💦 Capex go brrr

And RIP DEI

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Hey there weekday warrior,

Zuck is over the metaverse.

Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 15 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.

Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,

Capex go brrr

Welp, we know where Meta’s DEI budget has been moved to…

On Friday, Zuckerbot said that Meta (+1.7%) is planning to back up the Brink’s truck to achieve its AI ambitions. Because f*ck the metaverse, amirite?

In the year of our lord 2025 Meta is earmarking between $60B and $65B for capex. Zuck has a fever, and the only prescription is more Nvidia GPUs.

Mark took to Facebook (he doesn't even use Threads) to share that the company would spend most of its money on a data center that “would cover a significant part of Manhattan.”

He also shared that Meta will end the year with more than 1.3M GPUs. But have no fear investors, the investment will also fund the build-out of Meta’s AI engineer, which should slash the ‘book’s budget for Stanford and MIT grads who couldn’t get a job at Nvidia.

The proposed capex figure came in well above analysts’ estimate of ~$51B. But investors appeared to give zero f*cks that a grown a** man with a perm, who has a history of blowing money fast on stupid stuff (see: Libra, Quest, Horizon Worlds) is overspending (again).

In fact, they applauded his willingness to keep up with pretty much every other Mag 7. Shares mooned. That’s a far cry from investors’ reaction in April. Shares got crushed after Zuck outlined a multi-year, multi-billion dollar plan to win in AI.

Of course, it’s probably just a coincidence that the post comes just a few days after OpenAI and others committed to investing $500B in AI R&D and infrastructure.

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TS

+ Turns out there’s a group who's even more stoked about a Trump presidency than TikTok users.

Several big swingin’ banks, including Morgan Stanley (+0.01%) & BofA (+0.2%), were left holding the $13B bag of acquisition debt after Elon’s messy Twitter purchase. Friendly reminder: he overpaid. Musk’s lenders have been on the struggle bus trying to offload the debt after J-Poww’s 2022 hawk-mode speed run on interest rates (spoiler: selling back in 2022 would have locked in up to a 20% loss on the deal for the bankers).

Now with Elon finally sitting in the VP seat and X looking like a semi-legitimate platform, the Twitter-backers are gearing up to sell up to $3B of senior debt from the buyout at a more palatable loss (90-95 cents on the dollar). That’s textbook Art of the Deal.

+ The Mecca of Wicked merch announced that it is done holding space for several DEI goals. 

Target (+0.4%) just hit its DEI program with “and for that reason I’m out.” Target will stop reporting to the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index. And end a program of prioritizing products from minority-owned businesses. The move follows the lead of Walmart (+1.0%), McDonald’s (+0.3%), and Meta (+1.7%), who have all ditched DEI. Friendly reminder: Donny Politics inked an executive order to end DEI programs for federal agencies.

+  The IPO groundhog saw its shadow Friday… so six more weeks of IPO winter it is…

Venture Global’s (-4.0%) shares fell on its first day of trading, despite DJT’s “drill, baby, drill” energy policies. Venture’s IPO at a ~$60B valuation is the largest O&G IPO since the year Left Shark upstaged Katy Perry (read: 2015).

Venture is developing 5 liquid natural gas facilities near the Gulf of America™, but is currently tied up in legal disputes with customers like Shell (-1.9%) for failed deliveries. Probably nothing. Meanwhile, VG competitor Cheniere’s (-1.0%) shares are up 20% since the election, and Cheniere shareholders be like, “I drink your milkshake.

+ Donny TikTok is hard at work securing the future of brain rot in the free world. And it looks like Oracle (-1.5%) may be the solution we’ve been waiting for (please God, let me stop writing about this). The Trump administration is reportedly working on a new plan that will combine TikTok’s current infrastructure partner Oracle and a group of outside investors to take over operations.

Meanwhile, Perplexity AI’s bankers were putting in some Sunday overtime, submitting an updated proposal to ByteDance for TikTok. The pitch: a new holding company that would merge TikTok US, sans-algorithm, with Perplexity… and would allow the US government to take as much as a 50% stake.

+ As recently as Friday, Meta's (+1.7%) AI chatbot was still calling Joe Biden the President. FFS, even Joe figured out he's not President anymore...

+ On Sunday, Universal Music (the world's largest music label) and Spotify (+1.7%) inked a new deal to keep UMG's music on the platform... and presumably pay artists even less.

+ How to nail your job interview, according to an ex-Microsoft HR executive. Tell the interviewer that if they don’t hire you, you’ll claim they asked about your sexual orientation, race, and religion.

FYI, TWC might be compensated if you click on the links above. So, what are you waiting for? Start clicking.

+ US stocks “retreated on Friday, stalling a recent rally as investors digested the latest batch of earnings and weighed President Donald Trump's hints at a softer stance on China tariffs.” (Yahoo! Finance)

+ The 10-year yield “wavered on Friday as investors reacted to President Donald Trump’s latest comments and looked ahead.” (CNBC)

+ Oil “prices settled slightly higher on Friday but posted a weekly decline, ending four straight weeks of gains, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced sweeping plans to boost domestic production while demanding that OPEC move to lower crude prices.” (Reuters)

+ Bitcoin “is currently trading close to $105,000 and is getting closer to breaking the psychological barrier of $110,000, which could spur new market momentum.” (U.TODAY)

+ The three most talked about stocks on WallStreetBets in the past 24 hours were: 1) C3.ai -3.6% 2) Nvidia -3.1% 3) Tesla -1.4%

FWD

⏪ Friday, Amex and Verizon reported before the bell.

⏩ Today we’re keeping an eye on…

+ Sofi and AT&T report before the bell

EXIT

Friday, I asked, “You can choose one of the following: $1M RIGHT now, or you get access to Paul Pelosi's tips and info (in real time) for the next 5 years. Which are you taking?”

60.9% of you chose Paul Pelosi's trading tips.

  • $1M: "I don’t have the same protections on insider trading as those two”

  • Pelosi: “this is the adult version of the marshmallow test”

  • Pelosi: "Why accept a fish when you can learn fishing"

  • $1M: “I'm a teacher. Gimmie the millie and let me pay off all my debt, buy a decent house outright, and divy it up between my 401K, gold bars (I am talking a full bar thats going to buried in my backyard like a drunken pirate) and a bunch of stock options in my favorite coffee brand."

And here’s today’s question…

Early picks: who ya got in the big game (I can't say Super B*wl)?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Oh, and one more thing…

What did you think about today's newsletter?

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FINE

Does this look like the face of a guy you should take financial advice from?

No, it’s the face of an individual who is financially irresponsible/dumb enough to be talked into spending money on a family photo shoot that he could have just done with his iPhone. So, act accordingly...

This is not financial advice. Nothing in this newsletter is an investment recommendation. All content is created for entertainment, educational, or informational purposes only. Do your own research, or do yourself a favor and hire a professional.