News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
Mulling AI investment, Anthropic lobbied Australia on copyright law
Anthropic's chief executive Dario Amodei has lobbied Australian officials for "copyright reform" as the artificial intelligence giant seeks to make a major investment in the country, official briefing notes released Monday show. According to briefing notes released under freedom of information law, Amodei had requested the meeting to discuss barriers to AI training in Australia, "particularly copyright reform". Anthropic's chief executive Dario Amodei has lobbied Australian officials for "copyright reform" as the artificial intelligence giant seeks to make a major investment in the country, official briefing notes released Monday show. Amodei met Australia's Treasurer Jim Chalmers in April to discuss plans to enter the Australian market, including building data centres. According to briefing notes released under freedom of information law, Amodei had requested the meeting to discuss barriers to AI training in Australia, "particularly copyright reform". Australia's centre-left Labor government is under pressure from musicians, screenwriters and artists to reject proposals they say seek to let AI models use copyrighted works for free. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is set to deliver a speech on AI and "social licence" on Wednesday. A briefing note government officials had sent to Chalmers ahead of his meeting with Amodei said: "Anthropic will raise that investment in AI model development capability and associated infrastructure, like data centres, is contingent on clarity of copyright settings." In the United States, Anthropic has argued AI training is covered as "fair use" of material, which does not require rightsholders' consent. The Australian officials disputed this in the briefing note, saying the matter was "not settled". In Australia, AI companies require permission from copyright holders through a voluntary licence. Anthropic was told Australia would not introduce a text and data mining exception in its copyright law, and was in talks with a range of stakeholders over the issue. Anthropic "purport there is a 'long tail' of smaller rights holders which impedes efforts to identify and purchase licensing rights", the officials wrote. Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Australian meeting.
Elon Musk says Anthropic is the current AI leader, praises Mythos and Fable models
Elon Musk now calls Anthropic the industry's current leader in artificial intelligence. He admitted being clearly wrong about the AI startup's potential outcomes. Anthropic is a major customer of Musk's SpaceXAI infrastructure company. The AI startup uses SpaceXAI's supercomputer for its advanced models. Musk stated he would never harm a competitor, citing Tesla and SpaceX examples. Elon Musk has praised artificial intelligence (AI) startup Anthropic, saying it is the industry's current frontrunner, in a significant shift from his earlier criticism of the company.Responding to a user on X, the billionaire entrepreneur said he had been 'clearly wrong' about Anthropic and described it as 'currently the leader in AI'. He also said no company had released a model comparable to Anthropic's latest ones, Mythos and Fable.
SpaceX's biggest bull sees valuation soaring above $10 trillion
Raymond James analyst Brian Gesuale initiated coverage on SpaceX with a strong buy. He set an $800 price target, projecting significant future stock appreciation. Gesuale sees SpaceX revenue soaring to $5.2 trillion by 2035. This growth is primarily based on its nascent artificial intelligence business. The analyst believes AI will become SpaceX's largest revenue source by 2027. New York: SpaceX has no shortage of fans on Wall Street, but one analyst stands out among the rest as by far the most bullish: Raymond James' Brian Gesuale. Gesuale initiated coverage on the rocket, satellite, and artificial intelligence company Tuesday with a strong buy rating and an $800 price target, the highest among Wall Street analysts and roughly 430% above where the stock is trading in Tuesday's selloff. Should the shares hit that level, the company's market valuation would balloon to roughly $10.5 trillion. US MarketsPowered By As on 08 Jul 2026, 01:30 AM IST S&P 500 Top Gainers Cognizant Tech Solns43.94(6.21%) Occidental Petroleum51.68(5.88%) Cboe Global Markets258.64(5.53%) Gilead Sciences136.36(5.21%) Gainers" S&P 500 Top Losers Intel110.39(-9.66%) Teradyne343.11(-9.59%) Solstice Advanced Mat62.10(-8.74%) Coterra Energy32.56(-8.62%) Losers" At the moment, SpaceX's market valuation is less than $2 trillion. "We see the company as one of the defining industrial infrastructure companies of the 21st century," Gesuale wrote in a note to clients on Tuesday. "Just as railroads, electric grids, and the Internet reshaped prior economic eras, we believe SpaceX is building the foundational platform for the next generation of industrial capacity." The projection is based on some eye-popping assumptions. For example, SpaceX posted revenues of $19 billion last year. Gesuale sees that soaring to $5.2 trillion by 2035. What's more, that growth isn't tied to the company's high profile rocket or connectivity segments. Rather it's based on its nascent artificial intelligence business. Right now, AI accounts for $16 billion of SpaceX's revenue, up from $3 billion in 2024 when "substantially all AI revenue came from X, primarily through advertising, subscriptions, and data licensing," Gesuale wrote. Raymond James estimates that the figure will rise to about $650 billion by 2031, "making AI the company's largest business by revenue beginning in 2027, and by 2035 it will represent nearly 94% of SpaceX's revenue, or $4.9 trillion, Gesuale wrote. Shifting toward a business model that focuses on monetising compute rather than space travel is how Gesuale believes SpaceX will achieve his revenue targets. "That growth is underpinned by a rapid expansion in installed compute capacity, initially through terrestrial AI infrastructure before progressively extending into orbital compute later in the decade," he wrote. Gesuale notes that the bullish forecasts aren't without their risks. In a scenario where SpaceX experiences unexpected launch failures, the stock could fall to $125, below its $135 initial public offering price. Launch failures would "raise concerns about the pace of orbital AI, Starlink Mobile, and Starship-enabled infrastructure optionality," Gesuale said.
Palantir CEO slams OpenAI, Anthropic's token model
Palantir CEO Alex Karp has slammed the token-based pricing of AI giants like OpenAI and Anthropic, arguing businesses are wasting money without clear returns. Karp said companies are now moving away from simply buying more tokens and are instead focussing on whether their AI spending delivers a clear return on investment. Palantir chief executive Alex Karp has criticised the token model used by Anthropic and OpenAI, saying businesses are spending too much on artificial intelligence without seeing enough value in return. "I'm not throwing shade at them, but something has gone completely wrong," he told CNBC's 'Squawk Box'. "The basic view among enterprises in this country is I'm going to chillax and waste my time with tokens." Most leading AI companies charge customers based on tokens (small units of text that AI models process when users type prompts or receive responses). As newer AI models become more powerful, they also require more computing power, making them significantly more expensive to run. Karp said companies are now moving away from simply buying more tokens and are instead focussing on whether their AI spending delivers a clear return on investment. That shift is also pushing businesses towards open-weight AI models. Unlike closed models, open-weight models make their trained parameters available, allowing companies to customise them and run them on their own infrastructure at a much lower cost. Karp warned that companies should not underestimate China's pace of progress in AI development. Chinese models are improving rapidly, increasing pressure on leading US AI firms. He added that more businesses are choosing to build and train their own models using their internal data, rather than relying entirely on third-party AI providers. "What aligns me with Nvidia, and I think is what the technical customers want, which is control over their compute, their models, their data stack, and their alpha," Karp told CNBC. "They want to know they own the means of production. It's not being transferred to someone else." In simple terms, Karp argues that companies want full control over the computing infrastructure powering their AI, the data used to train it, and the models themselves, instead of depending on external AI labs. Earlier this week, Palantir expanded its partnership with Nvidia to help US government agencies build custom AI models using Nvidia's computing infrastructure. The arrangement will allow agencies to train AI on their own data while retaining ownership of the models and the knowledge embedded in them. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Palantir published a nine-point manifesto on X, advocating AI sovereignty -- the idea that organisations and governments should own and control their AI systems and data. The post also criticised "tokenmaxxing" as a business model.
A new, inexpensive Chinese AI model is catching up with Anthropic, OpenAI on their home turf
Western startups are increasingly turning their attention to affordable and powerful AI models from China, particularly Z. ai's GLM-5.2, which competes with leading US technologies at significantly lower prices. This trend, referred to as a 'mini DeepSeek moment,' is generating buzz in Silicon Valley due to its coding capabilities. However, US enterprises, especially in regulated industries, remain cautious due to ongoing data security concerns. Since DeepSeek shocked markets early last year with its cheap but powerful AI model, global consumers have been faced with a choice: Chinese offerings with lower prices and less capability or OpenAI or Anthropic, which have poured billions into development. A model called GLM-5.2, launched last month by Beijing-based startup Z. ai, may finally be closing that gap in terms of Western interest. GLM-5.2 has Silicon Valley buzzing with its coding and agent capabilities, or the ability to execute complex tasks with minimal prompting, that almost rival leading U.S. offerings at a fraction of the cost, in what some experts are calling a "mini DeepSeek moment." It has quickly climbed the usage charts on third-party AI developer platforms like OpenRouter, where it now ranks above Anthropic's models, while executives from cloud data platform Snowflake's CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy to venture capitalist Marc Andreessen have lauded its abilities. "We now have a Chinese open-weight model that is as good as the currently available models from OpenAI and Anthropic," said David Sacks, U.S. President Donald Trump's former AI czar, last week before Washington lifted curbs on Anthropic's Fable and Mythos models on Tuesday. Those capabilities have put Z. ai's GLM-5.2 model at the heart of a growing debate about whether China is finally catching up to the U.S. in the AI race, as technology executives warn that Washington's unpredictable regulation of the industry risks hampering its lead in the frontier technology. "It is just a tick below Opus 4.8 (from Anthropic) and right up there with GPT 5.5 (from OpenAI)," Sacks said of GLM-5.2 on the All-In podcast, adding that "we cannot afford to do things that slow our companies down." The Anthropic curbs and the delayed public rollout of OpenAI's latest GPT-5.6 model have fueled global demand for the Chinese model, some experts said. "The international developer community is increasingly aware that relying solely on proprietary, U.S.-based API models carries significant risk," said Brian Tse, founder and CEO of Concordia AI, a Beijing-based consultancy focused on AI safety. GLM-5.2's positive global reception also suggests increased interest in cheaper open-source development because businesses are getting stung by the rising and often unpredictable costs of using AI to complete tasks, as closed-source agentic AI tools consume more tokens, the units used to measure AI usage. Z. ai, also known as Zhipu AI, declined to comment. Anthropic and OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment. GLM-5.2 currently holds fifth place on Artificial Analysis' large language model (LLM) intelligence leaderboard, which ranks performance across a range of benchmarks designed to measure overall capability, including reasoning and coding skills. And it is in the second spot on Code Arena's front-end coding rankings, measuring how well models generate websites and front-end applications, while operating at roughly a sixth of the cost of closed U.S. frontier models like Claude and the GPT series. Z. ai has not disclosed how much it spent to develop GLM-5.2. In a reply to Elon Musk on X last month, Z. ai founder Tang Jie said that the Chinese startup could produce a model on par with Anthropic's Fable before the first quarter of next year. "The shift GLM-5.2 brings is that the open-source model has become a plug-and-play, out-of-the-box product," said Tiezhen Wang, former APAC lead at Hugging Face, a startup that serves as a hub for developers tinkering with open-source models. "You just deploy the model and without doing any complex fine-tuning systems, it is in a highly usable, ready-to-use state. This drastically lowers the barrier to entry for open-source adoption." CONVINCING AMERICAN BUSINESSES One major hurdle to GLM-5.2's large-scale adoption remains data security concerns that have limited use of Chinese models by U.S. enterprises, particularly in regulated industries like banking and cybersecurity. The migration and upgrading of enterprise AI systems typically takes several months, Wang said. "I have seen some discussion among European companies about whether it could be used in enterprise settings," said Wei Sun, principal AI analyst at Counterpoint Research. "In the EU and U.S., some clients, partners and regulated industries may simply be unwilling to accept Chinese models in their AI stack, regardless of technical performance or price." A report earlier this year by non-profit RAND, based on website traffic data across 135 countries, found that Chinese LLMs' global market share jumped to 13% from 3% in the two months after DeepSeek launched its R1 model in January last year. The release sparked a global tech selloff because it contrasted DeepSeek's low cost with massive AI infrastructure spending elsewhere. China's LLM usage gains were most pronounced in developing countries and those with close political and economic ties to Beijing. Some experts said concerns about the safety of Chinese AI models were overblown, arguing that running them on U.S. cloud providers or on a company's own servers ensured data security. While major corporations are slow to migrate, tech startups and small- and medium-sized enterprises are moving much faster. "Developers tend to care less about where a model comes from than whether it works, how much it costs and whether they can deploy or access it reliably," said Poe Zhao, China tech analyst and founder of the Hello China Tech newsletter. "The likely pattern is partial routing, not overnight replacement of OpenAI or Anthropic. So yes, it is a mini DeepSeek moment but in a narrower, developer-centric sense."
Alternatives to OpenAI, Anthropic: With US prime AI off the table, India opts for fine China
Chinese open-source models, which were already popular among startups due to lower costs, may now make their way to large enterprises looking to avoid disruptions to top-dollar artificial intelligence projects. "The choice is pragmatic, not political," said Nipun Kalra, managing director and senior partner at BCG. The US government's tighter controls on frontier AI models from Anthropic and OpenAI are pushing Indian companies towards Asian alternatives as they seek project continuity and the performance gap narrows. Chinese open-source models, which were already popular among startups due to lower costs, may now make their way to large enterprises looking to avoid disruptions to top-dollar artificial intelligence projects. "The choice is pragmatic, not political," said Nipun Kalra, managing director and senior partner at BCG. Capability vs costs The trend is "driven by cost, strong performance and licences that let enterprises self-host," said Kalra. Last week, China's Ziphu AI launched the GLM-5.2 model, which sits quite close to Anthropic's Opus 4.8 on performance benchmarks. The release has sparked a 'DeepSeek-like' moment because GLM is priced at a fifth the cost of Opus. Another Chinese firm, 360 Security Technology, unveiled two AI security tools under the banner Yitian Tulong -- named after Chinese epic novel Tulongfeng -- that automatically discover software vulnerabilities, and Yitianzhen to automate cyber defence and incident response. Japan's Sakana AI launched Fugu, a multi-agent orchestrator system that works as a single model. Reports claim these Asian labs are head-to-head with Anthropic and OpenAI. A new JPMorgan analysis showed that Chinese models now cost 10-50 times less per token than frontier models. These models from companies including DeepSeek, Alibaba, Xiaomi, MiniMax and Moonshot now dominate what it describes as the industry's 'intelligence-per-dollar' frontier, where performance is balanced against operating costs, the report said. "We're seeing real momentum - but the shift is towards open-weight models, and by independent benchmarks most of the well performing ones today happen to be Chinese," BCG's Kalra said. He, however, said western closed models still lead in frontier workloads. "Most enterprises are going multi-model and tiered, not switching wholesale." A recent joint research by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Hugging Face revealed that Chinese models accounted for 17.1% of global downloads in 2025, surpassing the US share of 15.8%. "On capability, Chinese open-weight models are becoming extremely impressive," said Nikhil Narendran, partner at law firm Trilegal and a tech policy thought leader. "They are far cheaper, can often be downloaded and self-hosted, and the gap with frontier systems is narrowing fast." He explained that open-weights can run inside an enterprise environment and therefore have a privacy advantage. Trust factor But whether enterprises can trust Chinese open-source models remains an open question. "If India merely responds to American dependency by rushing into Chinese dependency, we have not achieved sovereignty. We have merely changed our landlord," Narendran said. This month, the US government restricted access of Anthropic's Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models to foreign nationals. Last week, it asked OpenAI to limit the preview rollout of its GPT-5.6 family - Sol, Terra and Luna - to a small group of government-vetted partners. "This is probably the first time that ethnicities have become part of geopolitical strategy in a way that determines who can access critical technologies, and that could have far-reaching implications for R&D, hiring, funding and global collaboration," said Abishur Prakash, an author and geopolitical strategist at Canada-based advisory firm The Geopolitical Business Inc. "To me, the bigger question is how this trickles into more division within the global economy and society." Experts said such restrictions underscore the need for India to build a sovereign AI strategy to ensure access to latest frontier models and strengthen domestic capabilities. "The real lesson of recent weeks is concentration risk: dependence on any single provider can change by policy overnight," BCG's Kalra said. "For India, the priority is optionality and sovereign capability."
India's AI ambitions hit as US curbs access to key Anthropic models
India's reliance on foreign-controlled advanced AI models, like Anthropic's, is under scrutiny after a US government directive suspended access. Experts warn this highlights a significant vulnerability, potentially hindering India's ambition to become an AI power. The incident underscores the need for stronger domestic capabilities and strategic infrastructure to avoid being merely an adopter of technologies controlled elsewhere, emphasizing the geopolitical implications of frontier AI. Anthropic's suspension of access to its advanced Mythos and Fable models after a US government directive has sparked a debate over whether India is becoming overly reliant on advanced artificial intelligence technologies that are controlled by foreign entities. Policy experts and researchers caution that India can no longer assume it will have continued access to essential AI capabilities. The US government directive came shortly after India had secured access to the company's highly guarded AI systems. Experts say the development is not merely about one AI model being withdrawn. Instead, it has exposed a deeper vulnerability in India's AI ambitions. "It is arguably the most visceral example of the risks of depending on frontier AI controlled outside India, because access vanished overnight by government order rather than commercial choice," said Subimal Bhattacharjee, a technology policy analyst. "The gap between what's economically rational today and what's strategically safe long term has rarely been so visible." According to Bhattacharjee, dependence on foreign AI infrastructure is not new. India has long relied on foreign chips, cloud infrastructure, and digital platforms. However, the Anthropic episode made an abstract risk feel immediate by showing how access to frontier AI capabilities can ultimately depend on decisions taken outside the country. The incident has also raised questions over whether India risks becoming an AI adopter rather than an AI power. "A country becomes an AI power when it possesses meaningful influence over the foundational layers of the AI stack," said Kazim Rizvi, policy analyst and founder of public policy think tank The Dialogue. Those layers include advanced models, compute infrastructure, semiconductor access, data ecosystems, and the ability to shape how AI systems are deployed, he said. Rizvi said, "The issue is not merely access to one Anthropic model, but the fact that a capability relevant to cyber defence, vulnerability discovery, and critical infrastructure security could be withdrawn through decisions taken outside India." He added that nations relying entirely on external providers remain vulnerable to export controls, geopolitical tensions, and shifting regulatory priorities. "Frontier AI should now be treated as strategic infrastructure, not merely as a commercial software service," he said. Sarang Nerkar, former researcher and founder of Innosapien Technologies, said the episode should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers and enterprises alike. "It is not access to data that is being restricted. It is the model itself. The algorithmic layer is being controlled from abroad, and that is something we should take very seriously," Nerkar said. He cautioned that organisations building critical systems around frontier AI models need to carefully assess their dependence on technologies they do not control. "Imagine if access were suddenly restricted to a model that an organisation had relied on for two years. Entire workflows and dependencies could be affected," he said. The episode has also raised concerns about the concentration of power in the global AI ecosystem. "The incident is less about Mythos or Anthropic and more about the structural reality of today's AI ecosystem," said Mishi Choudhary, founder of Software Freedom Law Center India. "A handful of companies and governments control the most advanced models, the compute infrastructure, and often the terms of access." Choudhary said the answer is not technological isolation but greater resilience through open-source AI, public-interest research, stronger domestic capabilities, and procurement policies that reduce dependence on any single provider. As access to frontier AI increasingly becomes a geopolitical issue, experts argue India will need significantly greater investments in research, compute infrastructure and domestic AI capabilities if it wants a meaningful role in shaping the next phase of the global AI race.
China cybersecurity firm 360 Security Technology claims to have developed tools to match Anthropic's Mythos
Anthropic Mythos, previewed in April, is a system that detects software vulnerabilities, but cybersecurity experts have warned that it could supercharge cyberattacks. Chinese cybersecurity firm 360 Security Technology has developed what it calls a domestic answer to Anthropic's Mythos, it said on Wednesday, casting the U.S. model as a strategic cyber capability that China could not afford to lack. Mythos, previewed in April, is a system that detects software vulnerabilities, but cybersecurity experts have warned that it could supercharge cyberattacks. The U.S. this month ordered Anthropic to suspend exports of a less powerful version of the programme, citing national security concerns. Speaking at the ISC. AI 2026 cybersecurity conference in Beijing, 360 founder Zhou Hongyi unveiled two AI security tools under the banner "Yitian Tulong", a name drawn from a classic Chinese martial arts novel meaning "Heavenly Sword and Dragon Saber". Zhou said one tool, "Tulongfeng", was designed to automatically discover software vulnerabilities, calling it "China's version of Mythos", while a second system, "Yitianzhen", was built to automate cyber defence and incident response. "This kind of powerful weapon that can change the landscape of cyber offence and defence cannot be held only by others," Zhou said in a speech, according to a transcript published by 360. He described vulnerability-finding AI as a national strategic asset that could be used both to defend critical infrastructure and to gain offensive advantage. Cyberattacks - U. S and China China and the U.S. have a long history of accusing each other of conducting offensive cyber operations on critical infrastructure. 360's release marks the most high-profile Chinese answer yet to Anthropic's Mythos model, which has triggered alarm in Washington and other capitals, as well as across the cybersecurity industry, over its ability to discover vulnerabilities in sensitive systems. Anthropic said in April that Mythos Preview had found "thousands" of major vulnerabilities in operating systems, web browsers and other software, Reuters reported. The U.S. government has ordered the company to suspend exports of a less powerful version of Mythos to destinations worldwide and all foreign nationals due to national security concerns. Zhou argued that China faced a risk of "one-way transparency" if U.S. entities could use Mythos-like models to scan software and critical systems while Chinese companies were denied comparable capabilities. His remarks reflect widespread unease in China at what the country's state media has called the "unprecedented cyberattack capabilities" displayed by Mythos. Zhou is a member of China's top political advisory body. 360 said Tulongfeng had found 3,432 software vulnerabilities, including 105 confirmed by Chinese authorities. Reuters could not independently verify the claims. Zhou said 360 would not simply copy the U.S. approach, which he described as relying on "the strongest model, the strongest computing power and the strongest chips". U.S. Export Controls Tightening U.S. export controls on China's access to cutting-edge U.S. chips since 2022 have prevented domestic models from catching up to American rivals including Anthropic, though the gap has narrowed since last year. The U.S. has justified these restrictions by arguing these chips would allow the Chinese military to turbocharge its capabilities with AI. "Objectively speaking, domestic models still have a 20%-30% gap in base capability," Zhou said. "China cannot wait until model capabilities have fully caught up before starting vulnerability discovery, because we cannot afford to wait." Instead, Zhou said his company was taking an "agent" route, combining models with security expertise, vulnerability databases and automated tools, an approach he claimed only 360 had successfully deployed, giving Tulongfeng "Mythos-equivalent capabilities". "If Mythos is a top-end chip, what we are building is a complete machine that can run stably, work 24 hours a day and make fewer mistakes," he said. "If the U.S. route is to cultivate a genius hacker, 360's route is to organise a professional attack-and-defence team." Last year, Anthropic said that hackers exploited vulnerabilities in its Claude AI to attack around 30 global organizations. Moreover, 67% of the 1,000 executives surveyed in an IBM and Palo Alto Networks study said they had been targeted by AI attacks within the past year. Zhou, a veteran Chinese internet entrepreneur and outspoken technology commentator, founded 360, which became one of China's best-known cybersecurity companies through antivirus software and later expanded into enterprise and government security.
Elon Musk loses trillionaire status as SpaceX rally fades
Elon Musk's net worth has dipped below the trillion-dollar mark following a significant slump in SpaceX and Tesla shares. Just weeks after becoming the world's first trillionaire post-SpaceX's IPO, investor enthusiasm has waned. Despite recent volatility and concerns about AI valuations, credit agencies maintain a stable outlook on SpaceX's financial standing. SpaceX founder Elon Musk's worth has fallen back below the trillionaire mark after a sharp decline in SpaceX and Tesla shares erased a significant portion of his wealth. According to the Bloomberg's Billionaires Index, Musk's net worth stood at $957 billion as of June 24. The drop comes just weeks after he became the world's first trillionaire following SpaceX's blockbuster initial public offer (IPO), which valued the company at more than $2 trillion. Investor enthusiasm around the stock has cooled since. SpaceX shares closed at about $156 on Tuesday, still above their June 12 listing price of $150. However, trading remained volatile. During the session, the stock fell as much as 4.8%, surged 7.1%, and then gave up much of those gains before the close. The stock had previously staged a remarkable rally, touching an intraday high of about $225 on June 16. At that point, SpaceX briefly overtook Amazon and Microsoft to become the world's fourth-most valuable listed company. Since last week, however, roughly $600 billion in market value has been wiped off the company, with the selloff coinciding with weakness across technology and other high-growth stocks. Concerns emerged after a decline in Korean chipmaker stocks reignited fears that valuations linked to the artificial intelligence (AI) boom may have run ahead of fundamentals. Questions are also being raised about whether rising interest rates and growing worries around a potential AI-driven market bubble could put further pressure on tech stocks. Speaking on 'The Intangible Economy with Kai Wu' podcast earlier this week, veteran valuation expert Aswath Damodaran said the trillion-dollar narrative is driven almost entirely by AI. "The market is huge... that's what's driving the trillion, 2 trillion, 2.5 trillion pricing. But the business is really not a business yet," he cautioned. He also flagged a contradiction in SpaceX's approach. "We're going to compete... win a significant share of the AI market. But in the same breath, you're also saying we're renting out space in our data centres to our biggest competitors," he said, calling it a tension that "will have to gel". Despite the recent volatility, credit rating agencies remain positive about the company. On June 19, Moody's, Fitch, and S&P Global Ratings assigned SpaceX investment-grade ratings with a "stable" outlook following its high-profile IPO. This indicates confidence in the company's financial position as it pursues an ambitious AI strategy in an increasingly competitive market. History also suggests that sharp swings are not unusual after major listings. A Reuters analysis of the 50 largest IPOs by value over the past five years found that investors would have earned better returns from an S&P 500 index fund about 75% of the time.
SpaceX shares eke out a gain to snap three day losing streak
SpaceX shares rebounded Tuesday, halting a three-day slump that saw over $600 billion vanish from its valuation. The stock climbed significantly after a brief dip below its IPO price. Meanwhile, the company is experiencing immense investor interest, attracting approximately $89 billion in demand for its inaugural US bond sale, signaling a major financial event in the investment-grade market. SpaceX shares ended higher on Tuesday, snapping a three-day selloff that wiped out more than $600 billion from the Elon Musk-led rocket and satellite company's market value. The stock gained 1% to close at $156.11 after a choppy session that saw shares slip as much as 4.8%, then jump 7.1% before paring much of that advance by market close. The volatility came amid a broad-based slide in technology and other high-momentum stocks after a selloff in Korean chipmakers stoked fears about the rally in companies involved in artificial intelligence. US MarketsPowered By As on 24 Jun 2026, 01:30 AM IST S&P 500 Top Gainers Axon Enterprise433.04(5.61%) CDW130.06(5.25%) GE HealthCare Techs63.72(5.08%) IBM264.94(5.04%) Gainers" S&P 500 Top Losers Micron Technology1,052(-13.18%) ON Semiconductor117.06(-11.01%) Lam Research371.33(-9.33%) Microchip Technology93.26(-9.20%) Losers" Still, the rebound helped reverse some of Monday's 16% plunge that erased $400 billion in market value, marking the second-largest one-day loss on record. Only Nvidia Corp.'s roughly $590 billion plunge last year is bigger. SpaceX's market capitalization was about $2 trillion at Tuesday's close. The stock moves are following a typical IPO pattern where "everybody was enjoying the hype and the mania," said Louis Navellier of Navellier & Associates, adding that pressure on shares will build as lockups that keep insiders from selling expire and the company reports earnings figures. "It's just a lesson that you have to follow fundamentals." After pulling off a record $86 billion IPO in mid-June, SpaceX, officially named Space Exploration Technologies Corp., raised $25 billion of bonds in its debut offer Tuesday, making it the latest megacap technology company to tap investors for its AI expansion. The highest demand was for the bond deal's least risky tranche, Bloomberg News reported. Separately, SpaceX also inked a multibillion-dollar agreement to provide computing resources to Reflection AI, an AI startup, the company said Monday. Also on Tuesday, Susquehanna Financial started coverage on the stock with a neutral rating and $170 price target. That target represents upside of nearly 9% from the stock's Tuesday close. Currently, six of the firms tracked by Bloomberg recommend buying the stock, while two including Susquehanna have hold-equivalent ratings. There is one sell rating. The average price target stands at nearly $227, suggesting return potential of about 45% off Tuesday's close.
