News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
Apollo Shops $36 Billion Debt to Buy AI Chips for Anthropic (1)
Apollo Global Management Inc. and Blackstone Inc. are working to bring additional investors into a roughly $36 billion debt financing deal to help Anthropic PBC build out its AI infrastructure. The debt will be used to purchase Google's custom chips called TPUs, or tensor processing units, which Anthropic will then lease, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Broadcom Inc., which helps Google develop the chips, is backstopping payments on the largest portions of the transaction, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The move would mark one of the largest-ever ...
Anthropic vaults to a $965 billion valuation with new funding as Claude demand surges
By MATT O'BRIEN, AP Technology Writer Artificial intelligence company Anthropic said Thursday it raised $65 billion in private funding that will push its valuation to $965 billion, a whopping number that makes the five-year-old maker of the Claude chatbot one of the world's most valuable startups as it careens toward a likely Wall Street debut. The announcement vaults Anthropic ahead of its chief rival, ChatGPT maker OpenAI, both in market value and in reported revenue. Anthropic said it's now making annualized revenue of $47 billion from selling its technology to people and organizations using Claude to write code and do other work and personal tasks on their behalf. Anthropic was formed in 2021 by ex-OpenAI leaders and now both AI firms, along with Elon Musk's rocket and AI company SpaceX, are all expected to become publicly traded. All three are also still losing more money than they make, fueling concerns of an AI bubble. San Francisco-based Anthropic said the new round of funding was led by investment firms Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group, Greenoaks Capital and Sequoia Capital. "This funding will help us serve the historic demand we are experiencing, stay at the research frontier, and bring Claude to more of the places where work happens," said a written statement from Anthropic's chief financial officer, Krishna Rao. Anthropic also on Thursday launched its newest AI model, called Claude Opus 4.8, boasting that it is even better at coding and other professional work than previous models. Anthropic's meteoric rise and Claude's growing popularity have left OpenAI playing catch-up despite its early lead in making ChatGPT a household name that sparked a commercial AI boom. OpenAI last reported in March it was heading toward a $852 billion valuation after a $122 billion fundraising round. SpaceX was valued at $800 billion last year, but its value grew to $1.25 trillion after the space exploration company merged with Musk's xAI in February. Musk recently announced plans for one of the biggest stock sales ever and will be able to pitch the offering to investors as soon as next week. OpenAI also cleared a major hurdle toward its initial public offering ambitions after a federal court last week dismissed a lawsuit from Musk, an OpenAI co-founder and early donor, after a weeks-long jury trial over whether the company had betrayed its original nonprofit mission. Musk has said he plans to appeal. Despite its newfound success, Anthropic has also faced obstacles this year -- particularly a bruising legal fight with President Donald Trump's administration over how AI tools like Claude can be used in warfare. Trump in February ordered all U.S. agencies to stop using Claude and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared the company a supply chain risk after an unusually public clash between the Pentagon and CEO Dario Amodei. Anthropic sued in a dispute that is still working its way through two federal courts. At the same time, Anthropic has been in talks with the White House over the cybersecurity capabilities and risks of its most powerful model, Mythos, which is not yet widely available to the public. Anthropic also had an influential role at the Vatican ahead of Pope Leo XIV 's call Monday for robust regulation of AI and for its developers to work for the common good rather than profit. The sweeping manifesto called "Magnifica Humanitas" (Magnificent Humanity), Leo's first encyclical, repeatedly blasted the concentration of power and data in the hands of so few people in the private sector as a danger.
The IPOs of SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic threaten to drive Wall Street to bubble-like levels
Stock markets continue to perform strongly despite the mounting risks. Neither the war in the Middle East, nor the resurgence of inflationary pressures, nor fears of an economic slowdown have managed to slow down the equity market. However, beneath this apparent strength there lies an increasingly evident fragility: the growing concentration of the market. The bulk of the gains rests on an increasingly limited number of stocks, and the trend is particularly evident in the U.S. According to Goldman Sachs, 85% of the S&P 500's gains so far in 2026 (10%) come from technology. Excluding the sector, the advance drops to 3%. This narrowing of the market is beginning to worry analysts. Michael Hartnett, a strategist at Bank of America, warns that the upcoming IPOs of SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic could push market concentration to levels not seen since the late 19th century. At that time, the rail industry -- driven by debt-financed expansion and a significant investment surplus -- came to account for 63% of market capitalization in the United States. That episode ended in a crisis, with the bankruptcy of Jay Cooke and the closure of the New York Stock Exchange, reflecting the accumulated excesses. While the two situations are not exactly comparable, the parallels with the current situation are becoming increasingly evident. Beyond the historical parallels, the market finds a closer point of reference in the 1990s. As was the case then, the spotlight is once again focused on a single sector: technology. Just as with the internet and the dot-com boom, expectations regarding the transformative potential of artificial intelligence are driving increasingly ambitious valuations, the true scope of which can only be gauged over time. Following a brief attempt to rotate toward more cyclical stocks at the start of the year, rising uncertainty and better-than-expected earnings have returned the spotlight to large growth companies. Years ago, it was the FAANG companies -- Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google -- that dominated the stock market and led the tech industry. With the rise of AI, the group expanded to become the Magnificent Seven. Names and technologies may change, but the market logic remains the same: a small group of tech giants dictates the direction of the indices. Nvidia, for example, has reached a market capitalization comparable to the size of economies like Germany's. Against this backdrop, the market is bracing for a new wave of IPOs by major tech firms -- deals that aim to break records and threaten to further intensify this trend. Upcoming IPOs by companies such as SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic could further bolster the sector's weight in the indices. Another bubble? Currently, tech companies account for nearly 40% of the total value of the U.S. market -- a share that, according to Hartnett's estimates, could rise to nearly 48% following the next wave of IPOs. History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes strongly: if these forecasts come true, the sector would surpass the 41% reached during the dot-com bubble and the 44% recorded during Japan's stock market euphoria in the late 1980s. Although concentration levels are high, analysts insist that high valuations alone are not a trigger for a correction. Juan Gómez Bada, chief investment officer at Avantage Capital, states that, unlike what happened during the dot-com crisis, valuations have so far been supported by real earnings. The latest earnings season is a good example. According to FactSet data, the "Big Seven" reported a 62.3% earnings growth rate in the first quarter, well above the 17.4% for the rest of the S&P 500. "The concentration of capital partly reflects that of earnings. Today's dominant companies are of higher quality and have profitable business models," notes Castelo. This is the main difference from the dot-com bubble, when stock prices were driven by expectations rather than results. "The graveyard of that bubble is full of companies that never made a dollar." Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition
Elon Musk Says He's 'Frequently Asked' to Have SpaceX Build Weapons -- 'We Have Thus Far Declined'
War is moving fast into drones, chips, and autonomous systems, and governments are increasingly looking to tech innovators like Elon Musk for a technological edge in modern warfare. But Musk says he's staying out of the weapons business, for now. SpaceX is often approached about participating in weapons programs, Musk said at the Qatar Economic Forum in May 2025. "I do not currently anticipate SpaceX going to be getting into the weapons business," he said. "That's certainly not an aspiration. We're frequently asked to do weapons programs, but we have thus far declined." Don't Miss: * This Lithium Breakthrough Is Turning Heads on Wall Street -- See Why Investors Are Watching * NVIDIA & Tesla Steal the Spotlight -- RAD Intel Emerges as an AI Stock Worth Watching Musk said SpaceX's core focus remains rockets, satellites and expanding high-bandwidth internet connectivity through Starlink. SpaceX, founded in 2002, has expanded into military space infrastructure over the years. It joined a consortium of companies developing the operating system for the Pentagon's "Golden Dome" missile defense initiative, according to media reports last month. SpaceX's Role in the Ukraine War See Also: Investors With $1M+ Often Use Advisors for Tax Strategy -- This Tool Matches You With One in Minutes "Starlink is the backbone of the Ukrainian military communication system because it can't be blocked by the Russians, essentially," Musk said at West Point. " On the front lines, all the fiber connections are cut, the cell towers are blown up and the geostationary satellite links are jammed. The only thing that isn't jammed is Starlink." The Pentagon awarded a contract to SpaceX for Starlink satellite communications services for Ukraine in 2023. "SpaceX is a space launch leader," Musk said at the Qatar Economic Forum. "SpaceX doesn't do drones." Building Wealth Across More Than Just the Market Rad AI Immersed Connect Invest Arrived Lightstone AdviserMatch Accredited Debt Relief Image: Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.
Why have Anthropic, SpaceX, OpenAI stayed private for so long?
make its public debut right now, Kyle. Do you need an AI story? Do you have to have an AI narrative? Uh, I would say yes. Everything that has gone out has been either AI, it has been some sort of space or defense company the past couple of years, or had some way to capture the AI story. You look at someone like Reddit is not an AI company, but their entire prospectus was about how their data is fueling the growth of these AI LLMs. If you don't, you have to really find a way to capture investor interest and that's probably going to be through a significant uh turn toward profitability and a very good path to keep that going and seeing your margin start to increase. Why are companies Kyle staying private for longer? You know, if if it was 10 years ago, you know, you think SpaceX and and OpenAI would already have made a public debut? Yeah, probably, but I mean, there's no incentive for these companies to go public anymore. They don't they don't need to go public to get access to the capital markets that they they they're able to, right? If you're a data bricks or a stripe, you're not struggling for cash. They also have had some sort of outlet for a lot of the early investors to get the liquidity they need. Secondary markets have been a huge growth for kind of that top 15, 20, top 30 companies. Going public becomes a little more administrative burden. It's a cost. It is growth in the public eye and and kind of, you know, opening yourself up to uh some sort of activist activist investors. That's just not needed right now. And so, I think the way the market has changed, the incentive is to stay public, or stay private. The capital is there at the valuations that the companies want. There's no reason for these companies to go public now until you get to SpaceX and OpenAI and Anthropic's valuations. At some point there's a ceiling to the secondary market valuations, and I think those companies especially are starting to see that and their just enormous amount of capital they will need probably, you know, delineates a public market move more so than someone like a data bricks or someone like a stripe. Let's say, Kyle, you have SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic, and they all go public over the next six to 12 months. I mean, these are mega IPOs, historic. I mean, can the public market swallow all that, Kyle? I mean, yes, is the short answer, right? We know that, you know, there will be demand for those uh companies especially, no matter when they go public. You think about how big the public markets are too, even though $3 trillion dollars or whatever their total valuation is going to be is enormous, that is still very, very small compared to what the entire market is and with the demand that these companies are are seeing, you will see rotation out of other companies if necessary to to get allocation. What I think will be interesting though, is with the allocation going to those three companies, how much will actually be left for the rest? Obviously, if someone like Databricks or Stripe or Andril goes public, there will be demand for those shares, but if you are a a $3 billion dollar company with losses, that is not growing nearly as what you you want to be, will there be allocation for those companies? And the likelihood is probably not as much as they want. And so I think when you look at these mega IPOs, the important aspect of what will happen when they go public is actually what happens with the rest of the companies. Are they able to get the liquidity they need or do they need to raise another private round and keep that uh valuation locked up in the private markets and distributions flat back to to LPs.
SpaceX, OpenAI IPOs could spark US investment wave in India
IndMoney, a pioneer in promoting retail Indian investment in US equity, has witnessed a tenfold rise in search for SpaceX. The company's founder Ashish Kashyap confirmed this trend. HDFC Securities, which has a strong global investing platform, also expects higher growth this year. Its CEO Dhiraj Relli said they have grown 80% over the last year and expect the momentum to continue with both volume and value tracking higher this year. While direct participation in IPOs remains difficult due to institutional and US-based allocation, Indian investors with US brokerage accounts can trade stocks in real-time with their American counterparts from the day of listing. SpaceX is reportedly looking to list as early as June 12, targeting a raise of about $75 billion at a valuation of roughly $1.75 trillion. Advertisement Although no listing dates have been set, OpenAI and Anthropic are likely to launch their IPOs later this year. The surge in interest from Indian investors has been fueled by a depreciating rupee, a strong IPO pipeline, and the 40% returns that NASDAQ has delivered over the last year despite global headwinds like tariffs and the Iran war. Advertisement Smallcase has over 30,000 global investors on its platform, with each customer making an average of eight trades a year. The company has also launched a US stock screener tool for users. "The US market is 70% of the global market capitalisation. And it provides exposure to some themes like Space and AI, which are not available for investors in the Indian market," Zerodha-backed smallcase founder Vasanth Kamath told Moneycontrol.
Meta sells AI subscriptions while OpenAI and xAI walk into the ad business
Meta's $7.99-and-$19.99 chatbot tiers and OpenAI's push into advertising mark the moment the AI revenue-model question becomes a cross-cutting collision. Meta's decision to begin selling consumer subscriptions to its Meta AI chatbot at $7.99 and $19.99 a month, announced on Tuesday, lands at exactly the moment OpenAI and xAI are visibly moving the other way: into the advertising business. The crossover defines the next phase of the AI revenue-model debate. The two largest consumer-AI products of the past three years are now walking into each other's businesses, and neither is doing so from a position of obvious strategic comfort. Meta's position is the more straightforward of the two. The company derives almost all of its $165bn annual revenue from advertising on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Adding a $7.99/$19.99 subscription tier for Meta AI is a hedge against the structural risk that consumer attention shifts toward AI chatbots that Meta does not yet monetise effectively. The new Meta One subscription bundle, in which the AI tier sits, is a defensive product first and a growth product second. At a 5% conversion rate of the company's existing Meta AI user base to the $7.99 tier, the subscription business would produce roughly $4.8bn in annual revenue, a useful number but small against the $30bn-plus Meta now spends annually on AI infrastructure. The OpenAI move in the other direction is harder to read. The company has spent five years building the consumer-AI category on the premise that ChatGPT subscriptions ($20/month for Plus, $200/month for Pro) and enterprise contracts would be enough to justify the operating costs. OpenAI now reportedly targets $2.5bn in advertising revenue in 2026 and is publicly aiming for $100bn annually by 2030. The advertising integration is in testing inside ChatGPT and Search. The strategic logic is clear: 15 million paid subscribers, while impressive, is the floor of what ChatGPT's 700-million-weekly-active-user base could in principle generate. Advertising is the only way to monetise the gap. The xAI move is the most aggressive of the three. Elon Musk has been visibly integrating Grok into X's advertising stack, and the broader monetisation playbook he has been describing in recent earnings calls leans heavily on selling AI-augmented advertising to existing X advertisers rather than competing for subscription dollars against a OpenAI consumer business that already has structural advantages. xAI's commercial logic is, on Musk's framing, that X's existing advertising machinery can be the distribution layer for monetised AI features in ways that pure-play AI labs cannot replicate. What makes Thursday's framing interesting is the implied corporate-strategy diagnosis. Meta is moving toward subscriptions because its core business is too dependent on advertising. OpenAI and xAI are moving toward advertising because their core business is too dependent on subscriptions. The two camps are converging on a hybrid revenue mix that none of them found purely on its own, but the strategic discomfort is genuine on both sides. Meta's AI subscription business will face the question of whether $7.99 is enough to differentiate from the free ChatGPT base; OpenAI's advertising business will face the question of whether the product's user trust survives the integration of monetised content. The investor backdrop matters too. Meta is under pressure to show a return on the hundreds of billions of dollars it has committed to AI infrastructure; the subscription product is the company's way of giving public-equity holders a near-term revenue layer to point to. OpenAI is under pressure to justify the valuation reached in its most recent secondary rounds; the advertising business is the company's way of expanding the revenue base beyond the ceiling pure subscription pricing can produce. xAI is under pressure to demonstrate that the SpaceX-IPO-adjacent valuation it has accrued is supportable; advertising is the most direct monetisation lever Musk controls. The next 12 months of conversion data will indicate which side of the convergence pays off harder. Meta launched its subscriptions in Singapore, Guatemala, and Bolivia first, with broader rollout planned through the back half of 2026. OpenAI's advertising programmes are still in testing. xAI's monetised Grok features are partly live inside X already.
SpaceX, OpenAI IPO Buzz May Boost Indian US Investments, Nasdaq Returns And AI Craze Drive Interest
Upcoming IPOs of SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic are expected to increase Indian retail investment in US stocks. Indian investors are showing strong interest in AI and space companies, while fintech platforms are reporting higher account openings, trading activity and searches related to these firms Upcoming public listings of major global technology companies such as SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic are expected to increase investments by Indian retail investors in US equities. According to a report by Moneycontrol, fintech and broking firms offering global investing services are already seeing strong investor interest in these companies. Platforms Report Sharp Growth Investment platform smallcase said it expects fivefold growth in global investing activity because of the strong pipeline of US IPOs. The company recently launched US investing through GIFT City. Founder Vasanth Kamath said investors are showing strong interest in sectors like artificial intelligence and space technology. Meanwhile, INDmoney said searches related to SpaceX have increased ten times on its platform. HDFC Securities also reported rising interest in global investing. CEO Dhiraj Relli said the company grew 80 percent over the last year and expects the momentum to continue. Upcoming IPOs Creating Excitement Reports suggest that SpaceX may launch its IPO as early as June 12. The company is expected to target around $75 billion in fundraising at a valuation of nearly $1.75 trillion. If it happens, it could become one of the biggest stock market listings ever. OpenAI and Anthropic are also expected to launch their IPOs later this year, although official dates have not yet been announced. Indian investors cannot directly participate in these IPOs before listing. However, those with US brokerage accounts can buy and sell these stocks once trading starts in the American market. AI And Space Themes Attract Investors Experts say Indian investors are becoming more interested in US markets because they offer exposure to sectors not easily available in India. Artificial intelligence, space technology, electric vehicles, cloud computing and semiconductor companies are among the biggest attractions. The report also said the Nasdaq index has delivered nearly 40 percent returns over the past year despite global economic challenges. GIFT City Route Gains Attention The GIFT City route has also made global investing easier for Indians. It offers lower transaction costs and easier access to international markets. However, investments above Rs 10 lakh attract 20 percent tax collected at source, which can later be adjusted against tax liability.
SpaceX: Possibly The Most Hyped IPO Of All Time (Pending:SPCX)
Looking for a portfolio of ideas like this one? Members of Out Fox The Street get exclusive access to our subscriber-only portfolios. Learn More " SpaceX (SPCX), which is officially known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is set to go public next month in the largest IPO in history. The Elon Musk space company has turned into an AI and Stone Fox Capital is an RIA from Oklahoma. Mark Holder is a CPA with degrees in Accounting and Finance. He is also Series 65 licensed and has 30 years of investing experience, including 15 years as a portfolio manager. Mark leads the investing group Out Fox The Street where he shares stock picks and deep research to help readers uncover potential multibaggers while managing portfolio risk via diversification. Features include various model portfolios, stock picks with identifiable catalysts, daily updates, real-time alerts, and access to community chat and direct chat with Mark for questions. Learn more. Analyst's Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. The information contained herein is for informational purposes only. Nothing in this article should be taken as a solicitation to purchase or sell securities. Before buying or selling any stock, you should do your own research and reach your own conclusion or consult a financial advisor. Investing includes risks, including loss of principal. Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.
Google engineer charged with insider trading after D4vd bet makes $1.2m on Polymarket
An Italian Google engineer has been charged with insider trading after he allegedly made $1.2m betting on prediction markets. The US Justice Department charged 36-year-old Michele Spagnuolo after he allegedly placed bets tied to Google's most-searched list on Polymarket, according to documents unsealed on Wednesday. Spagnuolo made his money betting on long-shot candidates, like musician D4vd, who appeared on Google's most-searched list after it was reported that he was a suspect in the investigation into the death of a teenage girl, according to the complaint. Spagnuolo allegedly used insider information when betting on 27 November that D4vd would top the list of most-searched people in 2025. Google statistics confirmed he was top when they were released a week later, on 4 December. 👉 Listen to This Is Why on your podcast app 👈 According to the complaint, that bet was particularly profitable, because the markets placed a "near-zero probability" that D4vd, who has since been charged with the murder of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, would be the most-searched person on Google. Among other wagers, Spagnuolo wagered in October that rapper Kendrick Lamar would top the list. At that point, Google's internal data showed that Lamar was on track to be the most-searched person of the year. "Insider trading compromises the integrity of our markets, and the American people want this greed-driven conduct investigated and prosecuted," said US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton in a statement. Read more from Sky News: Illegal casino exposes itself in surprising way NASA unveils massive plan to settle on moon Google said that it is working with law enforcement, and that using confidential information to place bets is a serious breach of company policy. Spagnuolo, who now lives in Switzerland, has been placed on leave, according to the Google spokesperson. Polymarket said that it helped law enforcement investigate Spagnuolo's activity, and added that it was the only prediction platform to date whose co-operation has led to insider trading charges in the United States.
Two Things SpaceX Just Admitted Ahead of Its IPO That Wall Street Doesn't Want You to Read
* SpaceX (SPACEX) disclosed that Starship's reusable rockets will repeatedly reenter Earth's atmosphere and fly over populated areas, carrying inherent risks of structural breakup, loss of control, and debris dispersal that safety protocols may not prevent. * SpaceX is going public with a dual-class structure where Elon Musk's 85.1% voting power allows him to control shareholder approvals and elect 51% of directors, while Class A buyers hold one vote per share versus Musk's ten votes per share, making the company a NASDAQ-exempted controlled entity. * The analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks. Get them here FREE. Every IPO prospectus has a risk factors section. Almost no one reads it. With SpaceX preparing to list on the NASDAQ, the document is hundreds of pages long, and the most interesting sentences are buried where retail investors rarely look. I've been reading space-economy filings for years now, and two admissions inside SpaceX's pre-IPO disclosures stopped me cold. Wall Street will sell you the Mars dream. These two paragraphs sell you something else. Admission #1: Starship Will Fly Over Your House Tucked into the risk factors is a sentence that reframes how you should think about reusability. SpaceX writes that "Our reusable vehicles will reenter Earth's atmosphere and fly over populated land for extended periods, which carries inherent risks to populations in the event of failure, such as structural breakup, loss of control, or debris dispersal." Read that again. The whole pitch of Starship is full and rapid reusability, with both stages returning to Earth for catch and rapid refurbishment by the launch tower's mechanical "chopsticks." The economics only work if these vehicles come home, again and again, on a sub-one-hour turnaround. Coming home means flying low over towns, highways, and people. The analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 stocks. Get them here FREE. The company adds that safety protocols "may not in all circumstances prevent exposure of our personnel and potentially members of the public to hazards such as explosions, structural failures or debris dispersal." Anyone who watched early Starship test flights end in fireballs can see why that language is in the document. It provides legal cover for a known, ongoing hazard baked into the business model. Admission #2: Your Vote Barely Counts The second disclosure is governance. SpaceX is going public with a dual-class structure that makes Class A buyers passengers in a vehicle Musk is driving. Class B common stock will have ten votes per share; Class A will have one vote per share. Class B holders voting separately as a class, will be entitled to elect 51% of the total number of authorized directors and can remove them at will.
Google engineer charged in alleged $1.2mn Polymarket insider trading scheme
Betting on Polymarket is supposed to be a fun, low-intensity gamble whereby you buy 'yes' or 'no' shares for the outcome of a real-world event and hope to correctly predict how it resolves -- at which point your winning share pays out $1 and your losing one pays nothing. That is, unless you are an employee at Google and federal prosecutors allege you already know the answers -- in which case it could amount to insider trading, one of the most aggressively prosecuted white-collar offences on the books that can carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years. According to the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Michele Spagnuolo, a staff software engineer at Google, allegedly used his employer's most confidential annual trend data compilation to pocket more than $1.2 million (€1.1mn) on Polymarket. His alias was known as "AlphaRaccoon." Spagnuolo has now been charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering by federal prosecutors in New York. The Spagnuolo case is the second high-profile prosecution for insider trading on a prediction market in just over a month, part of a largely unexplored legal frontier as prosecutors grapple with how existing fraud and commodities law applies to platforms like Polymarket, which operate nothing like a traditional stock exchange. How Google's 'Year in Search' became a trading tip Every December, Google publishes its "Year in Search" -- a splashy, carefully choreographed reveal of the year's top trending searches. It drives traffic, generates significant media coverage and, as the filing notes, serves as a "high-profile vehicle" through which Google demonstrates its reach to advertisers. The whole point, commercially speaking, is the surprise. Google guards the underlying data closely and even internally, access is restricted to a limited number of employees. Spagnuolo, who has worked at Google since around 2014, allegedly had access to an internal software tool bearing a banner reading "Google Confidential" that gave him sight of the Year in Search results before anyone outside the company did. Enter AlphaRaccoon On the prediction market platform Polymarket, users can bet on the outcome of real-world events such as elections, sports results, and cultural moments using cryptocurrency. In October 2025, Polymarket began offering markets on who would be Google's most-searched person of the year. Around the same time, a Polymarket account called "AlphaRaccoon" started placing bets. Between October and December 2025, FBI Special Agent Brandon Racz alleges, Spagnuolo accessed Google's confidential Year in Search data and then, sometimes within hours, placed wagers on Polymarket that reflected exactly what he had seen.
Two Things SpaceX Just Admitted Ahead of Its IPO That Wall Street Doesn't Want You to Read
Don't wait: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just revealed his top 10 AI stocks. See the full list FREE now. Every IPO prospectus has a risk factors section. Almost no one reads it. With SpaceX preparing to list on the NASDAQ, the document is hundreds of pages long, and the most interesting sentences are buried where retail investors rarely look. I've been reading space-economy filings for years now, and two admissions inside SpaceX's pre-IPO disclosures stopped me cold. Wall Street will sell you the Mars dream. These two paragraphs sell you something else. Admission #1: Starship Will Fly Over Your House Tucked into the risk factors is a sentence that reframes how you should think about reusability. SpaceX writes that "Our reusable vehicles will reenter Earth's atmosphere and fly over populated land for extended periods, which carries inherent risks to populations in the event of failure, such as structural breakup, loss of control, or debris dispersal." Read that again. The whole pitch of Starship is full and rapid reusability, with both stages returning to Earth for catch and rapid refurbishment by the launch tower's mechanical "chopsticks." The economics only work if these vehicles come home, again and again, on a sub-one-hour turnaround. Coming home means flying low over towns, highways, and people. The company adds that safety protocols "may not in all circumstances prevent exposure of our personnel and potentially members of the public to hazards such as explosions, structural failures or debris dispersal." Anyone who watched early Starship test flights end in fireballs can see why that language is in the document. It provides legal cover for a known, ongoing hazard baked into the business model. Admission #2: Your Vote Barely Counts The second disclosure is governance. SpaceX is going public with a dual-class structure that makes Class A buyers passengers in a vehicle Musk is driving. Class B common stock will have ten votes per share; Class A will have one vote per share. Class B holders voting separately as a class, will be entitled to elect 51% of the total number of authorized directors and can remove them at will. Elon Musk personally holds 849,494,440 Class A shares (12.3%) and 5,569,053,075 Class B shares (93.6%), for 85.1% of combined voting power before the offering. The filing states plainly that "Mr. Musk will be able to control the outcome of matters requiring shareholder approval" and that SpaceX will be a "controlled company" under NASDAQ rules, allowing exemptions from standard corporate governance requirements. Buying Class A means buying exposure to Starlink, Dragon, and Starship while accepting you have no meaningful say in how any of it is run. What I'd Watch The Mars dream is real, and the technology is genuinely transformational. Every industry is becoming a tech company or dying, and space is no exception. Buy SpaceX if you believe Musk's control and the reentry risk profile are acceptable trade-offs for the upside. Skip it if you wanted a vote, or wanted Starship to land somewhere other than over a neighborhood. The prospectus told you which company you are actually buying. You just had to read past page 30.
Google engineer charged in alleged $1.2mn Polymarket insider trading scheme
Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Betting on Polymarket is supposed to be a fun, low-intensity gamble whereby you buy 'yes' or 'no' shares for the outcome of a real-world event and hope to correctly predict how it resolves -- at which point your winning share pays out $1 and your losing one pays nothing. That is, unless you are an employee at Google and federal prosecutors allege you already know the answers -- in which case it could amount to insider trading, one of the most aggressively prosecuted white-collar offences on the books that can carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years. According to the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Michele Spagnuolo, a staff software engineer at Google, allegedly used his employer's most confidential annual trend data compilation to pocket more than $1.2 million (€1.1mn) on Polymarket. His alias was known as "AlphaRaccoon." Spagnuolo has now been charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering by federal prosecutors in New York. The Spagnuolo case is the second high-profile prosecution for insider trading on a prediction market in just over a month, part of a largely unexplored legal frontier as prosecutors grapple with how existing fraud and commodities law applies to platforms like Polymarket, which operate nothing like a traditional stock exchange. How Google's 'Year in Search' became a trading tip Every December, Google publishes its "Year in Search" -- a splashy, carefully choreographed reveal of the year's top trending searches. It drives traffic, generates significant media coverage and, as the filing notes, serves as a "high-profile vehicle" through which Google demonstrates its reach to advertisers. The whole point, commercially speaking, is the surprise. Google guards the underlying data closely and even internally, access is restricted to a limited number of employees. Spagnuolo, who has worked at Google since around 2014, allegedly had access to an internal software tool bearing a banner reading "Google Confidential" that gave him sight of the Year in Search results before anyone outside the company did. Enter AlphaRaccoon On the prediction market platform Polymarket, users can bet on the outcome of real-world events such as elections, sports results, and cultural moments using cryptocurrency. In October 2025, Polymarket began offering markets on who would be Google's most-searched person of the year. Around the same time, a Polymarket account called "AlphaRaccoon" started placing bets. Between October and December 2025, FBI Special Agent Brandon Racz alleges, Spagnuolo accessed Google's confidential Year in Search data and then, sometimes within hours, placed wagers on Polymarket that reflected exactly what he had seen. On or about 15 October 2025, Spagnuolo allegedly accessed the internal tool. The following day, the AlphaRaccoon account wagered approximately $403 (€373) on Kendrick Lamar being the number one searched person of 2025 at the implied odds of just 3% and roughly $10,807 (€10,022) against Pope Leo XIV taking the top spot. He allegedly knew this, according to prosecutors, because the internal data already told him so. Betting against the crowd What makes the alleged scheme particularly striking is how it worked in practice. Because Spagnuolo allegedly knew who would not top the rankings, he could bet heavily against the crowd's favourites and collected winnings when popular picks failed to materialise. The AlphaRaccoon account wagered approximately $937,688 (€869,083) on the "no" side of the question of whether Bianca Censori would be the number one searched person at a time when the market put her odds at around 85%. It bet roughly $613,587 (€568,628) against Pope Leo XIV at 56% implied probability, and approximately $509,149 (€471,741) against Donald Trump at around 90%. In total, across roughly 25 bets on Year in Search outcomes, AlphaRaccoon risked approximately $2.75mn (€2.55mn). When Google published its results on 4 December 2025, confirming its global top five trending people as d4vd, Kendrick Lamar, Jimmy Kimmel, Tyler Robinson and Pope Leo XIV, the account walked away with approximately $1.2mn (€1.11m) in profit. The cover-up Once the markets resolved, roughly $3.9mn (€3.6mn) in USDC.e -- a cryptocurrency tied to the value of the US dollar -- was released to the AlphaRaccoon account. On 10 December, the account transferred approximately $5mn (€4.6mn) to a linked cryptocurrency wallet. Polymarket used USDC.e as its main payment currency for trading and settlements on the Polygon blockchain network. From there, according to the complaint, the funds passed through at least two cryptocurrency swaps before being moved into a service that prosecutors say was designed to make the transactions harder to trace. Meanwhile, online communities on Discord and X had already begun speculating that AlphaRaccoon was a Google insider. Shortly afterwards, the username was quietly removed from the account, reverting it to an anonymous alphanumeric string. The FBI traced the wallet anyway. Prosecutors allege cryptocurrency records linked the AlphaRaccoon account to a wallet that had sent approximately $149,980 (€138,916) to a payment processor account registered in the name of Michele Spagnuolo using an Italian government identification card. The charges Spagnuolo faces three charges. The first is commodities fraud, based on allegations that he used material nonpublic information to execute trades on Polymarket, which prosecutors are treating as a platform offering commodity-linked contracts. The second is wire fraud, relating to the alleged misuse of Google's confidential commercial information for personal gain. The third is money laundering, tied to prosecutors' claims that he took steps after December 2025 to conceal the source and ownership of the proceeds. The complaint was sworn before US Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn in the Southern District of New York. The case follows that of US Army Special Forces Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke, who was charged in April with allegedly using classified information about a US military operation targeting Nicolás Maduro to place winning bets on Polymarket. Prosecutors say Van Dyke turned roughly $33,000 in wagers into more than $400,000 in profit. He has pleaded not guilty.
Google employee charged with using insider data to rig bets on Polymarket
US DoJ alleges software engineer Michele Spagnuolo, 36, earned $1.2m betting on Google's most-searched list The US justice department has charged a Google software engineer with using insider information to rig bets tied to Google's most-searched list on prediction market Polymarket, earning $1.2m in profits, according to a complaint unsealed on Wednesday. Michele Spagnuolo, a 36-year-old Italian citizen, allegedly used insider information to bet on long-shot candidates like indie pop musician D4vd, who appeared on Google's most-searched list after he was arrested and accused of murdering a teenage girl, according to the complaint. D4vd was the most-searched person of the year, according to Google statistics that were released on 4 December, and Spagnuolo allegedly used insider information when betting on 27 November that D4vd would top the list. The bet was particularly profitable because the markets placed a "near-zero probability" that D4vd would be the most-searched person on Google, according to the complaint. Spagnuolo, on an account called "AlphaRaccoon", also used insider information when placing other bets based on Google's most-searched list, according to the complaint. He made a bet in October that rapper Kendrick Lamar would top the list, at a time when Google's internal data showed that Lamar was on track to be the most-searched person of the year. Reuters could not immediately identify an attorney for Spagnuolo. Spagnuolo lives in Switzerland, according to the complaint, filed in the federal court in Manhattan. Jay Clayton, the US attorney for the southern district of New York, said in a statement that prosecutors will pursue corporate insiders who seek to use confidential business information to turn a profit in prediction markets. "Insider trading compromises the integrity of our markets, and the American people want this greed-driven conduct investigated and prosecuted," Clayton said. Google said in a statement that it is working with law enforcement and that using confidential information to place bets is a serious breach of company policy. Spagnuolo has been placed on leave, according to a Google spokesperson. Polymarket said it helped law enforcement investigate Spagnuolo's activity, and it is the only prediction platform to date whose cooperation has led to insider trading charges in the United States. Federal prosecutors in April charged a US army soldier with using classified information to place Polymarket bets on the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
Google engineer charged with using inside information to win $1.2M on Polymarket
A software engineer at Google unlawfully used confidential company information to make a series of bets that won him about $1.2 million on the online prediction market Polymarket, the Justice Department alleged in a criminal complaint Wednesday. Software engineer Michele Spagnuolo used internal data about search activity to place roughly $2.7 million in bets on which public figures would be announced as among the most searched for in 2025, according to the federal complaint. The 36-year-old Italian citizen used an account called AlphaRaccoon to place bets late last year on whether and how figures including singer D4vd and Pope Leo XIV would appear in rankings released by Google in its Year in Search report last December, according to the complaint and a Justice Department news release. "Unlike the counterparties to his trades, Spagnuolo knew the outcome of these wagers before the trading public did because he had accessed Google's confidential, commercially valuable internal data," the complaint alleged. Spagnuolo, a resident of Switzerland, appeared before a U.S. magistrate judge in New York on Wednesday, the Justice Department said. He was charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. The case appears to be the second time the Justice Department has charged a prediction market user with a form of insider trading. In April, a Special Forces soldier involved in the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro was charged with using classified information about the operation to win roughly $400,000 through a series of bets of Polymarket. Polymarket and its rival prediction market platform Kalshi have soared in popularity over the past two years as the start-ups have won over users willing to bet money against each other on stock trading-style markets for events including federal elections, government actions, sports and celebrity marriages. The platforms have also attracted scrutiny from Congress over the incentives they might create for people in business or public office to use their influence or inside information to tilt the odds of prediction market wagers. Senators voted last month to unanimously to ban themselves from participating in prediction markets. U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement released Wednesday that the charges against Spagnuolo showed that cheating on prediction markets would not be tolerated. "Today's charges reinforce a decades-old message: corporate insiders cannot use confidential business information to turn a profit in our markets," he said. "As alleged, Spagnuolo violated the duties he owed to his employer and used Google's confidential business information to make more than $1.2 million in trading profits on Polymarket. Insider trading compromises the integrity of our markets, and the American people want this greed-driven conduct investigated and prosecuted." Spagnuolo used an internal software tool with a banner that read "Google Confidential" in red text to access search data before the company publicly released its annual report on search trends, according to the complaint. Using his AlphaRaccoon account Spagnuolo placed bets on Google's Year in Search data between October and December last year, according to the complaint. He removed the name from the account after his streak of successful wagers led other Polymarket users to speculate on Discord and X that the account belonged to a Google insider, the complaint said. Polymarket deputy chief legal officer Olivia Chalos said in a statement that the company worked closely with the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that regulates prediction markets. "We are committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets as well as enforcing our rules and working with our regulators and law enforcement," the statement said. Polymarket also posted a statement on its X account Wednesday that appeared to credit an internal team at the company with first identifying the allegedly fraudulent behavior. "Proud to announce Polymarket's market integrity infrastructure flagged another trader who was arrested this morning in New York for insider trading," it said. "With 2 out of 2 arrests in this industry resulting from our criminal referrals, Polymarket has emerged as the enforcement leader," the statement said, apparently referring to the earlier charges against the Special Forces soldier.
Google engineer charged over $1.2mn Polymarket bets
A Google engineer has been arrested for allegedly using his employer's secret search trend data to win $1.2mn on Polymarket as landmark case tests whether prediction markets are subject to the same rules as Wall Street. Betting on Polymarket is supposed to be a fun, low-intensity gamble whereby you buy 'yes' or 'no' shares for the outcome of a real-world event and hope to correctly predict how it resolves -- at which point your winning share pays out $1 and your losing one pays nothing. That is, unless you are an employee at Google and federal prosecutors allege you already know the answers -- in which case it could amount to insider trading, one of the most aggressively prosecuted white-collar offences on the books that can carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years. According to the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Michele Spagnuolo, a staff software engineer at Google, allegedly used his employer's most confidential annual trend data compilation to pocket more than $1.2 million (€1.1mn) on Polymarket. His alias was known as "AlphaRaccoon." Spagnuolo has now been charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering by federal prosecutors in New York. The Spagnuolo case is the second high-profile prosecution for insider trading on a prediction market in just over a month, part of a largely unexplored legal frontier as prosecutors grapple with how existing fraud and commodities law applies to platforms like Polymarket, which operate nothing like a traditional stock exchange. How Google's 'Year in Search' became a trading tip Every December, Google publishes its "Year in Search" -- a splashy, carefully choreographed reveal of the year's top trending searches. It drives traffic, generates significant media coverage and, as the filing notes, serves as a "high-profile vehicle" through which Google demonstrates its reach to advertisers. The whole point, commercially speaking, is the surprise. Google guards the underlying data closely and even internally, access is restricted to a limited number of employees. Spagnuolo, who has worked at Google since around 2014, allegedly had access to an internal software tool bearing a banner reading "Google Confidential" that gave him sight of the Year in Search results before anyone outside the company did. Enter AlphaRaccoon On the prediction market platform Polymarket, users can bet on the outcome of real-world events such as elections, sports results, and cultural moments using cryptocurrency. In October 2025, Polymarket began offering markets on who would be Google's most-searched person of the year. Around the same time, a Polymarket account called "AlphaRaccoon" started placing bets. Between October and December 2025, FBI Special Agent Brandon Racz alleges, Spagnuolo accessed Google's confidential Year in Search data and then, sometimes within hours, placed wagers on Polymarket that reflected exactly what he had seen. On or about 15 October 2025, Spagnuolo allegedly accessed the internal tool. The following day, the AlphaRaccoon account wagered approximately $403 (€373) on Kendrick Lamar being the number one searched person of 2025 at the implied odds of just 3% and roughly $10,807 (€10,022) against Pope Leo XIV taking the top spot. He allegedly knew this, according to prosecutors, because the internal data already told him so. Betting against the crowd What makes the alleged scheme particularly striking is how it worked in practice. Because Spagnuolo allegedly knew who would not top the rankings, he could bet heavily against the crowd's favourites and collected winnings when popular picks failed to materialise. The AlphaRaccoon account wagered approximately $937,688 (€869,083) on the "no" side of the question of whether Bianca Censori would be the number one searched person at a time when the market put her odds at around 85%. It bet roughly $613,587 (€568,628) against Pope Leo XIV at 56% implied probability, and approximately $509,149 (€471,741) against Donald Trump at around 90%. In total, across roughly 25 bets on Year in Search outcomes, AlphaRaccoon risked approximately $2.75mn (€2.55mn). When Google published its results on 4 December 2025, confirming its global top five trending people as d4vd, Kendrick Lamar, Jimmy Kimmel, Tyler Robinson and Pope Leo XIV, the account walked away with approximately $1.2mn (€1.11m) in profit. The cover-up Once the markets resolved, roughly $3.9mn (€3.6mn) in USDC.e -- a cryptocurrency tied to the value of the US dollar -- was released to the AlphaRaccoon account. On 10 December, the account transferred approximately $5mn (€4.6mn) to a linked cryptocurrency wallet. Polymarket used USDC.e as its main payment currency for trading and settlements on the Polygon blockchain network. From there, according to the complaint, the funds passed through at least two cryptocurrency swaps before being moved into a service that prosecutors say was designed to make the transactions harder to trace. Meanwhile, online communities on Discord and X had already begun speculating that AlphaRaccoon was a Google insider. Shortly afterwards, the username was quietly removed from the account, reverting it to an anonymous alphanumeric string. The FBI traced the wallet anyway. Prosecutors allege cryptocurrency records linked the AlphaRaccoon account to a wallet that had sent approximately $149,980 (€138,916) to a payment processor account registered in the name of Michele Spagnuolo using an Italian government identification card. The charges Spagnuolo faces three charges. The first is commodities fraud, based on allegations that he used material nonpublic information to execute trades on Polymarket, which prosecutors are treating as a platform offering commodity-linked contracts. The second is wire fraud, relating to the alleged misuse of Google's confidential commercial information for personal gain. The third is money laundering, tied to prosecutors' claims that he took steps after December 2025 to conceal the source and ownership of the proceeds. The complaint was sworn before US Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn in the Southern District of New York. The case follows that of US Army Special Forces Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke, who was charged in April with allegedly using classified information about a US military operation targeting Nicolás Maduro to place winning bets on Polymarket. Prosecutors say Van Dyke turned roughly $33,000 in wagers into more than $400,000 in profit. He has pleaded not guilty.
Everybody Will Own SpaceX, Whether We Like It Or Not (NDX)
I suggest avoiding the IPO at outset, but not shorting, since passive inflows will create a dense artificial price floor after the first 200 days. The plans for early index inclusion for SpaceX (SPCX) appear imprudent and are likely to result in index shareholder losses. I am not as worried about SPCX itself as I am about the Columnist | Portfolio Manager | Economics Wonk | Top 5% on TipRanks | Long Signal, Short Noise. I write The Macro Obsession, a weekly newsletter on finance, tech, and the real economy. The approach is chart-heavy, macro-oriented, data-driven, and chock full of me without guardrails. While I am most well-known on Seeking Alpha for my macro commentary and high-yield fund coverage, I also commonly cover technology stocks and securities I am personally invested in or am considering investing in. I invest across securities and asset classes, with a focus on ETFs. That focus bleeds significantly into my writing.Off-page, I'm a portfolio manager at Fintent Invest, Inc. ("Fintent"), a Monrovia,CA-based RIA. I also serve as Director of Financial Education at Fintent's subsidiary, Fintent Educate, LLC."Successful investing requires holding uncomfortably idiosyncratic positions." -- Howard Marks, paraphrasing David Swensen "History does not repeat, it instructs." -- Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny Analyst's Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of QQQ either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.
AST SpaceMobile Over SpaceX Any Day (NASDAQ:ASTS)
This idea was discussed in more depth with members of my private investing community, The Pragmatic Investor. Learn More " The SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is coming up, and it's got investors very excited. We're seeing a lot of other space names rally as we approach the date, so this is a good time to James Foord is an economist by trade and has been analyzing global markets for the past decade. He leads the investing group The Pragmatic Investor where the focus is on building robust and truly diversified portfolios that will continually preserve and increase wealth. The Pragmatic Investor covers global macro, international equities, commodities, tech and cryptocurrencies and is designed to guide investors of all levels in their journey. Features include a The Pragmatic Investor Portfolio, weekly market update newsletter, actionable trades, technical analysis, and a chat room. Learn more. Analyst's Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of ASTS either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.
Google Engineer Arrested For Using Company's Own Search Data To Win $1.2 Million On Polymarket
Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure A Google information security engineer has been arrested and charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering after allegedly using confidential internal company data to place a series of bets on Polymarket -- the crypto-based prediction market platform -- winning approximately $1.2 million by knowing the outcomes of his wagers before the trading public did. The US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York unsealed the complaint against Michele Spagnuolo, 36 -- also known by his Polymarket account alias "AlphaRaccoon" -- on May 27, 2026. Spagnuolo, an Italian citizen residing in Switzerland, was arrested in New York and appeared before US Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn, where he was released on a $2.25 million bond secured by $1 million in cash, per the DOJ's official statement. He did not enter a plea. ETH's price trends to the downside on the daily chart. Source: ETHUSD on Tradingview How The Scheme Worked According to the unsealed complaint, Spagnuolo had access to an internal Google software tool -- bearing a banner marked "Google Confidential" in red text -- that provided real-time visibility into what users were searching across Google's platform, including data that fed directly into Google's annual "Year in Search" rankings, per the DOJ filing. Beginning in May 2024, Spagnuolo created a Polymarket account and began placing bets on contracts tied to which individuals would rank on Google's most-searched list for 2025 -- markets Polymarket launched last fall, per the complaint. Prosecutors allege Spagnuolo transferred approximately $3.8 million in USDC to his Polymarket address and placed bets including a $381.12 "yes" wager that the artist d4vd would rank in Google's most-searched list and correctly predicted contracts such as "Will Zohran Mamdani rank in the Top 5 most searched" and "Will Squid Game be the number one searched TV show," per CNBC's reporting of the complaint. His success rate across these markets was, according to the complaint, no accident. He knew the answers before the markets settled. The CFTC filed a simultaneous civil case against Spagnuolo seeking monetary disgorgement, restitution, and additional penalties, per the complaint. Google confirmed it had placed Spagnuolo on leave and was cooperating with law enforcement -- noting that the tool he used was technically available to all employees, but that using confidential information to place bets represented a serious breach of company policy, per a statement reported by ABC News. The Second Case In Thirty Days The Spagnuolo arrest is the second federal criminal case tied to Polymarket insider trading in just over a month. In April 2026, US Army Special Forces Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke was arrested for allegedly using classified military knowledge of the planned capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to place bets on Polymarket, reportedly netting more than $400,000. Van Dyke has pleaded not guilty, per CNN's reporting. Polymarket's chief legal officer Olivia Chalos said in a statement that the company worked closely with the US Attorney's Office and the CFTC on the Spagnuolo case -- noting that Polymarket is the only prediction platform to date whose cooperation has led to insider trading charges in the United States, and that the blockchain-based nature of the platform means bad actors leave footprints. This development marks a critical and accelerating moment for the nascent prediction market sector. Two federal insider trading arrests in thirty days -- one involving military classified information, the other corporate search data -- arriving simultaneously with an active congressional investigation into Polymarket and Kalshi, confirms that the legal perimeter around prediction markets is closing fast. The transparency of blockchain trading, once seen primarily as a feature for users, is now functioning as a forensic trail for federal prosecutors. Cover image from Grok, ETHUSD chart from Tradingview
