News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
SpaceX set for fast entry into US, global indexes under new FTSE rules
May 26 (Reuters) - Elon Musk's SpaceX is eligible for inclusion in both the Russell U.S. Equity Indexes and FTSE Global Equity Index Series under newly announced fast-entry rules, according to index provider FTSE Russell. FTSE Russell, a London Stock Exchange Group business, proposed introducing a fast-entry mechanism for initial public offerings and revising eligibility requirements for its Russell U.S. Equity Indexes in February. SpaceX is estimated to carry an investable market capitalization of about $70 billion, a figure that clears two major index eligibility thresholds -- the $17.5 billion market-adjusted breakpoint for Russell Top 500 inclusion and the $13.5 billion fast-entry threshold set by the FTSE GEIS, the index provider said. SpaceX's listing is expected to be the highlight of what is shaping up to be one of the busiest years for IPOs in recent memory, with several high-profile venture-backed companies and startups, including OpenAI and Anthropic, laying the groundwork for their respective debuts. Musk's space venture, which is eyeing a public listing that could value it at $1.75 trillion, is expected to be added to Russell Top 50, Russell Top 200, Russell 1000 indexes. It could be included in FTSE GEIS' Global All Series, FTSE All-World, FTSE World Index, FTSE Global Total Cap. The index provider, however, cautioned that the assessment is based on SpaceX's current S-1 filing and limited publicly available information, which could be reassessed based on subsequent filings. SpaceX is aiming to list its shares as early as June 12, with a roadshow launch targeted for June 4 and the share sale expected as early as June 11, Reuters has reported. (Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
SpaceX-Tesla Merger Speculation Builds Ahead of SpaceX Nasdaq Debut
Tesla, Inc. designs, builds, and sells electric vehicles. Net sales break down by activity as follows: - sale of automotive vehicles (69.4%); - sale of energy generation and storage systems (13.5%); - services (13.2%): primarily maintenance and repair services. The group also develops sale of power train assembly components for electric vehicles activity; - automotive credits (2.1%); - automotive leasing (1.8%). At the end of 2025, the group had 8 manufacturing sites located in the United States (5), China (2) and Germany. Net sales are distributed geographically as follows: the United States (50.2%), China (22.1%) and other (27.7%).
Healdsburg Vacation Rental Offered for Anthropic Stock at a $500,000 Discount
pBruingtonHargreaves lists one of the area's few permit-eligible short-term rentals; the owner will accept equity in lieu of cash./ppspan class="legendSpanClass"HEALDSBURG, Calif./span, span class="legendSpanClass"May 26, 2026/span /PRNewswire/ -- In a first for Sonoma County's Wine Country market, the owner of a permit-eligible Healdsburg vacation rental will accept $2,000,000 in Anthropic stock instead of cash -- a $500,000 discount from the $2,500,000 list price -- in exchange for equity in the artificial-intelligence company./p pThe home, 10936 Eastside Road, is listed by BruingtonHargreaves, the RealTrends No. 1 ranked team in Healdsburg, and is one of the area's few properties that can legally operate as a short-term rental. Supply has tightened since an August 2023 county ordinance reset the rules. Only 28 eligible properties came to market across the broader Healdsburg area in all of 2025, and inside the city limits it is common for zero to appear in a year. Every unincorporated cap zone now sits at or above its 5% limit, effectively freezing new permits./ppThe offer targets Bay Area buyers whose wealth sits in private-company stock that is difficult to spend. Rather than sell shares and trigger a taxable event, a buyer can apply equity directly toward an income-producing second home./ppThe single-level, three-bedroom, three-bathroom home sits on 3.25 private acres ten minutes from the Healdsburg Plaza, with a new pool and spa, a bocce court, and a covered deck. It is eligible for a short-term-rental permit; the permit does not transfer, but a new owner can secure one. Beau Maison, a leading local property manager, forecasts $178,000 in annual rental income./pp"In nearly 20 years of Wine Country transactions, we have never seen a seller open to taking payment in AI equity," said David Hargreaves, co-founder of BruingtonHargreaves. "For a buyer holding stock that is hard to turn into a home, this is one of the cleanest paths we have seen into a genuinely scarce, income-producing asset."/ppDetails on Healdsburg's vacation-rental rules are ata href="https://edge.prnewswire.com/c/link/?t=0amp;l=enamp;o=4695402-1amp;h=2669944627amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.modernlivingsonoma.com%2Fcan-you-vacation-rent-in-healdsburg%2Famp;a=%C2%A0'' target="_blank" rel="nofollow" /aa href="https://edge.prnewswire.com/c/link/?t=0amp;l=enamp;o=4695402-1amp;h=82048137amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.modernlivingsonoma.com%2Fcan-you-vacation-rent-in-healdsburg%2Famp;a=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.modernlivingsonoma.com%2Fcan-you-vacation-rent-in-healdsburg%2F" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"https://www.modernlivingsonoma.com/can-you-vacation-rent-in-healdsburg//a. A list of every eligible vacation rental for sale is ata href="https://edge.prnewswire.com/c/link/?t=0amp;l=enamp;o=4695402-1amp;h=2701963520amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.modernlivingsonoma.com%2Farea%2Feligible-vacation-rentals-for-sale%2Famp;a=%C2%A0'' target="_blank" rel="nofollow" /aa href="https://edge.prnewswire.com/c/link/?t=0amp;l=enamp;o=4695402-1amp;h=3701453916amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.modernlivingsonoma.com%2Farea%2Feligible-vacation-rentals-for-sale%2Famp;a=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.modernlivingsonoma.com%2Farea%2Feligible-vacation-rentals-for-sale%2F" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"https://www.modernlivingsonoma.com/area/eligible-vacation-rentals-for-sale//a./ppAbout BruingtonHargreaves: Part of W Real Estate, BruingtonHargreaves is one of Sonoma County's top real estate teams, with more than $250 million sold in three years and over $20 million in vacation-rental transactions. The team was named RealTrends No. 1 in Healdsburg in 2024 and is nominated for The Press Democrat Real Estate Team of the Year./ppMedia Contact: David Hargreaves, Co-founder, BruingtonHargreaves, a href="mailto:[email protected]" rel="nofollow"[email protected]/a, (415) 260-7814.a href="https://edge.prnewswire.com/c/link/?t=0amp;l=enamp;o=4695402-1amp;h=3459777645amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.modernlivingsonoma.com%2Famp;a=%C2%A0'' target="_blank" rel="nofollow" /aa href="https://edge.prnewswire.com/c/link/?t=0amp;l=enamp;o=4695402-1amp;h=2365543547amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.modernlivingsonoma.com%2Famp;a=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.modernlivingsonoma.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"https://www.modernlivingsonoma.com/a/p p id="PURL"img title="Cision" width="12'' height="12'' alt="Cision" src="https://edge.prnewswire.com/c/img/favicon.png?sn=PH66710amp;sd=2026-05-26''/img View original content to download multimedia:a id="PRNURL" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/healdsburg-vacation-rental-offered-for-anthropic-stock-at-a-500-000-discount-302780920.html" target="_blank"https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/healdsburg-vacation-rental-offered-for-anthropic-stock-at-a-500-000-discount-302780920.html/a/ppSOURCE BruingtonHargreaves/pimg alt="" src="https://rt.prnewswire.com/rt.gif?NewsItemId=PH66710amp;Transmission_Id=202605260838PR_NEWS_USPR_____PH66710amp;DateId=20260526'' style="border:0px; width:1px; height:1px;"/img
Healdsburg Vacation Rental Offered for Anthropic Stock at a $500,000 Discount
pBruingtonHargreaves lists one of the area's few permit-eligible short-term rentals; the owner will accept equity in lieu of cash./ppspan class="legendSpanClass"HEALDSBURG, Calif./span, span class="legendSpanClass"May 26, 2026/span /PRNewswire/ -- In a first for Sonoma County's Wine Country market, the owner of a permit-eligible Healdsburg vacation rental will accept $2,000,000 in Anthropic stock instead of cash -- a $500,000 discount from the $2,500,000 list price -- in exchange for equity in the artificial-intelligence company./p pThe home, 10936 Eastside Road, is listed by BruingtonHargreaves, the RealTrends No. 1 ranked team in Healdsburg, and is one of the area's few properties that can legally operate as a short-term rental. Supply has tightened since an August 2023 county ordinance reset the rules. Only 28 eligible properties came to market across the broader Healdsburg area in all of 2025, and inside the city limits it is common for zero to appear in a year. Every unincorporated cap zone now sits at or above its 5% limit, effectively freezing new permits./ppThe offer targets Bay Area buyers whose wealth sits in private-company stock that is difficult to spend. Rather than sell shares and trigger a taxable event, a buyer can apply equity directly toward an income-producing second home./ppThe single-level, three-bedroom, three-bathroom home sits on 3.25 private acres ten minutes from the Healdsburg Plaza, with a new pool and spa, a bocce court, and a covered deck. It is eligible for a short-term-rental permit; the permit does not transfer, but a new owner can secure one. Beau Maison, a leading local property manager, forecasts $178,000 in annual rental income./pp"In nearly 20 years of Wine Country transactions, we have never seen a seller open to taking payment in AI equity," said David Hargreaves, co-founder of BruingtonHargreaves. "For a buyer holding stock that is hard to turn into a home, this is one of the cleanest paths we have seen into a genuinely scarce, income-producing asset."/ppDetails on Healdsburg's vacation-rental rules are ata href="https://edge.prnewswire.com/c/link/?t=0amp;l=enamp;o=4695402-1amp;h=2669944627amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.modernlivingsonoma.com%2Fcan-you-vacation-rent-in-healdsburg%2Famp;a=%C2%A0'' target="_blank" rel="nofollow" /aa href="https://edge.prnewswire.com/c/link/?t=0amp;l=enamp;o=4695402-1amp;h=82048137amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.modernlivingsonoma.com%2Fcan-you-vacation-rent-in-healdsburg%2Famp;a=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.modernlivingsonoma.com%2Fcan-you-vacation-rent-in-healdsburg%2F" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"https://www.modernlivingsonoma.com/can-you-vacation-rent-in-healdsburg//a. A list of every eligible vacation rental for sale is ata href="https://edge.prnewswire.com/c/link/?t=0amp;l=enamp;o=4695402-1amp;h=2701963520amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.modernlivingsonoma.com%2Farea%2Feligible-vacation-rentals-for-sale%2Famp;a=%C2%A0'' target="_blank" rel="nofollow" /aa href="https://edge.prnewswire.com/c/link/?t=0amp;l=enamp;o=4695402-1amp;h=3701453916amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.modernlivingsonoma.com%2Farea%2Feligible-vacation-rentals-for-sale%2Famp;a=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.modernlivingsonoma.com%2Farea%2Feligible-vacation-rentals-for-sale%2F" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"https://www.modernlivingsonoma.com/area/eligible-vacation-rentals-for-sale//a./ppAbout BruingtonHargreaves: Part of W Real Estate, BruingtonHargreaves is one of Sonoma County's top real estate teams, with more than $250 million sold in three years and over $20 million in vacation-rental transactions. The team was named RealTrends No. 1 in Healdsburg in 2024 and is nominated for The Press Democrat Real Estate Team of the Year./ppMedia Contact: David Hargreaves, Co-founder, BruingtonHargreaves, a href="mailto:[email protected]" rel="nofollow"[email protected]/a, (415) 260-7814.a href="https://edge.prnewswire.com/c/link/?t=0amp;l=enamp;o=4695402-1amp;h=3459777645amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.modernlivingsonoma.com%2Famp;a=%C2%A0'' target="_blank" rel="nofollow" /aa href="https://edge.prnewswire.com/c/link/?t=0amp;l=enamp;o=4695402-1amp;h=2365543547amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.modernlivingsonoma.com%2Famp;a=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.modernlivingsonoma.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"https://www.modernlivingsonoma.com/a/p p id="PURL"img title="Cision" width="12'' height="12'' alt="Cision" src="https://edge.prnewswire.com/c/img/favicon.png?sn=PH66710amp;sd=2026-05-26''/img View original content to download multimedia:a id="PRNURL" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/healdsburg-vacation-rental-offered-for-anthropic-stock-at-a-500-000-discount-302780920.html" target="_blank"https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/healdsburg-vacation-rental-offered-for-anthropic-stock-at-a-500-000-discount-302780920.html/a/ppSOURCE BruingtonHargreaves/pimg alt="" src="https://rt.prnewswire.com/rt.gif?NewsItemId=PH66710amp;Transmission_Id=202605260838PR_NEWS_USPR_____PH66710amp;DateId=20260526'' style="border:0px; width:1px; height:1px;"/img
Live coverage: SpaceX to launch 24 Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg SFB
SpaceX will follow up a picturesque Falcon 9 launch from Cape Canaveral Monday morning with another from Vandenberg Space Force Base Tuesday morning. The Starlink 17-37 mission, which was originally scheduled to launch on May 9, faced several launch delays throughout the month of May. The flight went through two previous booster assignments (B1097 and B1103) before SpaceX ultimately designated B1100 to fly the mission. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4 East is scheduled for 7:50:34 a.m. PDT (10:50:34 a.m. EDT / 1450:34 UTC). The Falcon 9 rocket will fly on a southerly trajectory upon leaving the pad. Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning about 30 minutes prior to liftoff. The Starlink 17-37 mission will be the sixth flight for B1100. It previously flew the NROL-105 mission as well as four batches of Starlink satellites. Nearly 8.5 minutes after liftoff, B1100 will target a landing on the drone ship, 'Of Course I Still Love You,' positioned out in the Pacific Ocean. If successful, this will be the 198th landing on this vessel and the 615th booster landing to date for SpaceX.
Healdsburg Vacation Rental Offered for Anthropic Stock at a $500,000 Discount
BruingtonHargreaves lists one of the area's few permit-eligible short-term rentals; the owner will accept equity in lieu of cash. The offer targets Bay Area buyers whose wealth sits in private-company stock that is difficult to spend. Rather than sell shares and trigger a taxable event, a buyer can apply equity directly toward an income-producing second home. The single-level, three-bedroom, three-bathroom home sits on 3.25 private acres ten minutes from the Healdsburg Plaza, with a new pool and spa, a bocce court, and a covered deck. It is eligible for a short-term-rental permit; the permit does not transfer, but a new owner can secure one. Beau Maison, a leading local property manager, forecasts $178,000 in annual rental income. "In nearly 20 years of Wine Country transactions, we have never seen a seller open to taking payment in AI equity," said David Hargreaves, co-founder of BruingtonHargreaves. "For a buyer holding stock that is hard to turn into a home, this is one of the cleanest paths we have seen into a genuinely scarce, income-producing asset." About BruingtonHargreaves: Part of W Real Estate, BruingtonHargreaves is one of Sonoma County's top real estate teams, with more than $250 million sold in three years and over $20 million in vacation-rental transactions. The team was named RealTrends No. 1 in Healdsburg in 2024 and is nominated for The Press Democrat Real Estate Team of the Year. SOURCE BruingtonHargreaves Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.
Anthropic opens a Milan office: Here is what six European cities in under a year actually means -- TFN
Italy gives Anthropic access to a Southern European industrial economy, financial services, manufacturing, consumer goods, that OpenAI has not yet formally entered with a dedicated office. Six months ago, Italy was not on Anthropic's named-office list. This week it is. The Claude maker will open a Milan office this month, adding Italy to a European footprint that already spans London, Dublin, Zurich, Paris, and Munich. The pace of expansion is itself the story and the numbers driving it make the logic clear. EMEA run-rate revenue has grown more than 9x in the past year, and the number of large EMEA business accounts has grown more than 10x. No other geography in Anthropic's go-to-market is moving at this speed. The company is planning to triple its international workforce to meet rising demand for its Claude AI models outside the United States -- its London office alone employs around 200 staff, with plans to expand to 800. Anthropic is offering up to £630,000 per year for London engineers, a salary level already forcing European startups to reconsider their own compensation structures. "After France and Germany, Italy is a natural next step," said Chris Ciauri, Anthropic's managing director of international, in an interview published by Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera. Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah appeared alongside Pope Leo XIV on May 25 at the presentation of the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, the Vatican's first major teaching document on AI ethics, speaking in the Synod Hall before an audience of cardinals, theologians, and the diplomatic corps. CEO Dario Amodei then travelled to Rome for meetings with senior Italian institutional figures. The commercial office launch, the papal encyclical, and the CEO's Rome trip all fell within a single week, a calculated positioning move by a company that has long treated AI governance as a commercial advantage, not just a compliance burden. That strategy has a specific context. The Milan push follows scrutiny Anthropic faced in the US, including being labelled a "supply chain risk" by the Pentagon, the first time such a designation had been applied to an American firm. In Rome, Anthropic is doing something it cannot currently do in Washington: placing itself at the centre of the global conversation about how AI should be governed, and doing so through one of the world's most symbolically powerful institutions. Anthropic's pitch to Italian enterprises rests on a specific tension that has defined the European AI market since the EU AI Act began moving toward enforcement: the perception among risk-conscious European companies that US-frontier AI models arrive with governance and compliance frameworks calibrated for American legal standards, not EU regulatory requirements. Italy's financial services, manufacturing, and consumer goods sectors, precisely the industries Anthropic is targeting, are among Europe's most compliance-sensitive. Anthropic already works with European enterprises, including L'Oréal, BMW, SAP, and N26, and has been embedding Claude in enterprise operations across the continent through a $1.5B joint venture with Goldman Sachs and Blackstone. Italy extends that footprint into Southern Europe, a market that Paris and Munich do not naturally serve from a language, regulatory, or relationship standpoint. The competitive race in Italy, as across Europe, pits Anthropic directly against OpenAI -- a firm racing to cement its own European presence while eyeing a $500B AI infrastructure rollout across the continent. According to Menlo Ventures' end-of-2025 State of Generative AI report, Anthropic now holds approximately 40% of the enterprise LLM market share, up from 32% in mid-2025 and 12% in 2023, while OpenAI has fallen from 50% to 27% over the same period. OpenAI does not have a dedicated Italian office. Anthropic has crossed a $30 billion annualised revenue run rate as of April 2026. The company closed a $30B Series G at a $380 billion valuation in February 2026, and is now reportedly in talks for a new raise that could push it toward $1 trillion. CEO Dario Amodei has publicly stated that Q1 2026 saw 80x annualised revenue growth, outstripping the company's own forecasts by a factor of eight, though these figures are CEO-attributed and have not been independently verified through audited financials. Enterprise customers spending $1 million or more annually reportedly doubled in under two months to surpass 1,000. Europe is a material contributor to that number. The Milan office has a modest physical footprint. But it sits inside a pattern, six European cities in under a year, a tripling of international headcount, a $380 billion confirmed valuation, and a co-founder at the Vatican, that describes a company moving from American AI lab to global infrastructure provider faster than almost anyone anticipated. Europe's most valuable homegrown AI company, Mistral, has been expanding aggressively in parallel, raising €1.7B and breaking ground on a dedicated AI data centre south of Paris, but has no Italian office of its own. The question Europe's AI ecosystem now faces is whether the arrival of well-resourced, safety-branded US incumbents accelerates the continent's adoption or crowds out the European alternatives trying to build their own.
SpaceX debut draws a crowd, but few recent hot IPOs outpace the market
Wall Street is abuzz with next month's expected blockbuster debut of Elon Musk's rocket and satellite maker SpaceX, but few of the biggest IPOs in recent years have paid off for investors who bought in when the deals came to market. A Reuters analysis of the 50 IPOs with the highest valuations in the past five years shows that investors would have been better off buying an S&P 500 index fund about three-quarters of the time. The data underscores the difficulty of finding bargains among companies whose valuations have often surged long before the stock's debut. An investor who bought each of the IPOs tracked by Reuters would be up an average of 27 per cent through May 21. That compares to an average gain of 53 per cent in the S&P 500 over those same periods. The analysis assumes the buyer would be able to purchase shares at the IPO price - often not possible for a retail investor - or simply buy the broad-market S&P. Historical returns for investors buying during the frenzied first day of trading of a stock fare even worse, the analysis showed. "It's difficult to make money unless you're in the early stages of these things and buying these things before the IPO," said Dennis Dick, a proprietary trader at Triple D Trading. SpaceX's SPCX.O debut is expected to be followed by OpenAI and Anthropic, tapping into demand for AI-related companies that has sent the U.S. stock market to record highs. Set to trade under the ticker 'SPCX', SpaceX filed its prospectus on Wednesday, with a share sale potentially as early as June 11. Founder Elon Musk is making some shares available to retail investors through Robinhood, SoFi and other trading platforms that would allow them to get in at a lower price. The space exploration company is expected to target a $1.75 trillion valuation that would dwarf all previous Wall Street stock listings, but the Reuters analysis shows that such superlatives are no guarantee investors will make money. University of Florida professor Jay Ritter, who studies IPOs, said that while most public listings underperform the S&P 500 over the long run, companies with particularly high valuations as measured by price-to-sales tend to fare the worst. At a $1.75 trillion valuation, SpaceX's price-to-sales ratio would be nearly 100, compared to AI heavyweight Nvidia's NVDA.O price-to-sales ratio of 24. SpaceX lost nearly $5 billion last year. "Every one of these companies where investors are willing to pay a very high price-to-sales ratio has a compelling story for why the future potentially can be really bright," Ritter said. "But, you know, stuff could go wrong." Among the IPOs analyzed, AI-related chip designers Astera Labs ALAB.O and Arm Holdings ARM.O have been the biggest winners. Astera ALAB.O has surged over 700 per cent since its 2024 IPO, while Arm has soared about 400 per cent since its 2023 debut. Both of those performances outpace the S&P. Cerebras Systems CBRS.O, another AI chip designer, soared 52 per cent from its May 14 IPO price; it is down around 27 per cent from its first intraday high. Among the biggest disappointments in recent years, Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Global DIDIY.PK was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange in 2022 following its heavily oversubscribed IPO the year before. Now trading over-the-counter, Didi Global shares are down about 74 per cent from their $14 IPO price. Electric car maker Rivian Automotive RIVN.O has slumped 82 per cent since its IPO in 2021 that briefly made it the second-most valuable U.S. automaker. The company continues to lose money for every car it builds, and is burning around $1 billion in cash every quarter. Shares in design software firm Figma FIG.N nearly quadrupled in their first trading session last July. But with investors worried that generative AI could commoditize Figma's technology, its stock is down 35 per cent from the $33 IPO price. Even the hottest offerings can lag. Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba BABA.N, which Reuters did not include in its analysis, holds the record for the largest U.S. IPO by valuation. Touted as the "Amazon of China," its shares have doubled since its 2014 Wall Street debut, during which time the S&P 500 has returned over 300 per cent.
Gulf’s SpaceX investors could be set for windfall following IPO
A potential wartime windfall could be coming to Gulf sovereign wealth funds and billionaires. SpaceX’s IPO filing last week â€" potentially the largest ever â€" didn’t disclose details about regional investors because their stakes fall below reporting thresholds, but even a 1% holding is set to be worth around $15 billion. For investors who have backed Elon Musk for years, the upside is clear. Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is among the most prominent. His investment traces back to a $300 million Twitter stake that ultimately converted into SpaceX shares as Musk reorganized his empire. Alwaleed’s Kingdom Holding valued its SpaceX position at $4.5 billion at the end of March. PIF’s HUMAIN poured $3 billion into xAI in February before it merged with SpaceX; Abu Dhabi’s MGX, the Oman Investment Authority, and the Qatar Investment Authority have also participated in xAI funding rounds. SpaceX estimates its total addressable market at $28.5 trillion (equivalent to almost a quarter of current global GDP) â€" most of that is enterprise applications, or providing software and services to corporate customers. Musk has periodically visited the Gulf, meeting senior royals and executives who share his approach of pursuing AI, commercial space opportunities, and technology-led economic transformation. If the SpaceX listing is well received, some of their other AI investments could also benefit.
Exclusive-Pentagon spars with SpaceX over Starlink price hike during Iran war
The disagreement over Starlink's use on LUCAS suicide drones - a cheap U.S. model comparable to Iran's Shahed that can circle over a target area before diving to detonate on impact - is part of increasing tensions between SpaceX and the Pentagon over Starlink pricing in recent months, according to interviews with five people familiar with the matter and the documents. The Pentagon, which is seeking to help Iranian citizens bypass government-imposed communications blackouts, has also been at odds with SpaceX over pricing for a plan to provide the populace direct-to-cell connections with Starlink akin to 5G service, two of the sources said. The ongoing disputes, which have not previously been reported, underscore how the Pentagon's growing reliance on SpaceX is handing Musk greater leverage over a critical layer of U.S. national security - at a time when SpaceX is seeking to boost revenue ahead of an IPO next month that could be among the biggest in history. Unlike consumer Starlink terminals available at stores including Walmart, SpaceX sells a military-specific version called Starshield to the Pentagon under a 2023 agreement. Starshield terminals can connect to both commercial Starlink satellites and a separate, more secure constellation, also called Starshield, according to a person familiar with the matter. SpaceX argued the LUCAS drones were operating under conditions that aligned more closely with its aviation tier subscription rather than a lower priced land or mobility service. Pentagon officials argued that the $25,000 price tag - a monthly fee - was designed for aircraft, not kamikaze drones that used Starlink connection for a matter of minutes or hours, according to one of the sources. The Pentagon, which was ramping up strikes on Iran, ultimately agreed to pay SpaceX's proposed price increase, almost doubling the cost of each LUCAS drone. The Pentagon was initially paying about $30,000 per unit. SpaceX didn't respond to a comment request. The Pentagon declined to comment on Reuters reporting that SpaceX increased its pricing, its decision to pay, or the plan to provide Iranian citizens with Starlink cell service. In a statement, a Pentagon official said the office responsible for acquiring the terminals, the Commercial Satellite Communications Office, is working to find other competitors. But no other company provides a comparable alternative to Starlink, which has become an increasingly critical tool in modern warfare since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The satellite network provides global coverage, enabling battlefield communications and precision targeting even in remote areas. SpaceX's constellation of roughly 10,000 satellites accounts for more than 60% of those in orbit - dwarfing the constellations being built by other companies, including OneWeb and Amazon Leo. The risks of reliance on Starlink were first thrown into sharp focus during the Ukraine war, when Musk ordered Starlink service switched off in parts of the country in 2022 as Ukrainian forces advanced on Russian positions, disrupting a key counteroffensive, Reuters previously reported. More recently, U.S. Navy tests were disrupted last summer when a global Starlink outage cut off connection to unmanned military boats, leaving them bobbing in the ocean. SPACEX HAS U.S. GOVERNMENT 'OVER A BARREL' Unlike traditional defense contractors, SpaceX holds greater leverage over the Pentagon because it also has a large commercial market for Starlink, alongside its rocket launch and artificial intelligence businesses, said Clayton Swope, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a national security-focused think tank. SpaceX generates about 20% of its total revenue from the U.S. government, according to an SEC filing. SpaceX "certainly has the U.S. government over the barrel," Swope said. At the outset of the Iran war, Starlink was already a core part of U.S. military operations. In testing and early deployments, it supported a range of systems, from aerial attack drones such as the LUCAS to unmanned surface vessels used for maritime surveillance and strike missions. When the U.S. launched its bombing campaign, Starshield terminals were being used across more than a dozen drone systems, according to a source familiar with the matter. But tensions between the Pentagon and SpaceX emerged quickly after the U.S. launched its February 28 assault on Iran. On March 1, SpaceX chief Elon Musk responded on X to a user's post featuring an image of the LUCAS drone that said it "appears to have an integrated Starlink" terminal. "It is a violation of commercial Starlink terms of service to use the terminal for weapon systems. This applies to all users and is shut down when discovered," Musk posted. "There is a separate network called Starshield, which is operated by the US government." The Pentagon official, in a statement to Reuters, denied any violation of its agreement with SpaceX. In the days that followed, SpaceX executives met Pentagon officials and argued the military was underpaying for the service, two sources familiar with the matter said. Although the Pentagon initially agreed to the higher fee for satellite Wi-Fi connections used by attack drones, senior officials including Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg remained uneasy about the arrangement, one of the sources said. Pentagon officials, during an April ceasefire, met to revisit the pricing with Terrence O'Shaughnessy, a retired four-star Air Force general who now leads SpaceX's defense business. Still, the Pentagon is currently considering an additional purchase of more than 3,500 Starshield terminal subscriptions, including 100 with the higher-priced aviation tier, according to Pentagon documents reviewed by Reuters. The deal could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue for SpaceX, though Reuters could not determine whether an agreement has been finalized, or what price is being discussed. SPACEX PRICES IRK PENTAGON Starlink has also proved crucial to other operations. After Iran cracked down on protests in January, killing thousands of people, the Trump administration smuggled in more than 6,000 Starlink terminals to provide internet access to citizens, the Wall Street Journal previously reported. As the war intensified, however, Iranian authorities confiscated the terminals and deployed jamming devices across major cities to disrupt connections, according to a source familiar with the matter. Within a week of the conflict beginning, Pentagon officials began discussions with SpaceX about deploying direct-to-cell service that could bypass those disruptions, two people familiar with the matter said. The capability, similar to a 5G connection, would allow users to connect without terminals on the ground. SpaceX, which generated $11.4 billion in revenue from Starlink in 2025, proposed charging as much as $500 million to launch the capability, along with a $100 million monthly fee to operate it, according to one of the people and Pentagon documents - prompting alarm from defense officials over the price. Reuters could not determine whether an agreement has been reached. (Reporting by David Jeans; editing by Joe Brock and Anna Driver) Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Reuters news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.
Exclusive-Pentagon spars with SpaceX over Starlink price hike during Iran war
NEW YORK, May 26 (Reuters) - As U.S. kamikaze drones guided by Elon Musk's Starlink network began to make visible gains in the war against Iran, senior SpaceX officials reached a conclusion: The Pentagon should be paying more for access to their satellite Wi-Fi network. Within weeks of the United States launching its bombing campaign, SpaceX executives met Pentagon officials and argued the military had been paying about $5,000 for connection per terminal while effectively using a higher tier of service worth closer to $25,000, according to two sources familiar with the matter and Pentagon documents reviewed by Reuters. The disagreement over Starlink's use on LUCAS suicide drones - a cheap U.S. model comparable to Iran's Shahed that can circle over a target area before diving to detonate on impact - is part of increasing tensions between SpaceX and the Pentagon over Starlink pricing in recent months, according to interviews with five people familiar with the matter and the documents. The Pentagon, which is seeking to help Iranian citizens bypass government-imposed communications blackouts, has also been at odds with SpaceX over pricing for a plan to provide the populace direct-to-cell connections with Starlink akin to 5G service, two of the sources said. The ongoing disputes, which have not previously been reported, underscore how the Pentagon's growing reliance on SpaceX is handing Musk greater leverage over a critical layer of U.S. national security - at a time when SpaceX is seeking to boost revenue ahead of an IPO next month that could be among the biggest in history. Unlike consumer Starlink terminals available at stores including Walmart, SpaceX sells a military-specific version called Starshield to the Pentagon under a 2023 agreement. Starshield terminals can connect to both commercial Starlink satellites and a separate, more secure constellation, also called Starshield, according to a person familiar with the matter. SpaceX argued the LUCAS drones were operating under conditions that aligned more closely with its aviation tier subscription rather than a lower priced land or mobility service. Pentagon officials argued that the $25,000 price tag - a monthly fee - was designed for aircraft, not kamikaze drones that used Starlink connection for a matter of minutes or hours, according to one of the sources. The Pentagon, which was ramping up strikes on Iran, ultimately agreed to pay SpaceX's proposed price increase, almost doubling the cost of each LUCAS drone. The Pentagon was initially paying about $30,000 per unit. SpaceX didn't respond to a comment request. The Pentagon declined to comment on Reuters reporting that SpaceX increased its pricing, its decision to pay, or the plan to provide Iranian citizens with Starlink cell service. In a statement, a Pentagon official said the office responsible for acquiring the terminals, the Commercial Satellite Communications Office, is working to find other competitors. But no other company provides a comparable alternative to Starlink, which has become an increasingly critical tool in modern warfare since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The satellite network provides global coverage, enabling battlefield communications and precision targeting even in remote areas. SpaceX's constellation of roughly 10,000 satellites accounts for more than 60% of those in orbit - dwarfing the constellations being built by other companies, including OneWeb and Amazon Leo. The risks of reliance on Starlink were first thrown into sharp focus during the Ukraine war, when Musk ordered Starlink service switched off in parts of the country in 2022 as Ukrainian forces advanced on Russian positions, disrupting a key counteroffensive, Reuters previously reported. More recently, U.S. Navy tests were disrupted last summer when a global Starlink outage cut off connection to unmanned military boats, leaving them bobbing in the ocean. SPACEX HAS U.S. GOVERNMENT 'OVER A BARREL' Unlike traditional defense contractors, SpaceX holds greater leverage over the Pentagon because it also has a large commercial market for Starlink, alongside its rocket launch and artificial intelligence businesses, said Clayton Swope, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a national security-focused think tank. SpaceX generates about 20% of its total revenue from the U.S. government, according to an SEC filing. SpaceX "certainly has the U.S. government over the barrel," Swope said. At the outset of the Iran war, Starlink was already a core part of U.S. military operations. In testing and early deployments, it supported a range of systems, from aerial attack drones such as the LUCAS to unmanned surface vessels used for maritime surveillance and strike missions. When the U.S. launched its bombing campaign, Starshield terminals were being used across more than a dozen drone systems, according to a source familiar with the matter. But tensions between the Pentagon and SpaceX emerged quickly after the U.S. launched its February 28 assault on Iran. On March 1, SpaceX chief Elon Musk responded on X to a user's post featuring an image of the LUCAS drone that said it "appears to have an integrated Starlink" terminal. "It is a violation of commercial Starlink terms of service to use the terminal for weapon systems. This applies to all users and is shut down when discovered," Musk posted. "There is a separate network called Starshield, which is operated by the US government." The Pentagon official, in a statement to Reuters, denied any violation of its agreement with SpaceX. In the days that followed, SpaceX executives met Pentagon officials and argued the military was underpaying for the service, two sources familiar with the matter said. Although the Pentagon initially agreed to the higher fee for satellite Wi-Fi connections used by attack drones, senior officials including Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg remained uneasy about the arrangement, one of the sources said. Pentagon officials, during an April ceasefire, met to revisit the pricing with Terrence O'Shaughnessy, a retired four-star Air Force general who now leads SpaceX's defense business. Still, the Pentagon is currently considering an additional purchase of more than 3,500 Starshield terminal subscriptions, including 100 with the higher-priced aviation tier, according to Pentagon documents reviewed by Reuters. The deal could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue for SpaceX, though Reuters could not determine whether an agreement has been finalized, or what price is being discussed. SPACEX PRICES IRK PENTAGON Starlink has also proved crucial to other operations. After Iran cracked down on protests in January, killing thousands of people, the Trump administration smuggled in more than 6,000 Starlink terminals to provide internet access to citizens, the Wall Street Journal previously reported. As the war intensified, however, Iranian authorities confiscated the terminals and deployed jamming devices across major cities to disrupt connections, according to a source familiar with the matter. Within a week of the conflict beginning, Pentagon officials began discussions with SpaceX about deploying direct-to-cell service that could bypass those disruptions, two people familiar with the matter said. The capability, similar to a 5G connection, would allow users to connect without terminals on the ground. SpaceX, which generated $11.4 billion in revenue from Starlink in 2025, proposed charging as much as $500 million to launch the capability, along with a $100 million monthly fee to operate it, according to one of the people and Pentagon documents - prompting alarm from defense officials over the price. Reuters could not determine whether an agreement has been reached. (Reporting by David Jeans; editing by Joe Brock and Anna Driver)
Tesla stock jumps as SpaceX IPO fuels investor focus | News.az
Shares of Tesla moved slightly higher in premarket trading on Tuesday, gaining around 1% to $430.30, as investors closely monitored developments surrounding both the electric vehicle maker and SpaceX, News.Az reports, citing CoinCentral. Broader markets also traded in positive territory, with futures tied to the S&P 500 rising 0.7% and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures climbing 0.5%. Investor sentiment received a modest boost after Donald Trump said negotiations with Iran were "proceeding nicely." However, oil prices surged 2.8% to around $96 per barrel after the United States struck targets in southern Iran on Monday evening. Tesla shares have declined roughly 5% since the start of 2026, although the stock remains up about 26% over the past year. The stock opened Tuesday's session at $426.01, with a 52-week trading range between $273.21 and $498.83. Attention on Wall Street has intensified following the public release of SpaceX's IPO filing last week. The offering could value the aerospace company at nearly $2 trillion, potentially making it one of the largest initial public offerings in history. Tesla has a direct interest in the development, holding 19 million SpaceX shares. The two companies have also strengthened ties in recent years, with SpaceX purchasing services from Tesla and both firms collaborating on projects including a semiconductor fabrication facility and an AI assistant. The growing relationship has fueled speculation about a possible merger between the two companies, though SpaceX's IPO plans are expected to move forward regardless of whether such a deal materializes. One concern circulating among investors is that some Tesla shareholders could sell TSLA stock to raise funds for participation in the SpaceX IPO. Such a shift in capital could create short-term pressure on Tesla shares. The extent of that potential impact remains uncertain, however, as analysts say it will be difficult to assess until the IPO officially launches. Among institutional investors, MSH Capital Advisors increased its Tesla holdings by 300.3% during the fourth quarter, acquiring an additional 7,812 shares to raise its total stake to 10,413 shares valued at about $4.68 million. Several smaller firms also initiated new positions during the same period. Institutional investors collectively own 66.2% of Tesla shares. Tesla's latest earnings report, released on April 23, showed earnings per share of $0.41, surpassing analyst expectations of $0.39 by $0.02. Revenue totaled $22.39 billion, representing year-over-year growth of 15.8%, although it fell below the $22.96 billion forecast by analysts. The company reported a return on equity of 4.89% and a net margin of 3.95%. Analysts currently expect Tesla to post full-year earnings per share of $1.20. Analyst sentiment on Tesla remains divided. Barclays and Jefferies both maintain neutral ratings on the stock. Morgan Stanley has an equal weight rating with a $415 price target, while President Capital slightly raised its target price to $428 and reiterated a Buy rating. Meanwhile, Phillip Securities holds a Sell rating with a $215 target. Across 41 analyst ratings, the overall consensus on Tesla stands at Hold, consisting of 19 Buy ratings, 17 Hold ratings, and five Sell ratings. The average price target is $395.20, which is below the stock's current trading level. On the insider trading front, Tesla Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja sold 3,000 shares at $450 each on May 13 under a pre-arranged trading plan. Director Kathleen Wilson-Thompson also sold 26,409 shares at $378.11 on April 30. Overall insider sales over the past three months totaled approximately $32.2 million worth of stock.
Polymarket, Kalshi Face Spanish Ban
The Spanish government is moving to block Polymarket and Kalshi for operating without a gambling license. The Spanish government is moving to block Polymarket and Kalshi, saying the two prediction-market platforms might be breaking the law by operating in the country without a gambling ...
Spain joins growing list of countries shutting out Polymarket and Kalshi
Spain's action increases the global regulatory scrutiny of the industry following similar moves in countries like Indonesia and India. Spain's Ministry of Consumer Affairs opened disciplinary proceedings against prediction market platforms Polymarket and Kalshi and ordered internet service providers to block access to the platforms. In notices published in the country's official state gazette, Spain's gambling regulator, the Directorate General for Gambling Regulation (DGOJ), said the companies were offering betting products tied to uncertain future events without the licenses required under Spanish law, according to local news outlets. Authorities said the precautionary blocking measures would remain in place while the cases proceed, a process expected to take three to four months. The notices came after regulators failed to notify the companies through known foreign addresses. Kalshi and Polymarket currently dominate prediction markets' trading activity. Over the past 30 days, Kalshi recorded roughly $5.9 billion in trading volume while Polymarket processed about $3.8 billion, according to DeFiLlama data. Combined, the two platforms represent nearly 88% of the roughly $11 billion in trading volume among the sector's top markets during the period. The move sees Spain join a growing number of jurisdictions targeting prediction markets as regulators debate whether the products should fall under gambling or financial market rules. Indonesia blocked Polymarket earlier this week under online gambling restrictions, as did India. Other countries including Taiwan, Thailand China, and Japan have restricted the platform, while Ukraine blocked it with no legal way for it to come back. Polymarket's list of blocked countries also includes Belgium, Australia, France, the U.K., and Germany. The platform is relaunching in the U.S. Kalshi followed a different regulatory route in the U.S., where it operates under oversight from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Still, it's been under fire. Spanish authorities said unlicensed operators may lack safeguards such as identity checks, protections for minors and systems for self-excluded gamblers.
Anthropic Expands Claude's Enterprise Security Governance With 28 New Integrations - IT Security News
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
SpaceX to soon launch battery-powered Starlink Mini
SpaceX will reportedly soon release a battery-powered version of its smallest internet dish, the Starlink Mini. The development was hinted at in the May firmware release for the device, according to PCMag. The new model would provide untethered portability to users such as vanlifers and emergency responders who need fast, low-latency internet access from almost anywhere on Earth. The May firmware release of Starlink Mini contained code strings hinting at an integrated battery. The "message DishBatteryStats" line was among the indicators, suggesting code designed to return specific fields from an internal battery. This includes its current state of charge. If the dish was just being plugged into an external third-party power bank, the Starlink firmware wouldn't be able to read this information natively.
5 Ways Crypto Markets Are Front-Running SpaceX's $1.75T IPO
Crypto markets are already placing bets on SpaceX's $1.75 trillion IPO, with synthetic perpetual futures, prediction markets, and a surging Hyperliquid token creating a parallel price-discovery layer weeks before the June 12 Nasdaq debut under ticker SPCX. The IPO, targeting a $1.75 trillion to $2 trillion valuation and aiming to raise roughly $75 billion, would be the largest public offering in capital markets history, dwarfing Saudi Aramco's $29.4 billion raise. For crypto traders, though, the story is not simply about equities. SpaceX's S-1 filing revealed a Bitcoin treasury larger than Tesla's, and crypto-native platforms have built an entire derivatives ecosystem around the listing before a single share has changed hands on a traditional exchange. On May 18, Trade.xyz launched SPCX-USDC synthetic perpetual futures on Hyperliquid at a $150/share reference price, implying a $1.78 trillion valuation. The contract spiked to $216 within hours, a 44% premium, generating $33 million in 24-hour volume and $21.8 million in open interest. Three days later, Binance followed with SPCXUSDT Pre-IPO Perpetual Contracts, the first time the exchange offered perpetual futures on a pre-IPO private company. Binance's Head of Spot and Derivatives Shunyet Jan said the product aimed at "democratizing access to market opportunities by combining crypto-native infrastructure with major financial events." These synthetic instruments sidestep the legal risks that destroyed earlier tokenized equity experiments. SPV-based pre-IPO tokens on PreStocks for Anthropic and OpenAI crashed roughly 50% after both companies declared SPV share transfers void under corporate bylaws. Synthetic perps hold no underlying shares, leaving nothing for a private company to invalidate. Pre-IPO perp volume on Hyperliquid has grown from $3 million to $44 million in approximately three months, signaling that crypto infrastructure is becoming a credible venue for pre-market equity price discovery. Hyperliquid routes roughly 99% of its trading fees to its Assistance Fund, which conducts open-market HYPE buybacks and burns. Every dollar of SpaceX perp volume directly feeds token demand, creating a reflexive loop: more SpaceX speculation generates more fees, which generate more HYPE buying pressure. The result is striking. HYPE has surged approximately 70% year-to-date to around $61, while Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana have fallen 13%, 30%, and 33% respectively over the same period. Maelstrom CIO Arthur Hayes has called for HYPE to surpass $100, framing Hyperliquid as an "onchain Nasdaq" capable of tokenizing virtually any asset class into 24/7 tradeable perpetual contracts. SpaceX's S-1 discloses 18,712 BTC held as of March 31, 2026, at a fair value of approximately $1.29 billion, with a cost basis of $661 million at an average price of roughly $35,324 per coin. That stack surpasses Tesla's 11,509 BTC, making SpaceX one of the largest corporate Bitcoin holders globally. The implications extend beyond a single balance sheet. Once SpaceX lists and enters major indices like the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100, every index-tracking fund, ETF, and pension allocation that buys SPCX shares will carry indirect Bitcoin exposure. Under FASB fair-value accounting rules effective since late 2025, SpaceX must publicly disclose its BTC holdings quarterly, reinforcing the narrative that Bitcoin is becoming a standard corporate treasury asset. Prediction market traders on Polymarket are pricing a greater than 70% probability that the SpaceX IPO closes above $2 trillion, well above the company's own $1.75 trillion target valuation. That spread suggests crypto-native speculators believe institutional demand will push the listing above its marketed range on day one. This is not just sentiment. Polymarket's odds, combined with the $216 synthetic perp price on Hyperliquid (implying a roughly $2.5 trillion fully diluted valuation), represent two independent crypto-native price discovery mechanisms that both point to the same conclusion: the $1.75 trillion IPO price is too low. Not every signal is bullish for crypto. Bitcoin has stalled around $77,187 with the broader crypto market sitting at a $2.66 trillion total market cap and a Fear & Greed Index reading of 34, firmly in "Fear" territory. BTC dominance stands at 58.21%, reflecting capital concentration rather than broad risk appetite. Analysts warn that the $75 billion SpaceX raise, part of more than $240 billion in megacap listings including OpenAI and Anthropic, will compete directly for the same risk-on capital pool that has been supporting crypto. The concern echoes a historical pattern: when the Coinbase direct listing launched in April 2021, Bitcoin hit an all-time high the same week, but the subsequent rotation into COIN equity contributed to a weeks-long crypto drawdown. According to unconfirmed reports, SpaceX's 30% retail allocation of approximately $22 billion would be three times the typical retail share on a deal this size. If accurate, that figure represents a direct pipeline from retail crypto portfolios into traditional equity markets. The June 12 Nasdaq debut is the hard catalyst. Before that date, SpaceX's Starship test schedule and any SEC filing amendments could accelerate or delay the timeline. An IPO delay would likely unwind the HYPE premium and deflate synthetic perp prices, while a successful listing at or above the $2 trillion Polymarket consensus would validate crypto's emerging role as a pre-market price discovery layer. SpaceX Q1 2026 revenue came in at $4.69 billion with a net loss of $4.28 billion, on a 2025 full-year revenue base of $18.5 billion. Those fundamentals will face scrutiny once public market analysts apply traditional valuation frameworks to a company currently priced almost entirely on narrative and addressable-market projections. For now, crypto infrastructure has built a complete parallel market around an equity event that has not yet happened: synthetic futures for directional bets, prediction markets for probability pricing, a token that monetizes the trading fees, and a corporate Bitcoin treasury that could become the largest index-embedded BTC position in history. Whether that infrastructure proves prescient or premature depends entirely on what happens June 12. Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Cryptocurrency and digital asset markets carry significant risk. Always do your own research before making decisions.
DeepSeek Slashes Prices for Top Model V4-Pro by 75 Percent, Renews Attack on Anthropic and Co.
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has made permanent the price cut for its flagship model V4-Pro that it introduced last month. API access costs now remain at just a quarter of their original level -- an aggressive move amid an escalating global price war for enterprise customers in the large language model segment. Specifically, V4-Pro API prices drop to a range between 0.025 and 6 yuan per million tokens, equivalent to roughly 0.0035 to 0.83 US dollars per million units. Before the adjustment, rates ranged from 0.1 to 24 yuan per million tokens. The exact pricing depends on the type of usage -- cheaper for pure text input, more expensive for the compute-intensive text generation. A token refers to the smallest semantic unit an algorithm can process, typically a word or part of a word. With this pricing structure, DeepSeek positions itself internationally as one of the cheapest providers in the premium segment for language models. The move ramps up pressure on Western market leaders such as OpenAI and Anthropic, whose top-tier models typically cost multiples of that per million tokens. Chinese providers are increasingly trying to use aggressive pricing to cut directly into the margin structure of their American competitors. The pricing offensive is tightly linked to DeepSeek's hardware strategy: for V4, the company relies on Huawei Ascend 950 semiconductors rather than Nvidia GPUs, which remain difficult to access for Chinese customers due to US export controls. When V4 launched last month, DeepSeek had priced the Pro version up to twelve times higher than the leaner Flash variant, citing bottlenecks in high-end compute capacity. Whether the permanent price reduction is directly attributable to an easing Huawei supply chain, the company left open. However, DeepSeek had previously predicted that infrastructure costs would fall significantly once the so-called supernodes of the Ascend series ship in larger volumes in the second half of 2026. The combination of DeepSeek and Huawei is strategically seen as the core of an independent Chinese AI stack designed to reduce dependence on US semiconductors. Alongside the pricing offensive, DeepSeek is preparing its first-ever external funding round. The lab founded by hedge fund billionaire Liang Wenfeng -- who controls roughly 90 percent of the equity -- has so far consistently avoided outside capital, financing itself through Liang's hedge fund High-Flyer. Now the company is reportedly targeting a round of three to four billion US dollars, according to Reuters and other outlets. The valuation has climbed rapidly within just a few weeks: DeepSeek initially sought a valuation of at least 10 billion dollars when talks began, with the figure rising to around 20 billion by late April. Recent reports from the Financial Times and Bloomberg now cite 45 billion dollars, while the South China Morning Post even mentions up to 50 billion. According to the reports, the round is being led by China's state-backed semiconductor investment vehicle, the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund ("Big Fund III"). Tencent, Alibaba, and investor Hillhouse are also said to be participating. If the deal closes, it would mark a milestone: it would be the Big Fund's first known investment in a Chinese large language model company -- a clear political signal that Beijing is positioning DeepSeek as a national champion in the AI race with the United States. According to the Financial Times, Liang decided to open the cap table primarily to be able to offer employees equity -- the background being increasing poaching by competitors such as Alibaba, ByteDance, and Moonshot AI. The fresh capital is intended to flow primarily into expanding the compute infrastructure.
The SpaceX IPO Has an Unusual Lockup Policy for Insiders. Here's What Investors Need to Know. | The Motley Fool
Whenever retail investors are considering investing in an initial public offering (IPO) or a stock shortly after it goes public, they should check the lockup provisions in the company's prospectus or registration statement. Lockups dictate when company insiders who acquired a stake in a company before it goes public can sell those shares. Company insiders typically are executives or board members with shares, or anyone with at least a 10% stake in voting shares. Additionally, employees with smaller stakes can also be considered insiders because many possess nonpublic material information. Insider sales can have a big impact on a stock price, which is why investors need to be aware of any company's specific lockup provisions. As it happens, SpaceX has an unusual lockup policy. Here's what investors need to know. Lockups typically bar insiders from selling their shares for at least 180 days, or roughly six months, after a company goes public. This is important because, typically, as the end of a lockup period approaches, a stock will experience pressure as the market prepares for insiders to flood the market with shares. A sell-off is not always indicative of bearish sentiment. Many insiders have held their stakes for years, waiting for an exit. After all, many will want to take advantage and claim large gains without risking a company's stock declining, even if they would be better off holding on. Although 180 days may be the norm for lockup provisions, SpaceX's is likely to be the largest IPO ever, and it is far from your average company. In its registration statement, SpaceX said that certain insider shares may be sold sooner than 180 days after the IPO. The first tranche of these shares can be sold immediately after SpaceX releases its earnings for the quarter ending June 30. People subject to the lockup will be able to sell 20% of their shares at this time. If the company's Class A common shares are up at least 30% from the IPO price for at least five of the next 10 trading days, insiders can sell an additional 10% of their shares. Then insiders can sell an additional 7% of their shares 70, 90, 105, 120, and 135 days after the IPO. After SpaceX reports earnings for the three months ending Sept. 30, insiders can sell an additional 28% of their pre-IPO shares. All shares will be eligible for sale 180 days after the IPO. Interestingly, the registration statement notes that founder Elon Musk will not be subject to any of these early release provisions. Musk owns 12.3% of Class A shares. Sometimes a company goes public and sees its stock soar out of the gate as fear of missing out pushes investors to buy right away. This has happened a lot with IPOs in recent years, particularly extremely hyped ones. During the next six months, the stock then struggles as more people can assess a company's financials and as insiders sell stock, increasing the number of shares available for public trading while also dulling demand. SpaceX insiders own more than 20% of Class A shares. Not all will sell, but a significant number of shares could come to market three to 12 months after the IPO. The early lockup provisions will certainly take some pressure off the 180-day expiration, when all the lockup provisions expire. However, it could make the stock more volatile earlier in SpaceX's public life. Due to policy changes in the Nasdaq 100, SpaceX could be eligible to join the index just 15 days after going public. That would force any fund tracking the index to buy the stock right away, which could actually offset selling pressure almost at the outset. All of this is going to make SpaceX stock incredibly volatile and hard to predict during its first six months of trading. That's why I don't think there's any need to rush into the stock. Investors should remain patient and let all lockup provisions expire and index inclusions occur before buying the stock. I think there will be better entry points down the line.
The SpaceX IPO Has an Unusual Lockup Policy for Insiders. Here's What Investors Need to Know.
The company has set a rolling schedule for certain tranches of shares. Whenever retail investors are considering investing in an initial public offering (IPO) or a stock shortly after it goes public, they should check the lockup provisions in the company's prospectus or registration statement. Lockups dictate when company insiders who acquired a stake in a company before it goes public can sell those shares. Company insiders typically are executives or board members with shares, or anyone with at least a 10% stake in voting shares. 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 " Additionally, employees with smaller stakes can also be considered insiders because many possess nonpublic material information. Insider sales can have a big impact on a stock price, which is why investors need to be aware of any company's specific lockup provisions. As it happens, SpaceX has an unusual lockup policy. Here's what investors need to know. Lockups typically bar insiders from selling their shares for at least 180 days, or roughly six months, after a company goes public. This is important because, typically, as the end of a lockup period approaches, a stock will experience pressure as the market prepares for insiders to flood the market with shares. A sell-off is not always indicative of bearish sentiment. Many insiders have held their stakes for years, waiting for an exit. After all, many will want to take advantage and claim large gains without risking a company's stock declining, even if they would be better off holding on. Image source: Getty Images. Although 180 days may be the norm for lockup provisions, SpaceX's is likely to be the largest IPO ever, and it is far from your average company. In its registration statement, SpaceX said that certain insider shares may be sold sooner than 180 days after the IPO. The first tranche of these shares can be sold immediately after SpaceX releases its earnings for the quarter ending June 30. People subject to the lockup will be able to sell 20% of their shares at this time. If the company's Class A common shares are up at least 30% from the IPO price for at least five of the next 10 trading days, insiders can sell an additional 10% of their shares. Then insiders can sell an additional 7% of their shares 70, 90, 105, 120, and 135 days after the IPO. After SpaceX reports earnings for the three months ending Sept. 30, insiders can sell an additional 28% of their pre-IPO shares. All shares will be eligible for sale 180 days after the IPO. Interestingly, the registration statement notes that founder Elon Musk will not be subject to any of these early release provisions. Musk owns 12.3% of Class A shares. Sometimes a company goes public and sees its stock soar out of the gate as fear of missing out pushes investors to buy right away. This has happened a lot with IPOs in recent years, particularly extremely hyped ones. During the next six months, the stock then struggles as more people can assess a company's financials and as insiders sell stock, increasing the number of shares available for public trading while also dulling demand. SpaceX insiders own more than 20% of Class A shares. Not all will sell, but a significant number of shares could come to market three to 12 months after the IPO. The early lockup provisions will certainly take some pressure off the 180-day expiration, when all the lockup provisions expire. However, it could make the stock more volatile earlier in SpaceX's public life. Due to policy changes in the Nasdaq 100, SpaceX could be eligible to join the index just 15 days after going public. That would force any fund tracking the index to buy the stock right away, which could actually offset selling pressure almost at the outset. All of this is going to make SpaceX stock incredibly volatile and hard to predict during its first six months of trading. That's why I don't think there's any need to rush into the stock. Investors should remain patient and let all lockup provisions expire and index inclusions occur before buying the stock. I think there will be better entry points down the line. When our analyst team has a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, Stock Advisor's total average return is 986%* -- a market-crushing outperformance compared to 208% for the S&P 500.
