News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
Anthropic quietly joins the race to build its own chips
Anthropic has opened early talks with Samsung Electronics to manufacture a custom AI chip, according to a report from Bloomberg. The Claude developer has never built its own silicon before. It has relied entirely on chips rented from Amazon, Google, and Nvidia, and that dependence is now colliding with the soaring cost of running its largest models. The conversations are still preliminary. Anthropic has not decided what the chip will do, how it will fit into a server, or how powerful it needs to be, according to TechCrunch. Samsung declined to comment on the discussions when TechCrunch reached out. Anthropic looks beyond Nvidia for its next chip Anthropic currently depends on Amazon's Trainium chips, Google's Tensor Processing Units, and Nvidia's graphics processors to train and run its models. A diversified hardware stack built on those three suppliers will remain central to its compute strategy, the company told TechCrunch. Nothing about the Samsung talks changes that today. Nvidia controls about 74% of the global AI chip market, according to The Information. That level of concentration gives one company outsized influence over pricing across the industry. Custom silicon, designed around a lab's own model architecture, offers one of the only ways around that math. Anthropic is not moving first. OpenAI unveiled its own custom chip last month, an inference processor called Jalapeno built with Broadcom. Anthropic's Samsung talks surfacing weeks later suggest the industry is quietly hedging against Nvidia dependence. For investors, the read-through lands on the supply side, not on Anthropic itself. Anthropic remains privately held, so there is no direct way to buy into its chip strategy. The companies that stand to gain or lose are the ones building the hardware underneath it. Samsung brings more than manufacturing capacity to the table Samsung is not a random choice for Anthropic. The company was one of three memory chipmakers, alongside SK Hynix and Micron, that invested in Anthropic's $65 billion funding round in May, according to Forbes. Samsung is the only one of those three investors that also operates its own chip foundries. Anthropic is specifically evaluating Samsung's two-nanometer manufacturing process and its advanced chip packaging facilities, according to The Information. Winning a marquee AI client would give Samsung a showcase customer as it works to close the gap with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the industry's dominant foundry.
How Trump's Anthropic whiplash has helped China
Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company's weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week via email here. Most Read from Fast Company Trump administration Okays Anthropic's powerful Mythos-class AI models After placing export restrictions on Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models on June 12 -- effectively forcing their removal from the market -- the Trump Commerce Department has now reversed course. But in the end, the sudden regulatory pivot may play to China's advantage. Administration officials removed the controls Tuesday evening, after working with Anthropic for two weeks on a refined set of misuse protections. Anthropic promptly announced that it was turning Fable 5 back on for all customers, and turning on Mythos 5 for a select set of approved enterprise customers. The concern was that foreign actors might use Mythos or Fable to detect and exploit software vulnerabilities in U.S. government or enterprise systems, tasks for which Anthropic had said the models demonstrated surprising capacity. The Commerce Department also asked OpenAI to "stagger" the release of its latest frontier model, GPT-5.6. The government's intervention rattled investors and tech industry folks because the Trump administration, after pledging to stay away from AI regulation, effectively granted itself a "kill switch" over newly released frontier models. The government has a legitimate interest in the national security implications of frontier models, but the administration had no ready framework for evaluating the national security risk of new models, or a minimum set of guardrails that AI providers must build in to prevent misuse of the models. Anthropic says it hopes the work it did with the Commerce Department over the past two weeks will lay the groundwork for a set of standards that could apply to all U.S. frontier model providers. The Trump administration's sudden swerve into AI safety regulation may end up benefiting Chinese model makers. The administration's export restrictions on the Mythos models imposed a pause on the distribution of the U.S.'s best models at a time when Chinese AI labs are rapidly catching up with their U.S. counterparts -- and offering an ever-more compelling alternative to expensive models from Anthropic, OpenAI, and the like.
SpaceX (SPCX) to Build Eight‑Mile Natural Gas Pipeline "Starpipe" to Texas Launch Facilities, Reuters Reports
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:SPCX) is one of the most promising future stocks to buy right now. Reuters reported on June 25 that, according to county filings, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:SPCX) has plans to begin building an eight‑mile (13-km) natural gas pipeline called "Starpipe" to its Texas launch facilities next month. The announcement comes against a backdrop featuring the company's efforts to ramp up launches of its next‑generation Starship rocket. It further reported that, according to a document filed last month with the Texas Railroad Commission by SpaceX affiliate Lone Star Mineral Development and reviewed by Reuters, Starpipe will end at the company's Texas company town of Starbase, and is anticipated to be in service by January 26. Starship is designed to be fully reusable and uses around 630,000 gallons (2.4 million liters) of liquid methane per launch, which is delivered at present by hundreds of tanker trucks in an hours-long process incompatible with Musk's expansion plans. Reuters further reported that Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:SPCX) did not respond to its request for a comment. Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:SPCX), operating as SpaceX, is an aerospace manufacturer that also operates as a satellite communications company and launch service provider. It is involved in the design, manufacture, launch, and operation of products and services that are built on cutting-edge technologies, including spacecraft and rockets. While we acknowledge the potential of SPCX as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. Disclosure: None. Follow Insider Monkey on Google News.
SpaceX Joined 6 Stocks in the $2 Trillion Club. Here's My Top Pick for July.
Before the end of its first trading day on the Nasdaq, Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX), or SpaceX, had joined an elite club: stocks with at least $2 trillion in market capitalization. The club is so exclusive that only six other stocks belong to it. And unlike SpaceX, most of them underperformed in June. Here's my pick for the best one to buy in July. Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a "Double Down" signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same "Total Conviction" signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue " Biggest of the big The seven largest stocks in the world are currently: *Data as of market close on 6/29/2026. **SpaceX performance since Nasdaq debut at $150/share on 6/12/2026. Aside from TSMC and, of course, SpaceX, all of these huge companies saw big share price declines over the past month. One big reason? Ongoing concerns about how they might be impacted by the current memory shortage. Memory loss High-end memory chips for dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and N-AND flash memory (NAND) are in very short supply, and as a result, they've gotten much more expensive. Yet DRAM and NAND are critical for AI applications and for many consumer devices, such as smartphones and laptops. For Apple, more expensive DRAM and NAND chips mean the company has to accept thinner product margins for its devices that include DRAM and NAND, like iPhones and MacBooks, or pass that cost along to consumers. It had been absorbing the costs, but this month announced it would have to pass the costs on and raised prices on many of its products. Investors punished the stock, concerned that higher costs would hurt sales. For Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon, the memory shortage means they'll have to pay more for memory chips for their AI data center build-outs. These "hyperscalers" are already incurring massive AI capital expenditures, which are likely to increase even further in the short term as memory gets more expensive. The market is worried the costs won't justify the eventual benefits. I think these concerns are likely to persist in the short term, which is why I'm not picking any of these stocks as my top July pick.
Here's What the Street Thinks About Cerebras Systems (CBRS)
Cerebras Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CBRS) is one of the most promising future stocks to buy right now. Cerebras Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CBRS) received several rating updates following the release of its strong fiscal Q1 2026 results. Morgan Stanley lifted the price target on the stock to $273 from $250 on June 24 and maintained an Overweight rating on the shares after what the firm called "a strong first quarter out of the gates". It further stated that although the IPO happened recently enough that the firm expected solid results with no surprises, and presumed some IPO conservatism built into forecasts, Morgan Stanley believes that the better gross margin guidance "certainly indicates a conservative guidance mindset." The same day, UBS lifted the price target on Cerebras Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CBRS) to $320 from $300, maintaining a Buy rating on the shares and stating that the company's first post-IPO earnings call is viewed positively after raised guidance and confirmation of an Amazon (AMZN) agreement. It further told investors in a research note that broader customer diversification and accelerating demand for specialized infrastructure could support strong growth through the decade. Cerebras Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CBRS) is involved in the design and provision of processors for AI training and inference. The company's products include AI model services, inference, Wafer Scale Engine, cloud, processors, and systems. While we acknowledge the potential of CBRS as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. Disclosure: None. Follow Insider Monkey on Google News.
SpaceX Faces Post-IPO Volatility, Yet Wall Street Predicts Significant Stock Price Gains
* SpaceX's stock has seen volatility since the company's IPO nearly three weeks ago, but analysts project significant long-term growth. * Analysts highlight the Starship reusable rocket as a pillar of the company's future success, and point to growing AI revenue and the potential for acquisitions as additional reasons for optimism. * Risks include high cash burn and reliance on aggressive growth assumptions for future success. Wall Street is starting to size up SpaceX (SPCX), and the stock is getting stellar reviews. Analysts who have launched coverage of the stock since the company's IPO have said SpaceX stands to become "a major hyperscaler" and "the largest communications, cloud and AI company in the world." That positivity didn't translate into gains today -- the stock fell 8% to around $157.50 -- but Wall Street sees plenty of room for SpaceX shares to rise in the months ahead. The average price target from three firms that have initiated coverage of the stock recently stands at $203. While well below the $225 all-time high hit two weeks ago, it's nearly 30% above current levels, and 35% higher than the opening price for SpaceX shares when they began trading on June 12. WHY THIS MATTERS TO YOU Elon Musk's space exploration, connectivity and AI company is now a part of major benchmark indexes and the funds that track them, and will be joining some more, which means the stock's performance is likely represented in your retirement account. The latest bullish view was delivered Tuesday by analysts at Wedbush led by Dan Ives, who initiated coverage of SpaceX with an "outperform" rating and a price target of $190. That target is derived from revenue estimates for 2028, which is expected to be the first year that all three of SpaceX's businesses scale. They view SpaceX's spacecraft and rocket called Starship as "the essential layer" driving the company's success. Its reusability is a strategic advantage from a cost perspective, but also generates a "feedback loop" through which the company can improve its flight rates without driving up capital expenditures, according to Ives and his team. They add that without it, the company's broadband business Starlink would not have reached the scale it has so far, and that SpaceX's ambitions to build orbital data centers would otherwise not be "feasible." Oppenheimer's Timothy Horan started coverage on the stock on June 11, prior to the company's IPO, with an "Outperform" rating and a $190 price target. A week later, the firm raised the target to $250 following SpaceX's acquisition of AI startup Cursor. Horan's models suggest that Cursor revenue will hit $6 billion by the end of this year, raising SpaceX's AI business revenue by 84% to $8.75 billion in the fourth quarter.
4 Lessons for Future OpenAI and Anthropic Investors, Following SpaceX's Historic IPO
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), the aerospace and AI company founded by Elon Musk, went public on June 12 at a valuation of $1.77 trillion, making it the largest IPO in history. It went public at $135 per share, started trading at $150, and hit a record high of $225.64 on June 16. But as of this writing, SpaceX's stock trades at about $160. Many investors who hopped on the bandwagon in its first four days are now underwater. That volatile market debut should teach investors four valuable lessons about hot IPOs like SpaceX -- and how they should approach OpenAI and Anthropic, two of the market's most eagerly anticipated AI IPOs, in the future. Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a "Double Down" signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same "Total Conviction" signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue " 1. Valuations matter When SpaceX went public, it was already valued at 95 times its 2025 revenue of $18.7 billion. At its peak market cap of $2.66 trillion, it was valued at 142 times its trailing sales. Those were sky-high valuations, even for a company that grew its revenue by 33% in 2025. As of this writing, SpaceX is worth $2.1 trillion, or 112 times last year's sales. OpenAI was most recently valued at $852 billion, and its founders hope to go public with a market cap of $1 trillion. That would be 50 times its annualized revenue run rate of $20 billion at the end of 2025, making it seem more reasonably valued than SpaceX. Anthropic, valued at $965 billion after its latest funding round, only had an annualized revenue run rate of $9 billion at the end of 2025. If it's also targeting a $1 trillion IPO, it would debut at 111 times its annualized revenue -- making it more comparable to SpaceX. 2. Profits matter SpaceX was actually profitable in 2025, as Starlink's profits offset its space division's losses. But this year, it acquired xAI (which owns Grok and X) in an all-stock acquisition before its IPO. After recasting its 2025 financials to account for that acquisition, it became deeply unprofitable. The critics claimed that Musk was bailing out xAI at the expense of SpaceX's shareholders. OpenAI and Anthropic -- which are both unprofitable -- will also be closely scrutinized when they go public. OpenAI is still racking up steep losses, but Anthropic's rapid expansion in the enterprise market (with tools like Claude Code) is quickly reducing its operating losses. Anthropic even expects to post its first adjusted operating profit this year.
SpaceX Went From $150 to $225 and Back in Under 2 Weeks -- Here's the Math That Explains Every Dollar of That Move
The long-awaited IPO of Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX), or SpaceX for short, finally arrived on June 12. Shares shot up like a rocket on their first day of trading, soaring to $150 and then to $225 in short order. But the stock has reversed course just as quickly, falling back to around $150, a round trip that took place in under two weeks. A lot is happening with SpaceX right now, from rampant hype around space and artificial intelligence (AI) to the company's recent $60 billion acquisition of Cursor. But there is real, underlying math that helps explain why SpaceX stock is so volatile right out the gate, and what it might mean for the stock price moving forward. Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a "Double Down" signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same "Total Conviction" signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue " Looking at SpaceX's quick surge and sudden decline SpaceX was the largest IPO in history, and arguably one of the most hyped. There were tons of investors who wanted to buy shares. By design, SpaceX only made a small portion of its total stock publicly available on IPO day, just 4.24%. These publicly tradable shares are called the float. The small float and overwhelming demand for SpaceX shares created a classic supply-and-demand situation, in which the stock price rocketed higher in the days immediately following its market debut. But demand eventually peaks, and investors saw SpaceX reverse course after reaching about $225 per share. So, why did the stock cool off? There are probably a few reasons. First, SpaceX's stock was very expensive at its high. Second, the company is funding its $60 billion acquisition of Cursor with stock, diluting existing investors. The market often sells off stocks in these scenarios to reflect the anticipated dilution. Lastly, IPO day is often when excitement peaks. Investors then have a few days to step back and assess, and that hype and excitement usually fade a bit. Where is the rest of SpaceX's stock? Newly public companies have lockup periods that prevent insiders and employees from dumping their stock into the buying frenzy on IPO day. While typical lockup periods are around 180 days, SpaceX is using a staggered lockup period that gradually allows insiders to sell and expand the float at a controlled pace. The earliest selling window opens after SpaceX's first earnings report, assuming the stock meets certain share price thresholds. There are several windows after that, building up to the traditional lockup expiration after 180 days. Additionally, CEO Elon Musk and other significant investors are subject to a 366-day lockup, allowing them to begin selling shares on June 14, 2027.