In todayβs post:
π₯ Trump vs Europe: It's Personal
π¨ Iran Just Broke The Deal
π The $800 SpaceX Call

The Ultimate Guide for Usage-Based Pricing for SaaS and AI
Implementing usage-based pricing successfully requires more than just a pricing strategy. It requires financial and operational infrastructure capable of handling dynamic pricing models, real-time usage signals, and increasingly complex monetization approaches.
In this guide, you'll learn ‡
Strategic Advantages + Implementation Guidance
AI Use Cases for Usage-Based Pricing
Insights from SaaS & AI finance leaders on overcoming challenges and maximizing UBP.

π₯ Trump vs Europe: It's Personal
Trump landed in Ankara for the NATO summit and immediately hit replay on his favorite track: the US should own Greenland.
And this time there's a threat attached. If Europe keeps saying no, he says America could pull all of its troops out of Europe.
Yes, all of them.

The Pitch (again)
Trump's argument: Greenland matters for US national security, so Denmark should hand it over. He also repeated claims about Chinese and Russian activity around the island. Experts have poked holes in those claims before.
Greenland's response has been the same for months: not for sale. You'd think the "For Sale" sign would've come down by now.
Why This Summit Is Spicy
US-NATO relations are at an all-time low. The flashpoints:
Defense spending quotas (Trump floated stripping voting rights from countries that don't hit 5% of GDP)
The whole Greenland thing
Support for the Iran war
Trump posting that Italy's PM Giorgia Meloni needs a restraining order
That last one is not a joke. It happened on social media.
Receipts So Far
This isn't just talk. Since Trump's "NATO IS A PAPER TIGER" post in March, the US has:
Announced pulling 5,000 active-duty troops from Germany
Cancelled planned air and naval deployments
Launched a full review of its military footprint in Europe

Europe says it can adapt. Capability gaps say otherwise.
The Best-Case Scenario
Europe and Canada sign a joint declaration promising bigger defense budgets and more responsibility for their own security. NATO chief Mark Rutte wants an alliance where the US "knows it is a fair deal."
In a nutshell? Everyone pays up, Trump calms down, defense stocks pop.
Billions in arms deals are expected to be announced. Defense investors are already circling like seagulls at a beach picnic.
Turkey might get back into the F-35 program, if it can sort out its Russian S-400 problem
Zelenskyy shows up, with NATO expected to spell out what support Ukraine gets (and where it stops)
Syria's Ahmed al-Sharaa meets Trump on the sidelines to talk regional stability
By the end of this summit, what actually happens?

Governor races. Senate runoffs. Billboard charts. Celebrity news. Real money on all of it. Kalshi is the federally regulated prediction market where your opinions pay off. Trade what you know.

One company just booked $40 billion in new business in a single quarter.
Its total backlog? Nearly $100 billion. That's signed demand waiting for servers to plug into.
Here's the catch: the company is still losing money. It's carrying $28.4 billion in debt. And the giants who were supposed to be its biggest customers just started renting out their own spare compute.
So this is either the trade of the year or a beautifully decorated debt trap.

And the time window matters. There's a specific inflection expected in the second half of 2026, and if it shows up on schedule, the "cheap" version of this stock disappears with it.
In today's Premium deep dive, we break down:
The $100B backlog and why the real demand wave hasn't even hit yet
The hidden margin tailwind almost nobody is pricing in
The $28.4B debt pile: when it stops mattering and when it blows up the thesis
The three exact signals that would flip us from buyers to sellers

π¨ Iran Just Broke The Deal
The U.S. Treasury just yanked its permission slip for Iranian oil sales. Effective immediately.
Why? Because Iran spent the week attacking tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. The same strait it promised to keep safe under an interim deal.
That's like signing a lease and then setting fire to the lobby.
Here's the quick backstory.
The Trump administration had waived sanctions on Iranian oil as part of a deal to reopen Hormuz. Iran got to sell oil. Ships got safe passage. Everyone wins.
Then Iran started shooting at the ships.
So Treasury pulled the plug.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control killed the license covering production, delivery and sale of Iranian oil. It was supposed to run until August 21.
Now? No new transactions from July 7 onwards. Done. Finished. Licence shredded.
And the market's reaction?
Oil prices surged the moment the announcement dropped. Because nothing says "supply risk" quite like sanctions snapping back on a major producer while its navy plays bumper cars with tankers.
Roughly a fifth of the world's oil moves through Hormuz. When that chokepoint gets twitchy, crude gets expensive. Fast.
What to watch: energy stocks, airline stocks (jet fuel isn't getting cheaper), and whether Iran escalates or blinks.

π The $800 SpaceX Call
The IPO quiet period lifted this week, meaning the banks that underwrote the $86B listing can finally publish research.
Spoiler: they like it. A lot.
Morgan Stanley kicked things off with an Overweight rating and a $300 price target. That's roughly 90% upside from Monday's close.
Their pitch? SpaceX can "convert energy into intelligence at scale" for the AI era. Which sounds like something a fortune cookie would say after three espressos, but the numbers behind it are wild.
They see revenues topping $3.3 trillion by 2040. Trillion. With a T.

Goldman Sachs came in with a Buy and a $205 target, calling SpaceX a unique company with three shots at trillion-dollar markets: space, connectivity, and AI.
Then Raymond James looked at everyone else's homework and said "amateurs."
Strong Buy. $800 price target. That's nearly 500% above the IPO price.
Their analyst compared SpaceX to railroads, electric grids, and the internet. The foundational platform for the next industrial era, apparently. No pressure, Elon.
So why is the stock down?
Shares fell 6.83% Tuesday, drifting back toward the $150 IPO price after briefly touching $225 post-listing.
Classic sell-the-news. Early buyers took profits, tech stocks are wobbly, and everyone who wanted in at the open already got in.
But here's the twist. SpaceX joins the Nasdaq 100 on Tuesday. That means every index fund tracking it is now forced to buy and hold the stock, whether they like it or not.

Forced buyers are the best kind of buyers.
The risks? The banks flagged a few:
Elon dependence. The company's biggest asset is also its biggest single point of failure.
Tesla conflicts. One man, two empires, twenty-four hours in a day.
Funding needs. Rockets are expensive. Who knew?
Regulatory and geopolitical exposure. Satellites and governments make awkward roommates.
Where does SpaceX end 2026?




