211% 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 May 30, 2026. This podcast was recorded on May 22, 2026. Travis Hoium: The SpaceX IPO is almost here. Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing starts now. Welcome to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. I'm Travis Hoium, joined today by Lou Whiteman and Jon Quast. Guys, the big news of the week is that SpaceX's S1 is out, if you're not familiar with an S1. This is the document that gives all the financial information, the total addressable market. Maybe something we'll talk about with SpaceX. Basically, all the financials, all the things that we've been speculating on for years, are now public, and this is the last big thing before the company actually goes public. Jon, I want to start with you, and I'm just going to start this wide open. This is a multi-hundred-page document. What's stuck out to you? Jon Quast: Well, the big thing that stuck out to me, ignoring everything else, is that I think that we thought that this was going to be a rocket company that had a little bit of AI on the side. But really, the S1 is pointing to this: this is an AI-first company that dabbles in rockets. I don't want to be too bombastic in stating it that way, but look, it has a total addressable market that it's putting out there of 28.5 trillion. We can talk about that all day long. But 80% of that TAM is for enterprise AI. That is extraordinary, but it's putting its money where its mouth is here, 76% of first-quarter capital expenditures going to AI. In other words, what it is spending in AI is more expensive than putting rockets into space. This is a very big surprise to me. Travis Hoium: Lou, I want to put these numbers out there because they are fascinating. This is their total addressable market that they have published in the S1: space, $370 billion; connectivity, so that's Starlink and Starlink Broadband and Mobile, $1.6 trillion; and AI, $26.5 trillion. This is from the company that is now renting its GPUs because its utilization for its own Grok products was so poor that that's what they need to do. Jon's right. Their spending in the past three months alone was $7.7 billion for AI capex, just fascinating how different this company is, even then the name SpaceX. Lou Whiteman: I'm reminded of what Willie Sutton said about why he robbed banks in a way, because when you're doing an IPO, you have to sell your company. Now, it really shouldn't be, well, actually, it really should be a reflection of what you want to do, what you want to accomplish. But in practicality, it tends to be, This is why you should buy it right now. AI is where the money is, as Willie Sutton said. We'll see where they go. You're right, though. The thing that strikes me is that Grok is, shall we say, a very incomplete product. The thing that really stuck out to me staying on the AI is that even without the R&D expense, and, of course, R&D expense is a huge expense for these hyperscalers, but even without R&D. Grok didn't make enough revenue in the first quarter to cover just general expenses and the cost of doing business. Backing it out. It is less than $1 billion quarter of revenue in a time when Anthropic, and Google, and others are catching on. Here's the thing, and we can talk about lots of different parts of this. I think Starlink is fascinating. But just like back in 2010 with the Tesla IPO, I don't think that anyone is going to be interested in this for what it is today. I don't think that this S1 should be taken. Take it seriously, not literally, I guess. Tatius expression used about politics. Travis Hoium: Let's stick on that Starlink piece because, Jon, I thought these numbers were fascinating. This is from the connectivity section. The number of Starlink subscribers more than doubled in the past year to 10.3 million. That's a very significant number. ARPU, or average revenue per user, did drop to $66 per month. I have seen that they at least some people were reporting they were raising prices even just in the past month. But this is the segment that is also profitable, segment income from operations, $1.2 billion in the last three months and $4.4 billion in the past year. That actually seems like a pretty good business, Jon. Jon Quast: I really wish that it was being spun out into its own publicly traded company because it would be something I'd be very interested in owning. You look at the growth rate. You look at the subscriber rate and then the drop in average revenue per user, yeah. But that combination still leaves it with greater than 30% revenue growth year over year. That's a really good growth rate. The operating margin on this is pretty good as well. There are some economies here with vertical integration, but an operating margin that is quite attractive. This would be an attractive business on a standalone basis. Now, you lump it in in the bigger company. I think that there's some question marks there. If it was a standalone business. It would probably be going public at an exorbitant valuation as well, but Starlink is the star of the show. Lou Whiteman: Yeah, I agree 100%. It's starting to show. I actually think it works better inside a big company because I think some of what they're getting at costs you wouldn't want to pay the market rate for. Travis Hoium: You're saying for the launches. Lou Whiteman: For the launch and maintenance. Look, the total adjustable market is just, all the numbers are fun. The total one is basically U.S. GDP, but I think it's 1.6 trillion in Starlink, is what they said. This is current day, not future, but global telecom connectivity revenue. In 2025. That's mobile. That's fixed broadband. That's fixed voice. That is what everybody spent on all of those things last year was 1.3 trillion. Travis Hoium: They're going to capture all of that and then some? By the way, those businesses are not really great businesses and have not been good businesses to investors anyway. Lou Whiteman: They're fine. They're cash flow businesses when they work. The unit economics, I think, need to be watched, because, like you said, revenue per user was down. That's dub because they lowered prices, and they are in the early days, so they do want to capture market share, so it's not a problem. But look, relative to signing long-term leases for cell towers, this is a very capex-heavy form of communication. These satellites, some of them, are going to have lives of a few years. You need. Travis Hoium: And why is that? Lou Whiteman: Space is hard. Space is brutal, to some extent. I'm oversimplifying, but you need so many of these. You are doing low Earth orbit, kind of cheap disposable satellites. That's the business model here. You're not building a satellite capable of looping around Pluto or something. There is going to be a constant, constant cost. If you bring the unit economics down, that makes it a really difficult thing, especially, look, Amazon is doing this, ASTS is doing this. There are legacy providers who do this, and all, by the way, by the nature of physics, it is always going to be second best if you do have a cell tower, so it is going to be for most things, for most large markets, a complementary, not a replacement product. I love Starlink, and I love the potential here, but I'll be honest, if it was a standalone, I don't think I'd buy it because even that, I think there are question marks here, period. Travis Hoium: Jon, I want to touch on the AI piece because that is, according to SpaceX, the biggest total addressable market for them, and this is something that is going to capture investors' attention as SpaceX goes public. But there's a lot of questions about what the business model is even going to be here. We've seen over the past few weeks that Colossus 1, which was the big data center that they built in Memphis that Jensen Wong just was, my gosh, only Elon Musk can build a data center this fast. Then it turns out it's very, very low utilization because people just aren't using Grok, so they decide to lease out this data center to Anthropic. Now, that turns into positive revenue, potentially positive free cash flow; the reports are it's about $1.2 billion worth of revenue per month. That's going to be starting to come in this month, and I think it ramps up next month. But is that the business? Is this just another Neo Cloud, or are you buying Grok? I'm a little bit confused about what the AI business is actually going to be. Jon Quast: I mean, well, you look at it. Your project for this Anthropic deal is just brand new here. You project for $15 billion in annual revenue from that. You look at what the AI component of SpaceX generated last year in 2025. We're basically at an $18 billion AI business here at a run rate of 18 billion. You look at what SpaceX, the space part of it, did last year; it did just less than 16 billion in annual revenue. Right now, if you look at a run rate perspective, about 55% AI, 45% space, that's really interesting, especially when you're looking at where is management's vision focused. Where is it spending its money? What are investors signing up for when they buy this IPO? I think again, to go back, I think that they want space, but we need to recognize that it is getting AI. Lou, Grok aside, I think it is a good idea if you have unused capacity and you have somebody willing to pay you 1.25 billion a month, sell it. Lou Whiteman: Travis, you're confused because, seemingly, they're confused. If you read the document. They say almost $23 trillion of that opportunity is enterprise applications. To me, that seems like layering on the hyperscalar models at actually helping companies do things with it, which is probably the best business to be in, but it is separate from the hyperscalar business. At the same time, in another part, they say their biggest single AI opportunity is data centers and space, which wouldn't be included in the enterprise market. I think it is a we'll see here. I'll take the under on data centers in space. Bottom line here, though, here's the thing. I'm talking it down left and right. I'll bet $1 that the IPO is a big success. It is; let's just see how this turns out. We're all fascinated by this. We're all looking for clues in the prospectus. There's a lot of interesting things there, but this is going to be a long-term story, and a lot of people are excited about it. Travis Hoium: We definitely got a lot more information about what SpaceX is doing. I don't know that we got all of our questions answered about where SpaceX is going, so more to be determined, but they are likely to go public next month. We will definitely be following that here on the show. When we come back, we're going to talk about Nvidia and retail earnings. You're listening to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. ADVERTISEMENT: Dell PCs with Intel Inside are built for the moments that matter, for the moments you plan and the ones you don't. Built for the busy days that turn into all-night study sessions, the moment you're working from a cafe and realize every outlet is taken. The times you're deep in your flow, and the absolute last thing you need is an auto-update throwing off your momentum. That's why Dell builds tech that adapts to the way you actually work, built with a long-lasting battery so you're not scrambling for the closest outlet and built-in intelligence that makes updates around your schedule, not in the middle of it. They don't build tech for tech's sake. They build it for you. Fine technology built for the way you work at dell.com/dellpcs, built for you. Travis Hoium: Welcome back to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. Earning season is essentially over, but Nvidia is always a little bit late to the party. They reported earnings this week. Lou, really good results. It's hard to see a company that's growing this quickly not impress the market, but the stock was down 2% after they reported earnings. What did you think? Lou Whiteman: The market yawned. I think, and I've thought this for a while, because this isn't what we saw this last quarter, two, to some extent, that the market is both impressed by this and also maybe doesn't think it can go on forever. It's like, you're like, great. We're here, but how much can you really grow? Look, though, they say they're growing, which leads me to Theory B, which I'm going to steal this from our colleague Tim Bayers, who I think was spot-on here. The market is no longer capable of being impressed by AI numbers. We are numb to these numbers. Arguably, that's OK for Nvidia, because there is a real there there; long-term, they can continue to deliver. But as an investor, if you accept this sort of market that nothing impresses, that ensawan could get up there and just scream, Are you entertained? It's just like a yawning, bored crowd. What does that mean for investors in, say, more fragile AI stocks that are also overvalued? Can they sustain that? I think my takeaway is Nvidia is fine, but be careful out there if you're an investor in Thailand. Jon Quast: Look, this is the largest publicly traded company in the world, went from 73% year-over-year growth last quarter, as incredible as that is, 73%, to 85% growth this quarter, and projecting forward, expecting 97% growth in the upcoming quarter. We are talking about the largest company accelerating the revenue growth rate. I think that Nvidia needs to come back out on stage and take another bow because I don't know if we've ever seen numbers like this. Just for perspective, it increased its quarterly revenue by 38 billion year-over-year. That's just the increase, not what it generated. You take a company like John Deere, been around for 200 years almost at this point. That's about how much it makes in a year. That's how much Nvidia increased its revenue from last year. Just incredible numbers. Travis Hoium: The numbers are wild, and they also announced an $80 billion buyback program, which, crazy enough, would be about 2% of shares outstanding. The numbers are getting dividend. Lou Whiteman: [OVERLAPPING] What was it? Travis Hoium: Twenty-five times increase. Lou Whiteman: Twenty-five increase, to $0.25. Travis Hoium: I do want to touch on retail because this was interesting. The other thing is, we're starting to get retail numbers. They're about a month lag from most typical earnings reports. We heard from Target and Walmart this week, canaries in the coal mine, if you will. The numbers I thought were shockingly good, Jon. Target said that revenue was up 6.7%. 4.7% increase in same-store sales targeted specifically has really struggled with that recently. It seems like things are turning around. Management is a little bit cautious that this is sustainable. I guess that's understandable. They're new in their roles, so they don't want to set that bar too high. But then Walmart also said that their same-store sales were up 4.1%. Is the consumer actually a lot better off than we thought? Jon Quast: Well, more important than the number itself, I always like to look at the traffic. This is heat in the door. For Target, it was over a 4% jump in store traffic. That is real growth there. It's not just an increase in prices. Similarly, Walmart saw that 3% jump in traffic as well. These are retail giants that are getting increased activity. That's a good thing. That is actually a really good economic indicator. That may be surprising given the economic environment that we're in. Travis Hoium: Lou, the other thing to point out is that this quarter, part of this quarter did happen after the Strait of Hormuz, when the Iran conflict began. The impact of oil prices doesn't seem like it has dampened consumer enthusiasm, at least yet, but there's some things like inflation, higher gas prices coming down the pipeline, but we're not seeing bad numbers despite the fact that consumer confidence is not great right now. Lou Whiteman: Right. Look, you're right that the conflict had started, but gas prices, in particular, are a slow drip. I don't think we should read too much into the impact of that based on numbers from March. The whole thing, look, I don't know how much you read into it, because for both Walmart and Target, it feels like regression to the mean in opposite directions. For Target, this is a good first step, but as they say, a journey of 1 million miles begins with one step. They have a long journey ahead of them just to get back to break even. Good. They've started that journey. They've done good things in this quarter. You'd still rather have been a Walmart holder over the last five years, and we'll see on that with Walmart. The most fascinating thing is we have given them so much credit, and deservedly so, for stealing Target's lunch and moving upstream into the higher net worth consumer. It feels like that's biting them a little bit because there's actually signs that instead of Walmart being the beneficiary of trading down, that maybe they're feeling a little bit, either in product mix or just people going elsewhere. I think Walmart survives that. Travis Hoium: Meaning they've moved too high up on that consumer scale? Lou Whiteman: Higher. Travis Hoium: Higher. Lou Whiteman: Now, things like times when they used to be the clear beneficiary, it's just a little more wishy-washy. That's who they are. That's fine. I think it's still in net positive, but it's funny; it's a reminder that we can't let our conventional wisdom on these companies really rule us. Jon Quast: Well, I think that it's so tempting to say, Look, the consumer is stressed, and so it is trading down to a lower-priced retailer. But that explanation doesn't totally cut the mustard because you look at the restaurant results here recently, Cava. Look, I'm not saying it's the most expensive place, but I don't think that we go there when we're trying to save money. We saw a 7% increase in guest traffic there, 10% same-store sales growth recently. That's incredible. Meanwhile, Wendy's same-store sales in the USA are down nearly 8%, so not everything makes sense. Travis Hoium: Trying to draw a through line and make perfect sense has been impossible. I think we've been trying to do it on this show. It just isn't there. But I was shocked that both of these dumb companies reported really, really good numbers. Hopefully, that's a good sign for the economy. When we come back, I'm going to have Jon and Lou pick some stocks for us. You're listening to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. Welcome back to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. In this section, we like to have a little bit of fun with investing. I want to get an idea of which stocks Lou and Jon like right now. I'm going to give you guys two stocks, and you pick between the two, do something like an either-or. Let's start with the topic that we started with here. SpaceX coming public. Lou, would you rather buy SpaceX's IPO? Figure, are we going to be at a $2 trillion valuation? Sounds like something like that. Or would you rather own shares of Tesla? Lou Whiteman: I mean, obviously, the answer is, it doesn't matter because there's going to be one company in a year, so you're going to hold either in a year. But look, at least in the near term, I'd actually take SpaceX, and although my answer is probably neither, but here's the thing. I do believe there is at least a portion of the investing community that is more interested in investing in Elon's brain and Elon's potential to build cool stuff in the future than they really are interested in investing in Grok or an electric vehicle maker. I do think that, naturally, if you have two securities in which you can do that, they're going to compete with each other. One of them is a brand new flashy story with a total addressable market that basically equals U.S. GDP. The other is, I think, still an attractive story with areas where they're trying to grow, but a lot of water under the bridge there. I do think there's a real risk, at least in the near term, people will trade out Tesla to buy SpaceX to get the fresher, newer version of invest in Elon's brain. In the near term, anyway, I think I'd rather be sitting at SpaceX right now. Travis Hoium: It's so interesting. Author Morgan Housel, he talks about how two very smart, logical investors can disagree over something here. I'm going to disagree with Lou, but Morgan Housel points out that oftentimes a disagreement is just over time horizon, and so when I make an investment, I'm thinking five years. If I am buying a stock today for the next five years, I'm picking Tesla. But I agree with Lou's point here that maybe over the nearer term, SpaceX is the one to own. But when it comes to Tesla, and kind of the reasoning goes back to what Lou was just saying, investing in Elon's brain. For whatever criticism there might be, he does have this just incredible tenacity to stick with something, and I know that we disagree on that, but when you look at what he has been able to roll out in the electrical vehicle market, I've seen a lot of other players come into this market and give up before they reach the finish line. He has really built this into an incredible business. I really think that he is going to see the optimist program, the robots. I may have my doubts about that, at the same time, I do think that there is going to be a marketable opportunity there, and I do believe he's going to stick with that and create something pretty impressive. If I'm thinking five years out, I am thinking Tesla here. I have questions about SpaceX, even though I do love the space economy. One of the things that's interesting with these two companies is it seems like the story is going in the same direction, meaning AI and, particularly, the capex related to AI is happening at both of them. I think Tesla said in the most recent quarter that their AI investment is going to explode, to off the top of my head, I think it was $25 billion this year, so they're not going to be the biggest investor in AI. But then you see the SpaceX numbers, and you're seeing the exact same thing. Is it almost like you're buying the same future, even though one of them is starting with space and satellites, and the other one is starting with electric cars? Lou Whiteman: I absolutely think that is true, Travis. I think that these are going to be very similar in direction and even similar in focus. You look at one of the big, we didn't talk about this. One of the big expenses coming up for SpaceX, like it or not, is the Terafab project that Elon Musk wants to create. Travis Hoium: Tesla will also be involved. Lou Whiteman: Exactly. And that's the point, is that that's a joint collaborative effort, and Intel is also in the mix there. ASML CEO just going on record recently saying, Hey, I've been talking to Elon Musk directly. He is very serious, and so the ASML machines are necessary for everything that he wants to make in the Terafab, and already having those discussions. That's going to be a big capital outlay. They want to be vertically integrated in semiconductors in AI. Definitely something to watch. Travis Hoium: It's definitely going to be interesting to see how investors are pulled when there's two Elon Musk companies, and if we do get to the point where they merge into one, as Lou said. Let's talk about the other companies that we talked about a little bit, Target and Walmart. I just want to give a couple numbers, Jon, before I have you pick between the two. Target currently trades for a trailing price to earnings multiple of 17. Walmart has a trailing price-to-earnings multiple of 42. Very different valuations, but if you have to own one of these stocks, Lou said it. Walmart has been the better performer over the past five years. But if you got to buy one of these stocks now, which one is it? Jon Quast: It would be Target, and it has been Target for a while now. I do believe that this is a company that is potentially able to run the same playbook that Walmart ran. Walmart was able to create more revenue and higher margin revenue, thanks to the advent of its digital businesses and its rise and things such as its marketplace, its digital advertising, other things even its membership program. Target is trying to run the same playbook. It's been slow to do it. It was slow to get started. But I think we're seeing some of that guest traffic coming back. We are looking at historically lower profit margins for Target right now, and it's trading at that cheap valuation at the lower profitability. What happens when those margins start to improve? All of a sudden, we could see a big jump in earnings, and the stock would look quite cheap today by those standards. Travis Hoium: Yeah, I'll be honest, I'm not fully convinced the target can execute from here, but look, there was a non-zero chance that this was going the way of JCPenney's or Sears. I know it wasn't likely, but we've seen this in retail too many times. You do not have the right to exist. I think this quarter, if nothing else, has done a lot of work, just kind of eliminating that possibility. With Walmart, it's an incredible company. I still think it probably is the better ultra-long-term investment, but I'm not going to pay 45 times earnings for a company with decelerating sales in the same store sales and in a tough economy. I think my answer is neither, but I would invest in Target. Jon Quast: It's interesting to see what they're going to be able to copy from Walmart. The other thing to highlight from Jon's point is Target is leaning more into what they call their frequency, which is food and beverage, and beauty are two of the things that they called out in the conference call. They have not been driven by grocery, the way that Walmart has over the past decade or two. They're trying to follow those footsteps. They're not there yet, and there's a lot of work with the physical infrastructure, changing stores. You go into a Walmart. It's almost a grocery store with Walmart attached. Target is not quite at the same point, so it'll be interesting to see if they are able to copy that. Let's talk about the world of AI chips, Lou. Nvidia reported this week. AMD's stock is on fire. If you have to buy one of them right now, which one is it? Lou Whiteman: I'm going with the winner. I'm going with Nvidia. I like what AMD has done. I think they've kind of positioned themselves as the insurance policy for the industry. But look, for all we talk about Nvidia, look, we got, what, 26 times multiple versus an almost 60 times multiple or so. Travis Hoium: On a forward basis, we're at 22 right now. Lou Whiteman: Yeah. You get the undisputed leader, and, mind you, even if this does turn out to be a bubble, a company that has multiple times been through a bubble and come out the other side and found ways to grow value again, I'm still going with the big dog here. Travis Hoium: I'll take the other side of that. I'm going with AMD. This is actually one of the most recent additions to my own stock portfolio. The reason being is agentic AI. You have the AI agents coming in, and that is more CPU-intensive than GPU-intensive. Nvidia has been able to benefit from just this massive increase in GPU demand. In fact, CEO Jensen Huang saying, we think that our Vera Rubin system is going to be supply constrained through its entire life cycle. That's such an incredible statement to make. But with AI agents, speaking of Huang, he says, we're going to have all of our employees running 100 AI agents. Whether or not that actually is true, you're talking about an incredible increase in CPU needs. For some people, that means an investment in Intel, but for me, that's an investment in AMD. I really think that it's going to be a beneficiary here, and I think you're going to see those margins rise pretty fast. That PE multiple that you cited, I think it's going to look a lot cheaper very quickly. Lou Whiteman: Yeah, their forward price earnings multiple just for comparison, is 26. There's a lot of growth in margins that are priced into the stock, but not quite as expensive as it may seem on the surface if you're looking at trailing numbers. CPU is, by the way, also something that Nvidia is talking a lot about now that they are also in the CPU game. Jon Quast: Which is a fair point, a fair point, and a fair risk. Travis Hoium: When we come back, we are going to talk about the apparent cancellation of the SaaSpocalypse. What do Jon and Lou think you're listening to? Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows The Motley Fool's editorial standards and is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising and disclosure, please check out our show notes. One of the things that we have talked about a lot on this show, and the market has obviously been thinking about, is the SaaSpocalypse. A lot of software stocks are down significantly in 2026. But Jon, as we get through the first-quarter earnings season and we got a couple of reports this week, it doesn't seem like things are nearly as bad as projected a couple of months ago. What should we be thinking about software right now? Is this an undervalued sector where we should be looking for opportunities? Jon Quast: I think that some parts of this sector are undervalued, but definitely not all of them. I don't think that we saw any financial results this week that changed the big picture. I want to start with that for just a moment. Why should anyone listen to me? I'm just a dude. But if you're going to listen to somebody, how about we choose somebody who's smart and close to the situation? I'm thinking CloudFlare CEO, Matthew Prince. Prince says that there are three areas of work. There are builders, there are sellers, and there are measurers. When it comes to software that helps you build a product or software that helps you sell a product, both of those things are fine, but when it comes to things that help you measure work results, that is where AI is disrupting. He actually gave two examples of this. First, it talks about finance, so think internal auditing, think where's the money going? Are people spending the money correctly? That's one area, and then another area is marketing. Always measuring, are we hitting our campaign goals? Is it working just right? AI tooling can make that kind of instantaneous, more precise, and that is the areas of the software market that I really think the disruption is coming for AI. The companies that are doing that, I'm actually worried if I'm Salesforce or into it here. This is a customer retention management software. This is financial software. I think that these areas are being significantly disrupted by AI. It is that because they're so established in a legacy workflow, where this is how I do my taxes. Then if things are going to completely change, and I'm just going to, I don't know, put all my tax papers on my desk and just take a picture, and then AI figures it out. It's probably not going to be into it. Who wins that market? You could say the same thing with Salesforce, where entire businesses are built on Salesforce. But if we change everything, why are we going to stick with Salesforce? Is that kind of right? Travis Hoium: Yeah, that's kind of how I'm thinking about it. It'd be fair with into it. I'm not really thinking Turbotax as much as I'm thinking QuickBooks, but, yeah, this is definitely something. These domains are areas that I'm worried about. Jon Quast: Here's what I'd say, is that I don't think it's going to be a zero-sum all-or-nothing, but the examples you just gave, Travis, maybe AI doesn't destroy these businesses, but what does it do to their pricing power? I've joked about this before, but if I was the purchasing manager at a big company, whether I intended to or not, when I got my renewal from all of these SaaS vendors, I'd say, That's great. I'm just going to talk to OpenAI, and then I'll be back with you in a week and see if I don't get in the next few days. I'm like, you know what? We found a way to make it work where we're not going to, like, up your bill by 3% this year. I think what's lost in the SaaSpocalypse talk it's an all-or-nothing, zero-sum game. I think the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, that maybe these businesses aren't destroyed. But their attractiveness as long term investment because of their ability to generate margins, growth, increasing profitability. That's where they're vulnerable. I think it's just hard. The other thing is, I'd really like to see it instead of just trade stocks down 70% on the assumption. So far, we haven't really seen it, but I do think that the answer is probably somewhere in this strange fuzzy middle where, yeah, the best times are over, but there are ways to adapt. Lou Whiteman: Yeah, Jon, to talk about some of the specific results we got this week, Workday, their revenue actually accelerated from 12.6% growth a year ago to 13.5% in this most recent quarter. Zoom also accelerating. A year ago, they reported 2.9% growth, and now it's 5.5% growth. Not quite as impressive, but Zoom, arguably one of those huge values. It seems like the numbers aren't that bad from the companies that you would think would be affected by this Saas Pocalypse disruption. Jon Quast: I don't know if I want to call Zoom's most recent quarter return to glory. I don't know if I want to own a software stock that is trading that is growing revenue at 5%. I mean, that's just not enough to do it for me. With Workday, I want to be fair. I think it was a perfectly fine quarter. But, I'm going to tap the brakes. Management is bumping its chest a little bit, saying, This is our moment. AI is great. If you look at the guidance for the rest of the year, it could potentially hit its lowest growth rate as a publicly traded company. I don't know if AI is the catalyst that Workday is making it out to be, but for now, it is doing fine. Travis Hoium: We like to end the show with the stocks that are on our radar. Jon, what are you looking at this week? Jon Quast: This week, I am looking at one that is definitely off the radar. This is Onto Innovation. Ticker symbol O-N-T-O. This is one that's already up a ton. I wish I brought it earlier. It's up about 60% this year. Trade over 100 times earnings. This might be the most expensive stock I've ever brought to the show, but I do think it can outgrow its lofty valuation. What does Onto Innovation do? It makes equipment that inspects semiconductor products for defects. As these products get smaller and smaller, we're talking about atoms at this point. The need for checking for defects gets higher and higher. It does become greater. Onto has been able to acquire other businesses, and it's really kind of developed good technology for this. We're talking 2D measuring. We're talking 3D measuring. Really great equipment as manufacturing for semiconductors is increasingly brought into the U.S. All of the major players are talking about this. We're talking Micron, Intel. Even SpaceX, we're talking about the Terafab. These are coming into the U.S. I think that provides a growing market for Onto Innovations measuring products. Revenue is near records, it's growing low double digits, operating margin is close to 20%. The balance sheet is debt-free. I think it's a business poised for the long term. Travis Hoium: Dan, what do you think about Onto Innovation? Dan Boyd: This is a truly strange business, y'all, because it started in 1940. It's been public since 1999, does not even have a Wikipedia page. So, I don't know much. Travis Hoium: True hidden gem. Dan Boyd: Yeah, really. I'm not a huge fan of the big PE ratio, but I'm curious. Travis Hoium: Lou, what do you got? Maybe another hidden gem on the radar this week, Lou? Lou Whiteman: No, I think this one probably has a Wikipedia page. I didn't check, but Dan, I am looking at IBM. I think you know, the tickers IBM. Shares of Big Blue were up 11% on Thursday after the U.S. Commerce Department announced a $1 billion grant to fund their quantum computing effort. I'm going to gloss over the discussion about government picking winners, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, look, we're not going to solve anything there. It's always happened. I also am not going to try to make the case that quantum is really investable right now. IBM thinks it's a multibillion-dollar opportunity, but in 2040. I'm not going to try and say it's anytime sooner. To me, though, the investment is reminder of IBM, which has been left for dead numerous times since the mainframe era, just keeps chugging along, and they are likely to still be in business doing things in 2040. Let's be honest, the jury is still out on some of these SaaS stocks or even AI stocks, and whether or not that's true for them, too. The company's mix of consulting and tech, it seems to be doing a pretty good job winning AI business these days, too, based on the results. Stock, even after Thursday's rally, is basically flat over the last year, priced at 22 times earnings. Not outrageous for a tech company. Probably not a 10x here, but, Dan, if you want tech ballast in your portfolio, I think you can do a lot worse than this one. IBM, big blue for the win. Travis Hoium: Dan, have you been to IBM's Wikipedia page? Dan Boyd: Yes, I have. It does exist. I can confirm. Also, Lou was being funny before the show, and he was introducing his radar stocks, and he was like, Dan, do you need to ticker? That was really funny, Lou. You're a hilarious guy. Travis Hoium: Dan, which one is going on your watch list? Dan Boyd: Like I said, I'm curious about Onto, so Onto, it is. Travis Hoium: Congratulations to Jon. For Lou Whiteman, Jon Quast, and our production leader, Dan Boyd, I'm Travis Hoium. Thanks for listening. We'll see you here next time. Jon Quast has positions in Advanced Micro Devices. Lou Whiteman has positions in ASML, Cloudflare, and Walmart. Travis Hoium has positions in Alphabet, Cloudflare, and Intel and has the following options: long December 2027 $20 puts on AST SpaceMobile. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends ASML, AST SpaceMobile, Advanced Micro Devices, Alphabet, Amazon, Cava Group, Cloudflare, Intel, International Business Machines, Micron Technology, Nvidia, Salesforce, Target, Tesla, Walmart, Workday, and Zoom Communications. 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.
SpaceX targets $1.8T valuation for 2026 IPO debut
SpaceX IPO closing market cap above $1 trillion is currently priced at 98.8% YES. The $1.8 trillion threshold is priced at 89.5% YES, having experienced slight fluctuations in recent days. ## Key Takeaways - The planned SpaceX IPO appears to suggest strong market interest, with a potential valuation of at least $1.8 trillion. - Market pricing suggests participants are confident in SpaceX achieving a closing market cap above $1 trillion. - The IPO could indicate the strategic importance of SpaceX in U.S. space capability and communications resilience. ## Article Body SpaceX, the aerospace and satellite company founded by Elon Musk, is reportedly planning a Nasdaq market debut as early as June 12, 2026. This IPO is poised to transition SpaceX from private to public ownership, with financial disclosures revealing $18.7 billion in revenue for 2025, driven primarily by its Starlink service. The company is targeting a valuation of at least $1.8 trillion, potentially making it one of the largest public listings to date. SpaceX's strategic role in the U.S. space industry further underscores the significance of this IPO. The move aligns SpaceX with other major tech firms in leveraging public markets for growth capital. ## Market Interpretation The news of SpaceX's IPO and its substantial expected valuation appears supportive of YES outcomes in markets predicting a closing market cap above $1 trillion. The potential $1.8 trillion valuation is a strong indicator of anticipated market interest and confidence. The impact of this development is rated as high, due to the broad implications for both market dynamics and SpaceX's strategic significance. ## What to Watch Key indicators to monitor include further announcements from SpaceX regarding the IPO specifics, any updates from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and potential anchor investors' commitments. Additionally, watch for market reactions to SpaceX's financial performance and strategic partnerships leading up to the IPO date. Developments in the aerospace and satellite sectors may also influence perceptions and market pricing. Get prediction market intelligence as a structured API feed. Early access waitlist.
