gm.
spacex into hardware. openai into government partnerships. and 140 companies coming for circle.
3 things worth your time
1. spacex is reportedly building an AI phone.
the wall street journal reported last week that spacex showed investors an AI-focused handset during its june IPO roadshow. reported details: slimmer than an iphone, runs its own operating system, uses xAI (musk's AI company), and built on a qualcomm snapdragon chip.
musk denied it on x. called the report "utterly false." he's said before he doesn't want to build a phone. he's also famously said he wouldn't build a lot of things he ended up building.
the play (if it's real): vertically integrate the musk stack. starlink (musk's satellite internet service) for connectivity. xAI for the assistant. own hardware, own OS. an iphone alternative aimed at the same people who already drive teslas and use starlink.
2. openai wants to give the US government a 5% stake.
the financial times reported wednesday that openai is in early talks to grant the US government a 5% equity stake in the company. sam altman has been meeting with trump, commerce secretary lutnick, and treasury secretary bessent.
the pitch: model it after alaska's permanent fund (which pays dividends to alaskan residents from oil revenue). every major US AI company would give the government 5%. those stakes would sit in a sovereign wealth fund that distributes value back to americans.
why it matters: governments don't usually take equity in private tech companies. this would be a first. openai's most recent valuation was around $500 billion, so a 5% stake works out to roughly $25 billion. it also means AI companies are willing to trade equity for regulatory clarity, which tells you how bad the regulatory pressure feels internally.
still very early. would need congressional approval. no official statements yet.
3. 140+ major companies just launched a stablecoin coalition against circle.
a quick refresher on stablecoins: they're crypto tokens pegged to $1. USDC (issued by circle) and USDT (issued by tether) dominate the market. issuers make money by holding customer dollars in treasury bills and keeping the interest.
on june 30, over 140 companies announced they're launching a new stablecoin called Open USD. the partner list is stacked: visa, mastercard, stripe, blackrock, coinbase, google, shopify, american express, western union, IBM, and more.
what's different: no fees to mint or redeem, and the interest revenue gets shared with the partner companies (not kept by a single issuer). circle keeps 100% of USDC's reserve income today. Open USD would split it across the coalition.
circle stock dropped 17% on the news. still not live yet (launches later this year). but it's the biggest structural threat to circle's business model since USDC launched.
one more thing
private space companies are now flying missions for the US military.
last week, rocket lab and a startup called true anomaly completed the first commercial orbital intercept in history. the mission was called victus haze.
what happened: rocket lab launched a spacecraft called puma in 16 hours from notice (space force wanted to test "responsive launch." most military launches take months of prep). then true anomaly's already-in-orbit spacecraft found puma from 2,000 km away, flew close, took pictures, and returned to its starting orbit. entire operation done in under 3 days.
true anomaly is a colorado startup founded by former military space officers, focused on satellites that fly close to other spacecraft to inspect them.
the strategic angle: the US military is now scaling its reconnaissance of chinese and russian orbital weapons using private companies. rocket lab's iridium acquisition (which we covered last thursday) plus this mission signal an accelerating commercial space arms race.
for the calendar: spacex gets added to the nasdaq-100 on tuesday. JPMorgan estimates about $4.3 billion in forced buying from index-tracking funds. also of note: the CLARITY Act (the crypto regulatory bill setting federal rules for tokens and exchanges) missed its july 4 deadline in the senate. next window looks like fall.
see you thursday.
not financial advice. aggregated community trends and commentary.