On one hand, a lot of this is just cronyism, on the other it makes you wonder how much the resiliency of the US economy is enabling not just Trump admin but a lot to state & municipalities that otherwise would be in pretty rough shape right now and much more desperate for economic support

The Wall Street Journal@wsj.com · 16h ago

New York City’s business elites are long accustomed to direct access to City Hall, where even Democratic mayors felt the need to court the city’s wealthiest and most influential corporate leaders. That access is getting shredded by Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

I don’t think there’s any one quick and easy tax policy fix in the us but you probably have to play whack-a-mole a lot more aggressively to avoid entrenched entitlement on the far end of the income spectrum (cf carried interest)

All the large renewable developers shifting to gas but refusing to update their save the world mission statements

My favorite part of this story. Which tech podcaster did they get instead of a DJ lol

Feels like musk is going to instruct grok to go do some bad hacking stuff to keep up with the anthropic/oai humble brags of this week

we heard you wanted the definitive tick tock www.ft.com/content/620b...

How Leopold Aschenbrenner, the ‘golden child’ of the AI trade, was laid low

The $20bn hedge fund manager’s wild ride ended with a call to Ken Griffin

ft.com

One trend that’s not overly obvious in the financial discourse is the capex substitution by way of opex and as much contingent liabilities as ratings agencies will allow them to get away with. It’s unfortunately really hard to quantify how much is pushed out this way vs. own b/s capacity baseline

Conor Sen@conorsen.bsky.social · 7d ago

Realistically Meta can't/won't raise equity at these prices, so they only have one lever to fund additional capex spend from here.

Imagine your main qualification for the job is to get this deal through and instead you get the largest (?) breakup fee in M&A history

NPV10@npv10.bsky.social · last wk.

Great job to the Paramounts head of legal who was ex anti trust head at Trump I DOJ.

Great job to the Paramounts head of legal who was ex anti trust head at Trump I DOJ.

Carl Quintanilla@carlquintanilla.bsky.social · last wk.

(Bloomberg) - Larry Ellison and his family would be on the hook for $9.8 billion if Paramount Skydance Corp.’s deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. falls apart. @bloomberg.com $PSKY $ORCL www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Yet Musk has been exceptionally successful in building massive datacenters largely due to a cavalier approach to laws&regs that other AI labs can’t stomach directly… that might be as valuable as hiring talent (which seems to be particularly mercenary in AI world, despite all the ethics posturing)

William B. Fuckley@opinionhaver.bsky.social · 2w ago

I think Elon is likely gonna be an also-ran in AI bc his talents as a businessman were as salesman/recruiter: selling talented people on working for his companies because they had an idealistic vision. His public image is now trash & those kinda people in AI already have jobs at OpenAi or Anthropic

I don't think we appreciate enough just how much wealth Musk was able to generate by 10x-ing SpaceX over a 2-3 yr period: it permits him to acquire/merge a stagnating Tesla and still come out massively ahead in terms of his wealth (and control) vs. the alternative (dealing with a deflating balloon)

NPV10@npv10.bsky.social · 2w ago

I think it would benefit Elon for SpaceX to be the hype-driven MuskCo pre-merger

I think it would benefit Elon for SpaceX to be the hype-driven MuskCo pre-merger

Joel Wertheimer@wertwhile.bsky.social · 2w ago

Would be ironic if the spacex ipo was Elon flying too close to the sun.

Not that it matters for a MuskCo, but one problem with investing into asset heavy capacity is that it's basically impossible to achieve any meaningful profitability - despite $ bn in cash flow - under an infrastructure biz model if capital is raised at 50x P/B

FinTwitter@fintwitter.bsky.social · 3w ago

SPACEX, PENTAGON DISCUSS DEAL WORTH SEVERAL BILLIONS: WSJ

Quite notable that unlike say Google et al, Anthropic as the *Public Benefit Corporation*, has zero public disclosure on its carbon foot print nor any carbon footprint commitments. Perhaps it’s time to get rid of the latest double bottom line zombie and start from scratch

NPV10@npv10.bsky.social · 3w ago

Claude on track of having by far the worst carbon footprint of frontier models huh?

Claude on track of having by far the worst carbon footprint of frontier models huh?

George Pearkes@peark.es · 3w ago

NYT: $META negotiating capacity lease to Anthropic

should be kept in mind: the idea was to create collective farms (kolkhoz), kibbutzim sans self-governing or ability to sell freely their harvests. as the contemporary joke went: CPSU: create kolkhozes! JEWISH AUTONOMY: created! now please send the peasants

100 years ago news@100yearsagonews.bsky.social · 3w ago

July 15, 1926: The Soviet Union approves a plan to resettle up to 1 million Jews in an autonomous region of the Crimea, with the goal of making many of them farmers. The policy is championed by President Mikhail Kalinin and backed by U.S. Jewish charities but will never be embraced by Stalin.

The exhausting discourse about Klein (podcast/NYT millennials), Yglesias (too online X/bsky millennials), et al represent a growing vacuum for fresh left of center pol discourse. Neither their content, nor objection to it, suggests an ability to shape or meaningfully assess the zeitgeist

Re: OpenAI lawsuit, I don’t really understand how Apple had such lax cyber security policies. Senior exec just taking with them a second laptop to their next job and Apple not wiping this thing asap? Feels really strange coming from plain vanilla regulated finance world world

You get the sense that the takeaway from a lot of VC/Tech that ESG is woke and thus dead really did extend itself to the G part despite it being mostly about like following laws and mitigating very material compliance risks and conflicts

Chance the Lawyer@chancethelawyer.bsky.social · 4w ago

Let’s just say as someone with experience in corporate governance, listening to the trial testimony about how corporate formalities have been observed (a generous verb) wrt shivon, elon, the board, the whole nine yards makes one wonder what else they are handling poorly.

Great timing ahead of S1 disclosures.

FinTwitter@fintwitter.bsky.social · 4w ago

APPLE SUES OPENAI ALLEGING MISAPPROPRIATION OF TRADE SECRETS, COURT RECORDS SHOW

Is there a market for whether he’s on Rogan or Tucker first?

Secretary of Defense Rock@sodrock.bsky.social · 4w ago

He’ll be on the RW grifter track in no time lol

I’m fairly cynical of the PBC concept’s ability to meaningfully secure private public alignment but the symbolism of appointing a figure whose legacy is (rightly or wrongly) the prioritization of financial markets over public/employment to the oversight board prior to the IPO surprises me still

NPV10@npv10.bsky.social · 4w ago

Setting up oversight board to be as market friendly/wall st name recognition as possible ahead of s1/IPO as not to scare the listing narrative with PBC governance structure

Setting up oversight board to be as market friendly/wall st name recognition as possible ahead of s1/IPO as not to scare the listing narrative with PBC governance structure

Jonathan Todd@yontodd.bsky.social · 4w ago

I'm not sure what this means but ok Market sources: ANTHROPIC has hired former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke to oversee trust institutions.

One of the more relatable trump moments to me

Shipwreck@shipwreck75.bsky.social · 4w ago

REPORTER: “Last month you said Iranian leaders were very rational people, nice to deal with, strong and smart. Today you said they're scum, sick people, and being led by sick people. What changed?” TRUMP: “I got to know them”

To the extent I think about SpaceX stock prices, I think it's useful to think of it as a combined MuskCo for various reasons that probably will become increasingly relevant

George Pearkes@peark.es · 4w ago

*SPACEX SHARES FALL 6.8% TO CLOSE AT LOWEST LEVEL SINCE IPO

Presumably part of Iranians newfound sovereignty over SoH requires them to shoot at vessels at fairly regular cadence (without necessarily escalating) to maintain its claims… not fun for the maritime industry there

The Associated Press@apnews.com · 4w ago

A tanker traveling off the coast of Oman in the Strait of Hormuz has caught on fire after being struck by a projectile. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, though Iran is suspected of attacking at least two other vessels in the area in recent days.

It’s a self selection mechanism as finance is fundamentally a trade where (like most professions) skills are taught on the job. The avg finance grad is far likely to be a better fit for the job than the avg humanities grad; but certain humanities grads make excellent/better finance professionals.

Regime Accountant, CPA ☠️🎢@regimecpa.bsky.social · last mo.

It’s fine to hire humanities majors into finance because finance is not that hard.

Is it safe to return to DC today?

This project has been challenged long before current macro trends but a good heuristic for where global LNG markets are heading if middle income economies are abandoning lng2power projects to the point where turbines are sold for salvage/refurb value to the us

Gas turbine sale signals the end of another Philippine LNG project

After more than a decade of delays, Australia-based Energy World Corporation’s (EWC) liquefied natural gas (LNG)-to-power project in the Philippines appears to have come to an end following the sale o...

ieefa.org

😂 for a second the MD vs MO typo caught me! Can’t imagine the level of mass freakout if this was announced in MoCo, MD

FinTwitter@fintwitter.bsky.social · 2mo ago

AMAZON TO BUILD NEW DATA CENTER CAMPUS IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND WITH AT LEAST $20B INVESTMENT.