Axios

Elon Musk's almost inconceivable fortune has expanded the Overton window of wealth.

Why it matters: Big, round numbers have a remarkable way of focusing minds and setting narratives.

• The first trillionaire — much less a trillionaire known for erratic personal behavior, online trolling and support for global right-wing politics — will likely reignite discussion of the diverging fortunes of wage earners and those with market-based wealth, as well as their growing political power.

SpaceX and lead IPO banker Goldman Sachs began meeting with prospective IPO investors back in January, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: This preemptive playbook is likely to be replicated for Anthropic and OpenAI — both of which plan to go public later this year -- given how smoothly SpaceX stock launched on Friday.

A decade of shocks has left much of the developing world weakened just as AI begins reshaping the global economy, World Bank economists conclude in a new report.

Why it matters: A series of shocks — the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ukraine war and now the Iran war — have buffeted the world's poorest countries particularly hard. These countries risk being poorly positioned to benefit from an AI-driven productivity and spending super-cycle.

• The globe's poorest countries will enter this period burdened by debt, weak investment and years of stalled development, with little capacity to build the infrastructure and skills needed to share in those gains.

The economic mood across American households improved for the first time in five months as lower gasoline prices offered some relief.

Why it matters: Fuel prices remain one of the fastest ways geopolitical shocks reach American households, making energy costs a key driver of the Trump administration's economic standing.

Flutter Entertainment, the NYSE-listed parent company of FanDuel and Betfair, has disclosed plans to delist shares from the London Stock Exchange.

Why it matters: London keeps losing listings to New York, either at IPO or after, with companies citing everything from market liquidity to costs to executive compensation rules.

Most Americans say the country's best days are behind it as the U.S. approaches its 250th birthday, even as they're personally hopeful about the future.

Why it matters: A new Pew Research Center analysis reveals national pessimism, fueled by political polarization and institutional distrust. But the findings also show the American spirit isn't completely broken.

SpaceX shares are set to start trading Friday, and what to expect is anyone's guess: There's no such thing as a typical Day 1 for an initial public offering.

Why it matters: This one will be the biggest IPO of all time, raising $75 billion and minting thousands of new millionaire SpaceX employees — and potentially the world's first trillionaire in Elon Musk.

SpaceX's debut Friday is one of the biggest waves yet in a deluge of new stock that's starting to hit the market.

Why it matters: A jump in stock issuance could tilt supply-demand dynamics that have quietly supported the market for much of the past two decades.

SpaceX on Thursday raised $75 billion in its IPO, valuing Elon Musk's company at around $1.77 trillion.

Why it matters: This is the largest U.S. IPO ever, at least until Anthropic and OpenAI go public later this year, and makes SpaceX one of the world's most valuable companies.

Culver City's iconic neon sign is getting a second life as part of Culver Commons, a new food-forward destination on the former Culver Public Market site.

What you need to know: The new ground-up retail development is being built through a public-private partnership between Regency Centers and Culver City.

Disney and Pixar's "Toy Story" franchise has driven $16 billion in total revenue for the company over the past 30 years, according to excerpts from an economic study commissioned by the company and provided to Axios.

Why it matters: It speaks to the power of multi-generational franchises in supporting Disney's business model.

The war-driven inflation hit is spreading beyond energy and deeper into supply chains.

Driving the news: Producer prices rose 1.1% in May, matching April's increase and pushing annual wholesale inflation to 6.5%, the highest since late 2022.

• The surge was driven by higher energy costs. But the report also shows brisk price increases across a range of non-energy goods and industrial inputs.

Most people worry that electric vehicles are going to further strain America's aging power grid, but the opposite is true, says the head of California's largest utility.

Why it matters: A parked EV can be an extension of the grid, a distributed energy storage asset that can send power back when it's needed most.

Prometheus, the industrial AI startup led by Jeff Bezos and former Google exec Vik Bajaj, today will announce that it's raised $12 billion in Series B funding at a $41 billion valuation.

Why it matters: It's a massive bet to rearchitect how physical things are made, from jet engines to medical devices to consumer electronics.

Flash drive prices have exploded, ending a decades-long deflation in the ubiquitous devices often referred to as thumb drives.

Why it matters: The spike shows how AI investment continues to seep into some of the more mundane corners of the economy.

The colossal sums of money being spent on building out AI data centers can still put investors on edge. Oracle's results are the latest example of that.

Why it matters: Investors are increasingly antsy about seeing at least some indication that the hundreds of billions of dollars now being spent on data centers will eventually turn into profitable investments. Oracle's results late Wednesday didn't offer them much.

• In the hyperscaler's fourth fiscal quarter, which ended May 31, the company spent a higher-than-expected $16.5 billion on capital expenditures, eating deeply into the company's — admittedly — fast-growing revenues.

If you think buying a stock on the first day it trades is risky, check out leveraged ETFs: There are about a dozen tied to SpaceX that are teed up to launch in the wake of the company's expected stock market debut on Friday.

Why it matters: It's an extreme example of the risk-maxxing mindset that's swept through the formerly staid world of exchange-traded funds — and through the investing culture writ large with the rise of prediction markets and other kinds of gambling.

One year of home care now costs more than twice the average retiree's annual Social Security benefits, and costs are growing much faster than inflation, according to an AARP analysis shared first with Axios.

Why it matters: Most older adults will need such personal care services, which aren't covered by Medicare. The majority wind up paying out of pocket or leaning on family members as caregivers.

President Trump has been on a roll of rhetorical missteps that could come back to bite Republicans in the midterms.

Why it matters: Trump has served up a platter of ready-made campaign ads to Democrats, suggesting he's fine with rising prices and unconcerned about Americans' financial struggles.

A year's worth of inflation-adjusted wage gains vanished in just four months, leaving workers little better off than when President Trump returned to office.

Why it matters: The reversal shows how the recent energy-driven inflation surge is eating into household purchasing power. Real pay for rank-and-file workers is up just 0.1% since Trump took office in January 2025.

• Rising real wages helped underpin the White House's case that the economy was improving. That advantage has now largely disappeared.

Elon Musk is on the verge of financial immortality: The world's richest man — and potentially its first trillionaire — has built a sovereign corporate kingdom that is too systemic to fail.

• And yet, on the eve of SpaceX's monster IPO, its CEO was hunkered down in his digital fiefdom stoking far-right culture wars with an impunity unmatched in modern corporate history.

Why it matters: Musk's years in the public eye, marked by serial controversy and an accelerating embrace of white identitarian politics, have inured investors to conduct that would be disqualifying for almost any other CEO.