TOGETHER WITH

Hey there weekday warrior,

Not gonna lie, my money was on Boring Company and Neuralink combining.

Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 13 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.

Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,

– tyler

Let our powers combine

Men will literally combine their multibillion-dollar companies instead of going to therapy…

Hand up, I thought x and xAI were already the same company. But Elon made it official on Friday, combining X and xAI. This will undoubtedly streamline things for the people throwing Molotov cocktails at Teslas who are hoping to send anthrax to Elon…

xAI technically bought X for $45B. Friendly reminder: that’s ~$1B more than what Elon paid for Twitter. And just a few weeks back, X had raised money at a $44B valuation.

The all-stock deal (think: X shareholders get xAI stock, thus rewarding their incredibly irresponsible investment) will value xAI at $80B. The AI company Elon built mostly to spite Sam Altman last raised at a $50B valuation and was reportedly in the process of raising at $75B.

For those of you (read: virgins) keeping an eye on the AI league tables, the move makes xAI the second most valuable artificial intelligence startup, surpassing Anthropic, which recently raised at a $61.5B valuation… but trailing OpenAI, which was most recently valued at $260B.

Why though?

The move makes sense. And not just because it streamlines Elon’s portfolio and will probably create some “synergies” (read: layoffs)…

In his announcement, Elon said the merger will “combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent.” Translation? Every unhinged tweet you fire off and every time you like a post about Sydney Sweeney leaving her fiancée, you’re going to be training xAI/Grok.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, if the last time Elon combined two companies is any indication, this will end in a lawsuit and some awkward conversations at Thanksgiving. Back in 2016, Tesla acquired SolarCity for $2.6B.

Not long after, TSLA shareholders sued Elon, claiming that the company, which was founded by his cousins and funded by him, was a bailout (using their money). Spoiler: it was, but, get this, a Delaware judge actually sided with the First Buddy on the matter.

The $20B deal between Apple and Google that has iPhone users concerned

Google paid Apple $20B to be the default search engine on iPhones — and both companies hoped to shield it from the public.

The deal continues to fuel Google’s ad revenue engine, which made an eye-popping +$250B in 2024.

Mode Mobile wants smartphone users to get their piece of that money.

They’re flipping the data industry on its head, splitting the profits with their users by turning smartphones into an income-generating asset. Here’s what that looks like:

• Paid over $325M to over 45M users

• Generated 32,481% 3-year revenue growth

• Ranked #1 fastest-growing software company by Deloitte in 2023

📲 Their EarnPhone could be considered the Uber of smartphones, and they’re gearing up for a potential IPO on the Nasdaq (ticker: $MODE).

And as companies desperately seek to extract more data, you can invest in Mode’s pre-IPO offering at just $0.26/share.

Invest in Mode and earn your stake in this $1T industry.

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+ What a time to be alive…

Nikola $NKLA ( ▲ 4.51% ) founder Trevor Milton just had a better Friday than Rebecca Black could ever dream of after scoring a Get Out of Jail Free card from Donny Politics. Trev received a full Presidential pardon, which means he won’t serve any time or need to pay any restitution.

The Nikola founder was sentenced to 4 years in prison back in December of 2023 and was facing potential restitution payments of $695M. Now, Trev is out here humblebragging on the ‘gram because that jail time and repayment just went the way of Nikola (read: ceasing to exist).

Speaking of comeback stories, #47 also stepped in to commute the criminal fraud sentence of Carlos Watson, the founder of Ozy Media. Watson was hours away from serving a 9.5-year prison sentence for conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud, and identity theft. The white collar trifecta. Watson will also be off the hook for $96M in restitution and forfeiture.

And Charlie Javice knows you can’t get pardoned without being found guilty...

Charlie, the founder of college financial aid platform Frank, was convicted Friday of defrauding JPMorgan Chase $JPM ( ▼ 6.97% ). Turns out, Charlie juiced her customer numbers prior to getting acquired back in 2021. JPM purchased Frank for $175M, expecting more than 4M customers. Spoiler: 3.7M of those ended up being totally made up.

+ February PCE data just dropped, and inflation didn’t hear no bell. Core inflation jumped 0.4% for the month, the highest increase since January 2024. The 12-month inflation rate now sits at 2.8%, slightly higher than estimates. Woof.

+ Applovin $APP ( ▼ 9.78% ) is firing back after short seller Muddy Waters Research dragged its name through the… well, mud. CEO Adam Foroughi dropped a blog post clapping back at the allegations and has retained Elon Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, to run an independent investigation into Muddy Waters’ report.

+ CoreWeave $CRWV ( ▼ 12.32% ) IPO’d Friday, and you guys, guess what? It actually worked. The cloud-AI company raised $1.5B, making it the biggest tech IPO since the year of our lord 2021. We are so f*cking back.

+ Note to self: remind personal assistant to take care of this. Owners of private aircraft can now request that the FAA not publicly disclose their name and other info that links them to their PJ. So, no more tracking T. Swift taking 10-minute private flights.

+ US stocks “tanked on Friday as Wall Street grappled with President Trump's escalating trade war and weighed signs of reinvigorated inflation pressures amid souring consumer sentiment.” (Yahoo! Finance)

+ The 10-year yield “fell on Friday after new inflation data showed persistent price pressures.” (CNBC)

+ Oil “prices fell on Friday on worries that U.S. tariff wars could spark a global recession, but gained for a third consecutive week after Washington ratcheted up pressure on OPEC members Venezuela and Iran.” (Reuters)

+ The three most talked about stocks on WallStreetBets in the past 24 hours were: 1) Visa -7.0% 2) Nvidia -1.7% 3) Hims & Hers Health -2.7%

⏪ On Friday…

+ PCE inflation data dropped

⏩ Today we’re keeping an eye on…

+ Intel holds its two-day Intel Vision event… and things couldn’t get much worse, right? Right?!

Friday, I asked, “What prop or item would you want from a business/finance movie?”

29.6% of you went with Milton's stapler from Office Space.

Here’s what some of you guys had to say…

• Office Space: Milton's stapler: “I assume everyone who didn’t choose Milton’s stapler is too young to know what Office Space is. Should be mandatory viewing in all business 101 classes”

• American Psycho: Paul Allen business card: “‘Oh my God, it even has a watermark.’”

• Wall Street: Gordon’s big a** cell phone: “i could shoot a rap vid with gordon's big a** phone. sippin prosseco and cutting retirement like gordon gecko”

• Wolf of Wall Street: prop ‘ludes: “'Ludes and Coke. "Wolf of Wall Street" made drug use look so GD fun. Jonah Hill's character to Leo's, "please, please smoke crack with me?!?" ”

• Glengarry Glen Ross: ‘Always Be Closing’ chalkboard: “Will they throw in Alec Baldwin’s brass balls too?”

• Other (write-in): “Tommy Boy, blue mustang pre business trip”

And here’s today’s question…

Oh, and one more thing…

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.

Ad Disclosures

*Mode Mobile recently received their ticker reservation with Nasdaq ($MODE), indicating an intent to IPO in the next 24 months. An intent to IPO is no guarantee that an actual IPO will occur.

*The Deloitte rankings are based on submitted applications and public company database research, with winners selected based on their fiscal-year revenue growth percentage over a three-year period.

*Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com.