Buried in SpaceX's IPO: a Tesla merger clue and a $3.75 billion insider windfall for friends and family – Fortune
No good deed goes unpunished: The Magnificent 7 were down 1.25% at the close. Broadcom fared even worse. It lost 12.8% in overnight trading after reporting revenues that were a smidge below expectations, and after CEO Hock Tan didn’t raise his guidance for future AI chip sales. To put that in context: Investors punished the company despite the fact that revenue was up 48% to $15 billion from the prior year, and its stock is up 38.47% for the year.
Why does the S&P 500 keep hitting new highs? Because of strong fundamentals. Revenues across the index rose 6.3% annually and earnings grew 26% in Q1, according to Ronnie Walker at Goldman Sachs.
“FEMO”: Ed Yardeni and Toby Hearst of Yardeni Research have a word for this: FEMO, which stands for “fabulous earnings momentum.” They’re still bullish: “On May 10, we raised our year-end target for the S&P 500 from 7,700 to 8,250. We are sticking with it.”
Increased “uncertainty”: Paul Donovan at UBS hit Command+F on the latest from the Fed. “The Federal Reserve Beige Book’s summary of economic anecdote mentioned ‘uncertain’ and ‘uncertainty’ no fewer than 50 times this month (before tariffs were announced). That is below the uncertainty peak that followed last year’s tariffs, but well above the 14 mentions in May 2024. Uncertainty has a paralyzing effect on business decisions—and the risk is that uncertainty endures.”
There is a new sentence in SpaceX’s amended IPO filing which gives a strong clue to Elon Musk’s plan for the company. The line says that the company “may issue a significant amount of equity in connection with future transactions.” Aside from the obvious shareholder dilution that might entail, it seems to be suggesting that SpaceX will purchase Musk’s second-largest holding, Tesla, according to Fortune’s Shawn Tully.
At the same time, the IPO also reserves 5% of its shares for “certain employees and persons…and friends and families of our executive officers” who “will not be subject to a lockup restriction.” In other words, the folks who receive these allocations, unlike Elon Musk and top execs who can’t sell for around a year, are free to unload their holdings any time after SpaceX’s debut, slated for mid-June.
These recipients could pocket gigantic windfalls overnight. SpaceX will issue 555.6 million shares at $135 each to raise roughly $75 billion. So it’s handing friends and family the right to buy $3.75 billion in shares (5% of $75 billion) at the “insider” price.
“All great technology changes produce bubbles,” Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, told Bloomberg. “Nobody can get it exactly right. You have to either spend a ton of money to capture your market share and don’t worry about whether it’s too much or not, or you don’t spend enough money and you lose your market share.”
“The pricking is the converting of wealth into money,” he said. Today’s AI-driven market is “following that kind of path, even though it is a wonderful technology.”
The new jobs number—nonfarm payrolls, to give it its official name—will be published Friday and, as always, it will be closely watched for clues as to how it might influence the Fed. Many analysts are predicting the number will be between 85,000 and 92,000.
“Strong, it may be,” to quote Bank of America’s Alex Cohen (who was channeling Yoda in a note yesterday for no obvious reason). He’s hoping it’s going to be 95,000.
If the job market remains healthy, that increases the pressure on the Fed to hike interest rates because it would mean that inflation is likely still being pushed higher by healthy wage demands and the rising price of oil. Raising rates is the Fed's main way of throttling inflation.
Of course, this is the exact opposite of what President Trump wants, putting new Fed chairman Kevin Warsh in a very awkward position.
“We see the [Federal Open Market Committee] raising the federal funds rate in July, after pivoting to a tightening bias at its meeting this month,” Ed Yardeni of Yardeni Research predicted. “That would be appropriate given the resilient economy, stable labor market, and rising inflation.”
Jim Reid and his team at Deutsche Bank also noted that “speculation about a potential Fed rate hike continue[s], with futures taking the probability of a hike by December up to 71% by the close [of business on Tuesday]."
CME’s FedWatch index, which tracks Fed funds futures prices, puts the probability of the Fed keeping rates on hold in June and July at greater than 90%. But, for September, the dissenting bets move to the upside: 27% of speculators think the Fed will have raised rates by then (as of yesterday).
President Trump has told White House aides that he won’t reignite full-scale conflict with Iran unless U.S. troops are killed—another sign that the president is seeking a de-escalation of the conflict, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Israel and Lebanon agreed a new ceasefire that is "contingent on a complete cessation" of attacks by Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist proxy group, the BBC reports. The agreement came after Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon and Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel.
CEO says anyone who works from home is grabbing groceries or at the vet 30% of the time—and shows off his busy office at Friday 5 p.m. to prove it – Orianna Rosa Royle
Inside the $9 billion World Cup: How Gianni Infantino built a FIFA-dom with a tight grip on soccer’s biggest global event – Vivienne Walt
Republicans defy Trump in shock move, passing resolution in Congress to limit Iran war powers – Lisa Mascaro
This NYC bar just covered everyone’s tabs because the Knicks won, and used Kalshi to hedge their bets – Catherina Gioino
Exclusive: Nvidia snaps up Kumo AI in latest acquisition – Sharon Goldman
OpenAI’s ChatGPT acquired 1 billion monthly active users just three years after its launch, according to Sensor Tower. That was far faster than Messenger, TikTok, YouTube or Instagram, which all took five to eight years to get to the 1 billion MAUs level.
Anthropic’s Claude may only have a fraction of ChatGPT’s users, just 56 million according to Sensor Tower, but in Q1 2026 something changed. “ChatGPT users who installed Claude in 1Q26 spent 5% less time on the former one month post-install,” the market intelligence firm claims.
The amount of capex that Goldman Sachs expects will be spent on AI compute, data centers, and power from 2026 to 2031.
Partners Group warns it could cap more fund withdrawals after triggering private equity rout – CNBC
Trump’s empire of debt – FT
The Meltdown Inside ‘60 Minutes’ – WSJ
Glazer Family Members Debate Manchester United Stake Sale – Bloomberg
House Votes to Rein In Trump on Iran War, in a Bipartisan Rebuke – NYT
New York police are hunting a group of seven people who, for unknown reasons, popped out of the sewer system in the middle of a road in Brooklyn and then disappeared in the middle of the night. “Some wore headlamps and carried what appeared to be shovels and other tools,” the AP reported. In another incident in Queens, three people stopped traffic to access a manhole cover.
You can see video of the incident here, and CBS News notes that the previous week eight men were seen entering a different sewer hole at 1 a.m. and then re-emerging nearly three hours later.
Last year, police charged three people with burglary and criminal mischief for sneaking around in the sewers. One of them claimed he was “looking for treasure."
Fortune is happy to add to the idle speculation: The NYPD should check whether these sewers are near any local banks or jewelers. In April of this year, and previously back in 2020, two teams of robbers held up banks in Naples and Milan before making their escape through holes in the floor…which led into the sewer system.
Jim Edwards is the executive editor for global news at Fortune. He was previously the editor-in-chief of Business Insider's news division and the founding editor of Business Insider UK. His investigative journalism has changed the law in two U.S. federal districts and two states. The U.S. Supreme Court cited his work on the death penalty in the concurrence to Baze v. Rees, the ruling on whether lethal injection is cruel or unusual. He also won the Neal award for an investigation of bribes and kickbacks on Madison Avenue.
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