SpaceX Shares Fall Back to Earth

"SpaceX Shares Fall Back to Earth" | Authors: Connie Loizos & Alex Gove

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1. Key Themes

Open, Customizable AI Models Are Emerging as a Direct Challenger to Closed Frontier Labs

Thinking Machines Lab's launch of Inkling — an open-weight, 975B-parameter mixture-of-experts model — represents a deliberate bet that enterprise-adaptable AI will outperform one-size-fits-all offerings from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. The company is positioning the model not as a finished product but as a starting point: "Thinking Machines is, for now, marketing Inkling less as a finished product than as a starting point, something for organizations to fine-tune themselves through Tinker, the company's model-customization platform."

Physical AI and Robotics Are Attracting Institutional and Strategic Capital at Scale

Two of the largest rounds in this issue went to robotics companies. Walden Robotics raised $300M at a $1.1B valuation with co-lead from Toyota and participation from NVIDIA, Boeing, Samsung, and Prologis. Monumental, building autonomous bricklaying robots, raised a $32M Series B led by Khosla Ventures. The investor roster signals that industrial strategics — not just VCs — are now placing large bets on physical automation: "The deal was co-led by Toyota and Deviation Capital, with NVIDIA, Boeing, AE Ventures, Samsung Ventures, Prologis Ventures, CoreWeave Ventures... also chipping in."

AI Agent Identity and Access Management Is Becoming an Urgent Infrastructure Problem

Two separate companies are raising meaningful capital to solve trust and permissions problems introduced by AI agents. Oak raised a $60M seed round to manage "employee, machine, and AI agent access to company applications by matching permissions with actual usage." Simultaneously, internet pioneer Vint Cerf is advising on DNSid, "a proposed standard for giving AI agents verifiable identities tied to domain names, as companies prepare for agents to operate more autonomously across the open internet."

AI-Enabled Roll-Ups of Traditional Service Businesses Are Gaining Momentum

Two companies in this issue are pursuing the same playbook — acquire fragmented, traditional service businesses and automate their back-offices with AI. American Growth Insurance (insurance agencies) raised $70M and Skalar (tax and accounting firms) raised $13.7M at pre-seed. This pattern suggests a replicable template: "American Growth Insurance... acquires independent insurance agencies and uses AI to automate their back-office operations."

AI Regulation Is Fracturing Along Company Lines, Creating Policy Risk and Opportunity

OpenAI and Anthropic are now openly pursuing divergent regulatory strategies at the state level. Anthropic is "pushing states to adopt increasingly tougher AI safety rules, breaking with OpenAI's 'reverse federalism' strategy of encouraging states to align around a common framework." Simultaneously, a grassroots split is visible inside OpenAI itself, with employees donating $215,000+ to a pro-regulation super PAC that is directly opposed to the company's leadership-backed PAC.

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2. Contrarian Perspectives

SpaceX's Post-IPO Decline Suggests the "Musk Premium" Is Compressing

SpaceX shares have fallen back to their $135 IPO price just one month after its public debut — a notable reversal for a company that generated extraordinary pre-IPO hype. The catalyst is revealing: the upcoming Starship test "SpaceX expects to end with both rocket stages exploding in the Gulf of Mexico." This suggests markets may have been pricing in narrative rather than near-term operational milestones, and that the Musk halo trade has a shorter half-life post-listing than many assumed.

Inkling's Explicit Admission of Non-Leadership Is a Strategic Differentiator, Not a Weakness

Thinking Machines openly states that Inkling is "not the strongest overall model available today, open or closed." In a market where every lab claims frontier performance, positioning around honesty, calibration, and efficiency — "Inkling uses a third as many tokens as Nvidia's Nemotron 3 Ultra... to hit the same coding performance" — may resonate more with enterprise buyers who have been burned by hallucinating, overconfident models. Refusing to compete on benchmark theater is itself a product and marketing decision.

Open-Weight AI Shifts Safety Liability Onto Customers — a Structural Risk Few Are Discussing

By releasing an open-weight model and requiring customers to fine-tune through Tinker, Thinking Machines has also transferred a meaningful portion of safety responsibility downstream: "This also means customers, not Thinking Machines, are responsible for making sure their customizations are safe." As regulators increase scrutiny of AI outputs, this liability transfer could become a significant enterprise procurement concern — particularly in regulated industries.

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3. Companies Identified

SpaceX | Aerospace / launch company | Featured as top news; shares fell back to their $135 IPO price one month post-debut amid investor reassessment and an upcoming Starship test expected to end in both stages exploding. | "SpaceX shares fell back to roughly their $135 IPO price a month after the company's blockbuster public debut as investors reassess Elon Musk's ambitions."

Thinking Machines Lab | AI startup (founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati) | Featured as the main editorial story; launched Inkling, its first open-weight AI model, as a test of its anti-one-size-fits-all thesis. | "It's also a test of the central bet behind the startup, which is that AI that organizations can adapt for themselves will outperform the one-size-fits-all models the biggest labs currently sell."

Walden Robotics | General-purpose robotics, Cambridge, MA | Raised $300M at $1.1B valuation co-led by Toyota and Deviation Capital, with NVIDIA, Boeing, and Samsung also participating. | "[Develops] general-purpose robots that learn factory and warehouse tasks and take on repetitive physical work alongside employees."

AdvanCell | Radiotherapy biotech, Boston/Australia | Raised $315M Series D for lead-212 targeted alpha radiation cancer therapies — the largest single round in the issue. | "Develops lead-212 targeted radiotherapies designed to deliver alpha radiation to tumors while limiting exposure to healthy tissue."

Anthropic | AI lab | Reportedly lining up investor meetings for a potential October IPO with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan; simultaneously pushing states toward stricter AI safety rules. | "Anthropic is reportedly lining up investor meetings ahead of a potential October IPO."

Emergent | AI coding agents for SMBs, San Francisco | Raised $130M at $1.5B post-money valuation; backed by Khosla, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Lightspeed, and YC. | "Uses AI coding agents to help entrepreneurs and small businesses build, deploy, test, and run internal business applications."

Oak | AI agent access management, Tel Aviv | Raised a $60M seed round co-led by Accel, CRV, and Greylock — notable both for size and the problem it addresses. | "Manages employee, machine, and AI agent access to company applications by matching permissions with actual usage."

American Growth Insurance | AI-enabled insurance agency roll-up, Atlanta | Raised $70M co-led by Atomic and Rockbridge Growth; one year old. | "Acquires independent insurance agencies and uses AI to automate their back-office operations."

Lumin | Digital banking/fintech for credit unions, San Ramon, CA | Raised $115M at $1.6B valuation led by Light Street Capital, with 15 of its own clients investing. | "Provides digital banking, payments, CRM, and lending tools that help banks and credit unions grow online usage and revenue."

Auger | AI supply chain automation, Bellevue, WA | Raised $50M Series B led by Eclipse; connects ERP, warehouse, and demand-planning systems. | "Connects companies' ERP, warehouse, transportation, and demand-planning systems to automate supply chain decisions and inventory reallocations."

Hemispheric | AI-powered brain diagnostics, Tel Aviv | Raised $52M to help clinicians diagnose PTSD, depression, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's via non-invasive brain-activity data. | "Uses AI to analyze non-invasive brain-activity data and help clinicians diagnose conditions such as PTSD, depression, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's."

Spectro Cloud | AI infrastructure management, San Jose | Raised $100M+ Series D led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives, with AMD Ventures and Ericsson participating; $260M raised total. | "Develops software for managing production AI infrastructure across enterprise, public sector, neocloud, and sovereign cloud environments."

Senra Systems | Aerospace/defense wire harnesses, Redondo Beach, CA | Raised $65M Series B with an unusually broad syndicate including Sequoia, a16z, Founders Fund, and Lowercarbon Capital. | "Manufactures wire harnesses that connect electrical and communications systems in aerospace and defense platforms."

Cyclops | Stablecoin settlement infrastructure, Miami | Raised $20M Series A backed by Coinbase Ventures and Circle; helps payments companies add stablecoin rails without building infrastructure. | "Helps payments companies add stablecoin settlement and cross-border transaction capabilities without building the infrastructure themselves."

Whatnot | Live-shopping marketplace, Los Angeles | Acquired Shaped (real-time recommendation systems) to improve product discovery as live inventory changes by the second. | "A seven-year-old Los Angeles live-shopping marketplace that lets sellers auction products over livestreams."

AlleyCorp | New York venture firm (founded by Kevin Ryan) | Raised $335M for its second outside fund targeting early-stage healthcare, deep tech, and general tech. | "Raised $335 million for its second outside fund to make early-stage bets across healthcare, deep tech, and general tech."

Tesla | EV/autonomous vehicles | Featured in top news; NTSB revealed driver in fatal Texas crash pressed accelerator to 100%, overriding Full Self-Driving, before car hit a house at 70+ mph. | "The driver in a fatal Texas Tesla crash pressed the accelerator to 100%, overriding Full Self-Driving before his car hit a house at more than 70 mph and killed a 76-year-old resident."

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4. People Identified

Mira Murati | Former OpenAI CTO; founder of Thinking Machines Lab | Central to the Inkling launch story as the founder behind the open-weight model and anti-one-size-fits-all AI thesis. | Referenced as the founder: "Thinking Machines Lab, the AI startup founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati."

Vint Cerf | Internet pioneer, co-inventor of TCP/IP | Advising Innovation Labs on DNSid, a proposed standard for giving AI agents verifiable domain-tied identities. | "Internet pioneer Vint Cerf is advising Innovation Labs on DNSid, a proposed standard for giving AI agents verifiable identities tied to domain names."

Elon Musk | CEO of SpaceX and Tesla; described as "trillionaire" | Featured twice: SpaceX IPO pullback, and a $5M donation to a super PAC backing Vivek Ramaswamy's Ohio governor campaign despite earlier pledges to pull back from political spending. | "Elon Musk donated $5 million to a super PAC backing billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign for Ohio governor... despite Musk's earlier pledge to pull back from political spending."

Greg Brockman | President of OpenAI | Mentioned in the context of the internal OpenAI regulatory schism; backs the pro-industry Leading the Future super PAC, which is opposed by rank-and-file OpenAI employees. | "Putting some rank-and-file staffers directly at odds with Leading the Future, the pro-industry super PAC backed by OpenAI president Greg Brockman."

Kevin Ryan | Founder of AlleyCorp | Noted as the founding figure behind a 19-year-old New York firm now raising its second outside fund. | "A 19-year-old New York venture firm founded by Kevin Ryan, raised $335 million for its second outside fund."

Lorde | Recording artist | Offered an unsolicited consumer verdict on AI glasses at a Barcelona concert, reflecting broader cultural pushback on ambient AI hardware. | "Can I just say, for the record, f— the glasses. Don't get the glasses. Not sexy."

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5. Operating Insights

Efficiency Benchmarks Are the New Moat in Enterprise AI Sales

In a crowded AI market, Thinking Machines chose to lead not with capability claims but with token efficiency: "On one benchmark, the company says, Inkling uses a third as many tokens as Nvidia's Nemotron 3 Ultra to hit the same coding performance." For operators building or selling AI products into enterprises, total cost of inference — not raw benchmark scores — is increasingly the purchasing criterion worth optimizing and communicating.

Structured Calibration ("Flagging Uncertainty") Is a Differentiating Product Feature

Rather than competing on confidence, Inkling is designed to "give calibrated answers, including flagging uncertainty rather than guessing" and lets users dial "thinking effort" up or down. For operators building AI-facing products, building in explicit uncertainty signals and user-controlled compute trade-offs may drive more enterprise trust and retention than maximizing output confidence — particularly in regulated industries.

Customer-Funded Rounds Are a Signal of Product-Market Fit Worth Watching

Lumin's $115M round is notable because 15 of its own clients participated alongside the lead investor. "The deal was led by Light Street Capital, with 15 clients of the company and Affinity Plus also opting in." For operators, this structure — clients investing — is a high-signal validation mechanism and a financing tactic that reduces dilution while creating deeper customer lock-in.

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6. Overlooked Insights

Gallium Oxide as a Post-Silicon Material for Power Chips Is Attracting Seed Capital

Buried in the smaller fundings: NextGo EPI raised just $2.3M pre-seed for gallium oxide wafers — a next-generation semiconductor material for high-power chips used in EV chargers and energy equipment. "Produces gallium oxide wafers that form the active layer in high-power chips for EV chargers and energy equipment." Gallium oxide has significantly higher breakdown voltage than silicon carbide, making it a potentially disruptive materials play in power electronics — and this pre-seed is an early indicator that specialized investors are beginning to fund the supply chain.

The AI Safety Schism Inside OpenAI May Be a Talent Retention and Governance Risk

The detail that OpenAI employees — not just external critics — have donated $215,000 to a super PAC pushing stricter AI regulation, in direct opposition to company leadership, signals a deepening internal values conflict. "OpenAI employees have donated more than $215,000 to Guardrails Alliance, a super PAC pushing for stricter AI regulation, putting some rank-and-file staffers directly at odds with Leading the Future, the pro-industry super PAC backed by OpenAI president Greg Brockman." For investors in OpenAI or competing labs, internal political fractures of this kind are a leading indicator of potential talent exits and mission drift risk — worth monitoring well ahead of any IPO.