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In today’s post:

  • The Deal Trump Won't Take ❌

  • The Musk Money Loop Exposed πŸ”

  • 8 Companies. 1 Big Loser. πŸ’€

Where to Invest $100,000 Right Now, According to Experts

Investors face a dilemma. When the S&P 500 finished its worst quarter since 2022 last month, diversifiers like bonds and bitcoin fell too.

Even with the turnaround in mid-April, analysts at Goldman Sachs and Vanguard have projected low-single-digit annualized returns from 2024-2034.

Bloomberg asked where experts would personally invest $100,000 for their March monthly edition.

One answer that surfaced for a second time? Art.

It's what billionaires like Bezos and the Rockefellers have privately used to diversify for decades.

Why?

  1. Appreciation. The ArtPrice100 Index outpaced the S&P 500 overall from 2000 to 2025

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  3. Resilience. A scarce, physical, and global asset class with decades of demonstrated demand.

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*According to Masterworks data. Investing involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future returns. See important Reg A disclosures at masterworks.com/cd.

The Deal Trump Won't Take ❌

Iran wants to talk peace. Trump wants a better deal. And somewhere in the middle, oil traders are having a very bad morning.

Trump made it crystal clear Friday: he's not satisfied with Iran's latest proposal.

"Iran wants to make a deal because they have no military left," he told reporters at the White House. Not exactly diplomatic, but very on-brand.

Pakistan has been playing middleman here, passing Iran's updated proposal to U.S. officials. What's in it? Nobody's saying. Classic back-channel energy.

Trump did throw Iran a small bone, saying they've "made strides" in talks. Then immediately took it back: "I'm not sure if they ever get there."

He also went in on Iran's leadership structure, describing it as "very disjointed" with two to four competing factions all pulling in different directions.

Basically: Iran wants a deal, but can't agree on what deal they want. Negotiating with yourself is hard enough. Negotiating with three versions of yourself while a naval blockade chokes your ports? Good luck.

Here's where your portfolio pays attention:

  • Oil dipped 1.3% on the peace-talk headlines, with U.S. crude sliding to $103.75/barrel

  • But prices are still elevated. The Strait of Hormuz is barely moving oil through, and nobody's reopening it anytime soon

  • Iran won't unblock the strait until the U.S. lifts its port blockade. The U.S. isn't lifting anything

Oh, and the Pentagon has reportedly requested deployment of the Dark Eagle hypersonic missile to the Gulf. So "peace talks" is doing a lot of heavy lifting as a phrase right now.

The standoff continues. The blockade holds. And energy markets stay on edge.

TL;DR

  • Trump rejected Iran's latest peace proposal, calling it insufficient

  • Pakistan is mediating, but no details of Iran's offer have been disclosed

  • Trump says Iran's leadership is fractured and struggling to reach internal consensus

  • Oil slid 1.3% on peace talk hopes, but prices remain elevated due to Hormuz disruption

  • Iran won't reopen the Strait unless the U.S. lifts its port blockade β€” a standoff with no end in sight

  • The U.S. has requested deployment of the Dark Eagle hypersonic missile to the Gulf region

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The Musk Money Loop Exposed πŸ”

Tesla quietly dropped an amended annual filing this week. Inside? Over $500M in revenue from companies that all happen to have the same CEO.

Let that sink in.

$430.1M came from xAI. That's Musk's AI company, flagged back in January but updated in this week's amended filing.

The new addition: $143.3M from SpaceX β€” mostly vehicle sales. Somehow this didn't make it into the original filing. Whoops.

And it's not slowing down. Tesla already logged $78.1M from xAI in just the first two months of 2026, primarily from Megapack sales. Plus a further $0.1M from SpaceX.

So what exactly is going on here?

Musk is building a closed-loop corporate ecosystem. xAI buys Tesla's batteries. Tesla puts xAI's Grok chatbot in its cars. SpaceX and Tesla are now reportedly teaming up on chip manufacturing.

Then in February, SpaceX acquired xAI outright β€” rockets, satellites, AI, and plans for space-based data centres, all under one roof.

It's less "tech conglomerate" and more "Elon's personal GDP."

Meanwhile, someone's been cashing out.

Blue Owl Capital was one of SpaceX's earliest backers. Started with a loan in 2021, converted it to equity, and watched a ~$27M position balloon to $195M by end of 2025. A separate Blue Owl vehicle also held a further $21.7M stake in SpaceX at the same date.

They've now sold roughly half their stake at a $1.25T valuation β€” booking a 10x return in the process.

Their co-CEO put it plainly: "We made about 10x our money." No notes.

The bigger picture?

SpaceX is reportedly eyeing a U.S. listing at $1.75T β€” which would instantly make it one of the most valuable companies in the country.

A business that didn't exist 24 years ago, valued higher than almost everything on Wall Street.

TL;DR

  • Tesla's amended filing reveals $500M+ in revenue from Musk-linked companies in 2024

  • $430M from xAI, $143M from SpaceX β€” the Musk empire is shopping internally

  • Cross-company deals are accelerating: batteries, chatbots, chips, and now rockets

  • SpaceX acquired xAI in February, consolidating Musk's tech stack into one giant entity

  • Blue Owl Capital banked a 10x return selling half its SpaceX stake at a $1.25T valuation

  • SpaceX is targeting a $1.75T U.S. listing β€” one of the biggest floats in history if it happens

8 Companies. 1 Big Loser. πŸ’€

The Department of Defense has signed agreements with eight major tech companies to deploy their AI on classified military networks.

We're talking OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, AWS, Nvidia, SpaceX (which owns xAI/Grok), Reflection AI β€” and Oracle, who crashed the party later in the day, sending its stock up 7%.

What does this actually mean?

These companies will run their frontier AI models inside the DoD's most secure environments β€” Impact Level 6 and IL7 β€” covering warfighting, intelligence, and enterprise ops.

Over 1.3 million Pentagon personnel are already using GenAI.mil, the DoD's official AI platform. This just turned the dial up significantly.

The DoD's Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael put it plainly: "This is just the latest initiative in our mandate to create an AI-FIRST WAR DEPARTMENT."

No notes on the energy there.

Now for the awkward table in the corner.

Anthropic (maker of Claude, backed by Amazon and Google) is not on the list.

The DoD dropped Anthropic's contract, called it a supply chain risk, and the two are now in a legal fight. Why? Anthropic refused to give the Pentagon unrestricted access to its models.

Every other company on this list, apparently, did not have that same problem with the terms.

There is a small thaw, though. The Trump Administration reportedly softened its stance slightly after Anthropic dropped its new flagship model, Claude Mythos Preview, described as its most capable model yet for coding and agentic tasks.

Michael told CNBC that Mythos is being handled "government-wide." So a door may still be open. Just not right now.

The bigger picture?

Silicon Valley is clearly choosing a side. The DoD is building an AI-first military operation and it wants partners who will play ball… fully and on classified networks.

Anthropic drew a line. Everyone else handed over their pens.

TL;DR

  • The Pentagon signed AI deployment deals with OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, AWS, Nvidia, SpaceX/xAI, Reflection AI, and Oracle

  • These models will run on the DoD's most classified networks (IL6 and IL7)

  • Over 1.3M military personnel already use the DoD's GenAI.mil platform

  • Anthropic is the notable holdout β€” locked in a legal dispute after refusing unrestricted model access

  • The DoD dropped Anthropic's contract and labeled the company a supply chain risk

  • A partial thaw may be coming via Anthropic's new Claude Mythos Preview model, but nothing is resolved yet

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