Social Capital co-founder Chamath Palihapitiya has backed Elon Musk-led Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:SPCX) in the artificial intelligence race over competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic.
Chamath Backs SpaceX
On Tuesday, Palihapitiya backed the commercial space flight company during an interview with Axios when he was asked which stock he would take. “SpaceX because it has the most broad optionality,” Palihapitiya said. He acknowledged that Anthropic had a “superior product” compared to other competitors.
“We use it at 8090. It’s our foundational model for a lot of our work. It’s exceptional,” the investor said. He also said that as a consumer, he used ChatGPT. “It’s a brand that every man, woman, and child understands,” he said.
However, Palihapitiya outlined that these were “single lines of business” and that one targeted enterprises, while the other focused on consumers. “You can debate it, but it ebbs and flows with the GDP of the world,” he said.
SpaceX was different as it has an “extremely different set of revenue streams that have nothing to do… with consumer adoption or enterprise adoption,” the investor said.
“The communications infrastructure of the world is pretty profoundly broken. We’re gonna go through a refresh cycle; it’s [SpaceX] gonna get the plurality of that,” he said, seemingly pointing towards Starlink.
He then shared how he also projected an “equivalent form” of Earth-based businesses that could potentially be in other places across the solar system. “This may sound like sci-fi,” he said. “I think it’s huge embedded optionality,” he said.
OpenAI Offers 5% Stake To Trump Admin
The comments come as OpenAI was reportedly considering offering the President Donald Trump administration a 5% equity stake to help strengthen relations. Notably, the government, in 2025, acquired a 9.9% stake in Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC), purchasing 433.3 million shares of the chipmaker.
SpaceX Enters Nasdaq 100
SpaceX recently entered the Nasdaq 100 index, which was the fastest entry into the index by any stock. However, SpaceX’s expedited entry has been opposed by experts. Critics say that the entry would result in billions of dollars in forced buying from index funds and ETFs that track the Nasdaq 100, citing concerns with SpaceX’s valuation.
Meanwhile, several investment banks initiated SpaceX coverage, with Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) analyst Adam Jonas outlining a bull case of $600/share for SpaceX and $3.3 trillion in revenue by 2040.
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