President Trump on Friday pardoned two startup founders convicted of investor fraud, and three crypto exchange co-founders who had plead guilty to violating anti-money laundering laws.

Why it matters: There's never been a better time to be a white-collar crook.

Pardon 1: Trevor Milton, co-founder and CEO of bankrupt electric truckmaker Nikola Motors.

• His most egregious act may have been sharing a video that purported to show a fully functional prototype, whereas the truck actually was rolling down a small hill. And then there was the lying about billions of dollars in orders.
• Milton was sentenced to four years in prison for both securities and wire fraud, and ordered to pay nearly $700 million in restitution. He had been free on appeal, during which time he donated bigly to Trump-related groups. Oh, and his lawyer was the brother of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Pardon 2: Carlos Watson, co-founder and CEO of defunct Ozy Media.

• You may remember Ozy Media for a phone call during which Watson's co-founder, who plead guilty and cooperated with prosecutors, pretended to be a YouTube executive while on a reference call with prospective investor Goldman Sachs. Plus, lots of lying about company financials and proposed deals.
• Watson was literally on a plane to prison when the pardon arrived. In a statement, he reiterated his argument that the prosecution was "driven by a malicious campaign orchestrated by a jealous competitor at a rival media company" — an absurd claim based on the phone call first being reported by then-NY Times reporter Ben Smith, whose former company once held takeover talks with Ozy.
• He also claimed that Ozy "was on the brink of becoming Silicon Valley's first Black-owned publicly traded company before these wrongful actions derailed our progress." Ozy had never filed paperwork to go public, nor were there any such conversations ever reported. Instead, it was trying to raise new VC funding.
• Finally, Watson thanked Alice Marie Johnson, who was famously granted clemency by President Trump after public support from Kim Kardashian.

Pardon 3: Co-founders and a former employee of BitMEX, who had violated the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to implement AML and KYC procedures. The exchange itself later pleaded guilty to similar charges.

• The quartet had been tried by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, as had been Trevor Milton. It's the same office that charged and convicted Trump, earning his public ire. Watson was tried by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

The bottom line: Elizabeth Holmes, Sam Bankman-Fried, and Charlie Javice should be sitting by the phone.

Elon Musk announced that xAI has acquired X Holdings in an all-stock deal.

Why it's the BFD: This is Musk trying to prevent his Twitter co-investors from losing money, and highlights his eagerness to meld different parts of his corporate empire.

• It's quite similar to what we discussed here over a year ago.

By the numbers: Musk said the deal valued xAI at $80 billion and X Holdings at $45 billion (minus $12 billion of debt).

• A source says that the xAI value is not inclusive of the acquisition, which means the combined company would be worth $125 billion. Of course, it's Musk himself setting those prices, as he controls both companies.

Elsewhere: Musk on Friday lost his bid to dismiss a lawsuit claiming he defrauded Twitter shareholders by disclosing share purchases too late.

The bottom line: "What did you do this week? Did you restructure an entire country, sit for a national TV interview and casually reorganize billions of your own assets on the side?" — Ben Berkowitz, Axios

🚑 Isomorphic Labs, a London-based Google spinout using AI for drug development, raised $600m led by Thrive Capital. axios.link/4jcTwKd

• Temporal, a Seattle-based microservices orchestration startup, raised $146m in Series C funding. Tiger Global led, and was joined by insiders Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital. axios.link/428t7pV

• Retym, a Cupertino, Calif., semicondiuctor startup, raised $75m in Series D funding. Spark Capital led, and was joined by insiders Kleiner Perkins, Mayfield, and Fidelity. retym.com

• Gable, a "shift left" data management platform, raised $20m in Series A funding. Crane Venture Partners led, and was joined by Zetta Venture Partners, Databricks Ventures, B Capital, Capital One Ventures, and In-Q-Tel. gable.ai

• Voize, a German speech recognition startup, raised $9m in seed funding led by HV Capital. axios.link/3Rutg1W

• Sourcetable, an SF-based spreadsheet startup, raised $4.3m led by Bee Partners. sourcetable.com

• Actis completed its $370m acquisition of Swiftnet, the mobile tower unit of South Africa's Telkom. axios.link/4j6amu1

• Audax Private Equity acquired a majority stake in Lanter Delivery Systems, a Des Peres, Mo.-based provider of OEM parts delivery, from Sam Zell's Equity Group Investments. lanterdeliverysystems.com

• Aurelius acquired Teijin Automotive Technologies North America, a provider of composite tech for vehicles, from Japan's Teijin. teijinautomotive.com

• Blackstone is weighing a minority investment in TikTok, as part of a possible spinout from ByteDance, per Reuters. axios.link/4iRzoxs

• Boyu Capital is in talks to buy the Chinese luxury malls business of Beijing Hualian Group for between $4b-$5b, per multiple reports. axios.link/4lphKD0

🚑 Ceva Santé Animale, a French animal health group, raised new funding at around a €9b valuation. Backers include Temasek, EMZ, Hopu Investments, Continental Grain Co., and Archimed, Tethys Invest, and PSP Investments. axios.link/4iGSB4O

• EQT and First Kraft offered to buy Swedish accounting software firm Fortnox (STO: FNOX) for around $5.5b. axios.link/4j8Q9np

🚑 Infusion For Health, a Brea, Calif.-based infusion services firm backed by Cimarron Healthcare Capital and Oak HC/FT, agreed to buy Salt Lake City's Pure Infusion Suites, per Axios Pro. axios.link/3RqP6TY

🚑 SK Capital Partners invested in Spectrum Vascular, a White Plains, N.Y.-based provider of vascular access and medication management products for reducing health care-acquired infections. spectrumvascular.com

🚑 Temasek and GIC agreed to buy stake in Australian clinical testing firm Novotech at a valuation north of A$3b, per Bloomberg. axios.link/4iOgaIZ

⚡ Varo Energy, backed by Carlyle and Vitol, agreed to buy Swedish biofuels refiner Preem. axios.link/4iZZLBa

The only large IPO expected this week is for commercial REIT SmartStop Self Storage.

• Newsmax, a conservative media group, raised $75m via a best-efforts IPO and will begin trading today on the NYSE (NMAX). axios.link/3XDtE1O

• Braze (Nasdaq: BRZE) agreed to acquire OfferFit, a Boston-based A/B testing and personalized pricing startup, for $325m. OfferFit had raised around $55m from firms like Ridge Ventures, Harmony Partners, Menlo Ventures, and Canvas Prime. axios.link/4iRiLly

🚑 Healthcare Advanced Synthesis, a Swiss pharma ingredients maker, is acquiring local rival Cerbios-Pharma, with the backing of 65 Equity Partners at a $380m combined value. axios.link/4j4f2AO

• Temasek is seeking to sell Element Materials, a U.K. testing company that could fetch more than $7b (including debt), per Bloomberg. axios.link/3RsfDjS

🚑 Willow, a VC-backed maker of wearable breast pumps, acquired Elvie, a London-based developer of women's health devices like breast pumps and kegal exercise trackers. Elvie had raised over $180m from firms like Blume Equity, IPGL, Hiro Capital, and Westerly Winds, but reportedly had entered administration. axios.link/3XCAK6F

• Advanced Micro Devices (Nasdaq: AMD) completed its $4.9b cash-and-stock acquisition of New Jersey-based server maker ZT Systems. axios.link/3ySui23

• Lawrence Stroll is investing £52.5 to increase his stake in Aston Martin to around 33%, while the automaker also plans to raise at least £74m by selling its position in its eponymous F1 racing team. axios.link/4iMWN2S

• Rocket Cos (NYSE: RKT) agreed to buy rival mortgage provider Mr Cooper Group (Nasdaq: COOP) for $9.4b in stock. axios.link/4caFczH

• Bison Ventures, an SF-based VC firm focused on frontier tech. is raising up to $175m for its second fund, per an SEC filing.

• Cendana Capital raised $400m for its sixth VC fund-of-funds. axios.link/448EdOj

• Construct Capital raised $300m for its third VC fund. constructcap.com

• Maverick Ventures raised $240m for its fourth fund, per Fortune. axios.link/3QTpE9F

🎵 Pophouse, a music and entertainment investment firm formed by ABBA's Björn Ulvaeus and EQT's Conni Jonsson, raised €1.2b for its debut fund. axios.link/3QVETih

• STIC Investments, South Korea's only listed private equity firm, is coming under activist shareholder pressures. axios.link/4jbcTDd

⚡ Siltstone Capital of Houston is raising $100m for an energy transition PE fund, per Axios Pro. axios.link/4hNyiRT

• Urban Innovation Fund, an SF-based VC firm, is raising up to $80m for its fourth fund, per an SEC filing.

• Vistria Group raised $2.5b for a real estate fund focused on affordable housing, per the NY Times. axios.link/3Y9OBS4

• Walt Bettinger, former CEO of Charles Schwab, joined Clayton Dubilier & Rice as a senior adviser. axios.link/43DZ2kF

• Paulina Kang joined Base10 as a principal. She previously was with KKR. axios.link/42c50Xo

• Frank Rotman is stepping down as a general partner with QED Investors, a fintech VC firm he co-founded in 2007. axios.link/43sCnYm

The U.S. IPO market raised 8.6% more in proceeds during the first quarter of 2025 than during Q1 2024, and actually topped the entire 2022 tally.

• Yes, but: The pace was slower than in most years during the past decade, and comes when there's a massive backlog of VC and PE portfolio companies.

By the numbers: Fifty companies raised $8.4 billion via U.S. IPOs in Q1, including 18 SPAC offerings.

• There also were 69 IPO filings, which is up nearly 28% over the year-earlier period.

Checking in: CoreWeave, which had the quarter's second largest offering behind Venture Global, closed flat on its first day of trading.

• Its CEO told Axios that the IPO was a "victory," despite raising much less than originally planned.
• Axios' Lucinda Shen, whose Pro Rata Premium newsletter launches this afternoon, notes that CoreWeave's Series C round included an agreement that lets investors break even if the share price disappoints.