Hey there weekday warrior,
Today, we’re getting into Zuck’s latest power play, Prime Day numbers, and Elon’s newest funding source. But first...
In the July 15, 2019 edition of The Water Coolest, we discussed the biggest fine ever handed down by the FTC (the record still stands, and no one has even come close…).
The Federal Trade Commission fined Meta $5B for f*ckery related to the Cambridge Analytica data breach. In case you were living under a rock, in 2018 the ‘book gave the political consulting group unfettered access to the data of nearly 100M of the social network's users.
Politicians and users were big mad about the size of the fine, which amounted to just a tiny fraction of the company’s annual revenue. Zuck couldn’t be reached for a comment, but I think we can all agree he probably would have said something like “ashtray money, bro.”
Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 38 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.
Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,
PS, loving The Water Coolest? Forward it to someone who has the sense of humor of Elon Musk (see: Robotaxi Tweet below). If you CC me ([email protected]), I’ll send you both something.
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Power move
Mark Zuckerberg has a fever, and the only prescription is more compute…
Zuck can’t stop, won’t stop throwing money at AI to make up for inadequacies in other areas of his life (notably, the metaverse and smoking meats).
He’s assembled the team, and now he’s building them the training facilities. According to a Zuck Facebook post (because no outlets would pick it up if it was on Threads) Meta $META ( ▼ 1.05% ) will spend “hundreds of billions of dollars” on AI compute infrastructure. And that sound you heard was Jensen Huang creaming his pants.
Next year, Zuck expects a 1 GW AI supercluster called Prometheus to go online next year in Ohio (good for Ohio...). I’ll spare you the trip to ChatGPT: a supercluster is a data center on steroids. GPUs for days. All with one goal: becoming a giant f*cking money printer for Zuck powering and training yuge language models.
Oh, and by 2030 Zuck hopes to get Hyperion up to speed. ICYMI, Hyperion will be a supercluster the size of Manhattan, located in East Bumf*ck, Louisiana. That will scale up to 5 GW… and will presumably guarantee Zuck becomes our cyborg AI overlord.
No one man should have use all that power…
Turns out 1 GW is a colossal f*ck ton of energy… and 5 GW is even more (because math). To put things in perspective, 5 GW could power about 4M homes for an entire year… hence the US working more feverishly on nuclear energy than Iran post-June 22.
In fact, the Times went all Facebook Files on ‘em. One of Meta’s data centers, which is much smaller than those planned, is hoovering up resources. Apparently, water taps are running dry in one town in Georgia.
It might sound crazy, but there's a much easier way to pay down debt faster…
Spoiler: using a credit card.
Here’s EXACTLY how to do it…
Find a card with a “0% intro APR" period for balance transfers
Transfer your debt balance
Pay it down as much as possible during the intro period
No interest means you could pay off the debt faster.
Now it’s time to find the right card…
Some of the top credit card experts identified one of their favorites that puts interest on ice until nearly 2027 AND offers up to 5% cash back on qualifying purchases.
+ The legend of Obi Huang Kenobi grows…
Just a few days after meeting with POTUS, it appears that the White House is ready to let Jensen Huang and Nvidia $NVDA ( ▲ 0.39% ) begin shipping its H20 chips to China again. You might recall that DJT’s administration had barred sales of the dumbed-down chips to Beijing in April.
And I don’t want to know what was said in that meeting… I NEED to know. According to sources, Huang showed up with a pitch that centered around being the world’s dominant AI superpower. It appears Donny Politics bought it.
As you might have expected, NVDA mooned in 24-hour trading…
+ The rumors of Amazon Prime Day(s) demise have been greatly exaggerated…
Despite early fears that Prime Days were washed up, the 4-day Amazon $AMZN ( ▼ 1.4% ) shopping event put up some girthy figures, beating Amazon’s estimates (to be fair… there may be some sandbagging at play here…). Data did show sales lagging in the first two days (down 35% year over year), but more than made up for it on the back nine (up 165% year over year).
But that’s not even the most outrageous state. During the period, GenAI traffic to US retail sites rose 3,300% (vs. last year). Of course, that probably means it went from 3 nerds in their parents’ basement shopping for lube on ChatGPT to 100 nerds in their parents’ basement shopping for lube on ChatGPT…
+ Elon’s got an idea so crazy it might just work (but will probably end with an SEC investigation). His plan? Ask Tesla $TSLA ( ▲ 3.5% ) shareholders to invest in his AI startup xAI, which is reportedly burning through $1B per month. SpaceX reportedly invested $2B in xAI… definitely, 100%, totally because it was the best use of capital… and not at all because Elon will stop at nothing to defeat Sam Altman.
SPACEX TO INVEST $2 BILLION INTO ELON MUSK’S XAI
The vibes here are getting very Sus.
A ton of circular references lately.
— #Spencer Hakimian (#@SpencerHakimian)
10:32 PM • Jul 12, 2025
+ Speaking of Elon… obviously this is the geofence outlining where Tesla Robotaxis are operational in Austin…
+ It’s only fitting that Grayscale filed for its IPO just as bitcoin hit a new ATH and the White House’s “crypto week” (which I’m pretty sure is just David Sacks dancing to this) gets underway.
You might recall that the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust was a pioneer in making crypto available to the masses, and the company basically willed bitcoin ETFs into existence (… via a lawsuit).
+ Can we get a wellness check on Chamath Palihapitiya?
(Just kidding, this is probably “below his line”…)
The All In host’s favorite brand, Loro Piana, which is owned by LVMH, is in the hot seat for getting its Nike on. The Italian government put the brand under judicial administration (Italian for “timeout”) after it found out it was doing business with Chinese manufacturers that forced employees to work 90 hours a week for 4 euros per hour. And the only reason the police uncovered the sweatshop was because a worker was beaten when he asked for his wages…
+ Just when you thought San Francisco couldn’t become more of a sh*tshow… the city is rolling out Microsoft $MSFT ( ▼ 0.04% ) Co-Pilot to 30k employees…
+ I did not have “Elmo’s Twitter account getting hacked and demanding the Epstein files” on my 2025 BINGO card…
+ US stocks “rose on Monday with the Nasdaq closing at a fresh record as Wall Street ultimately shrugged off renewed trade tensions and looked ahead to a key inflation report and the first wave of second quarter earnings.” (Yahoo! Finance)
+ The 10-year yield was “little changed on Monday after President Donald Trump announced additional tariffs of 30% on the European Union and Mexico over the weekend.” (CNBC)
+ Oil “settled down on Monday by more than $1, as investors weighed new threats from U.S. President Donald Trump for sanctions on buyers of Russian oil that may affect global supplies, while still worried about Trump’s tariffs.” (Reuters)
+ The “smart” money thinks there’s a 40% chance egg prices will rise in June. (Kalshi)
⏪ Yesterday…
+ Fastenal reported before the bell
⏩ Today we’re keeping an eye on…
+ JPMorgan Chase, Blackrock, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and The Bank of New York Mellon Corp report before the open
+ The Consumer Price Index report for June will drop
+ Tesla will open its first official store in India.
Yesterday, I asked, “What is the best ketchup in the game?”
78.5% of you picked “Heinz 57.“ And since I’m man enough to admit when I am wrong… hand up, I had no idea Heinz 57 was actually a steak sauce. I (and Jimmy Buffett) am guilty of calling Heinz Ketchup, “Heinz 57”…
Here’s what some of you guys had to say…
Heinz 57: “Heinz 57 is steak sauce not ketchup. Heinz does make the best ketchup though.”
The field: “There is no such thing as “good” ketchup!”
Heinz 57: “We can pretend to like some organic, locally sourced homegrown "catsup" but we know that sh*t can't compete with 'ol 57.”
The field: “My entire family made fun of me for buying another brand for a cookout so now I only buy Heinz even though I don't think it is the best. I have been condiment shamed.”
The field: “Got to try Glen Powell's new line called Smash Kitchen. Taste like heinz but without the need for ozempic later in life.”
Here’s today’s question…
Do you return a shopping cart to the designated cart return or are you a heathen?
the epstein files are real but they can’t figure out how to convert them to a pdf
— #sophie (#@netcapgirl)
7:29 PM • Jul 13, 2025
Oh, and one more thing…
What did you think about today's newsletter?
Sent from my Amazon Fire Phone. Please excuse any mistakes and typos.
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...
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