Dr. Chamath Palihapitiya at The Besties All-In Tequila Launch Party at Delilah on June 21, 2025 (JC Olivera/Getty Images)

Chamath’s Social Capital gets back into SPAC game with “American Exceptionalism Acquisition Corp.”

But all the SPAC King touches has not turned to gold.

Luke Kawa

8/19/25 10:44AM

Chamath Palihapitiya is back in the arena trying stuff.

The same stuff that didn’t work for most investors who followed his lead, but did very well for his venture capital firm Social Capital.

With SPACs back on the menu, the former Facebook exec, SoFi founder, and “All-In” podcaster is raising at least $250 million for a new special purpose acquisition vehicle called the American Exceptionalism Acquisition Corp., according to a filing released on Monday evening.

Per the preliminary prospectus, the industries that excite Palihapitiya the most (and presumably the kind of companies he’s targeting to take public) are energy production, AI, decentralized finance, and defense.

The so-called “SPAC King” once favorably compared his fund’s early returns to those of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. But with the exception of SoFi Technologies, Social Capital-led SPACs are down substantially since the completion of their mergers with the blank-check companies.

Virgin Galactic and Clover Health got off to hot starts, but cratered as inflationary pressures and the ensuing aggressive rate-hiking campaign from the Federal Reserve weighed acutely on more speculative pockets of the market. And online real estate company Opendoor Technologies has enjoyed a run as a meme stock as of late, but has yet to show concrete signs of an operational turnaround.

Perhaps in light of this track record, Palihapitiya said in the filing that he has “dramatically reshaped and restructured the sponsor’s economics” in order “to provide greater alignment with my investors.”

AEXA founder shares — Source: AEXA preliminary prospectus

Nia Warfield, Luke Kawa

14h

S&P 500 closes at record as tech heavyweights flex (besides Apple)

The Magnificent 7 did the heavy lifting, performing better than any S&P 500 sector ETF on Tuesday.

Matt Phillips

15h

Oracle rips as backlog builds, but company misses on top and bottom lines

Oracle shares shot higher after-hours as the company reported a growing backlog, even though its fiscal Q1 results fell slightly short of expectations. The company reported:

Adjusted earnings per share of $1.47 vs. expectations of $1.48.
Revenue of $14.93 billion vs. expectations of $15.04 billion.

Shares were up 21% in after-hours trading, which is a pretty crazy stock move for a company with a market cap of more than $675 billion.

The market was likely impressed by a giant build in the company’s “remaining performance obligations,” or RPO, which is how the company measures the value of signed cloud computing deals that haven’t yet been reported as revenue. In a statement, CEO Safra Catz said:

“We signed four multi-billion-dollar contracts with three different customers in Q1. This resulted in RPO contract backlog increasing 359% to $455 billion. It was an astonishing quarter — and demand for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure continues to build. Over the next few months, we expect to sign-up several additional multi-billion-dollar customers and RPO is likely to exceed half-a-trillion dollars.”

Oracle Announces Fiscal Year 2026 First Quarter Financial Results

“We signed four multi-billion-dollar contracts with three different customers in Q1. This resulted in RPO contract backlog increasing 359% to $455 billion. It was an astonishing quarter — and demand for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure continues to build. Over the next few months, we expect to sign-up several additional multi-billion-dollar customers and RPO is likely to exceed half-a-trillion dollars.”

Matt Phillips

15h

Robinhood rides index inclusion rally to record close

Robinhood Markets notched a new closing high Tuesday, as the crypto, stock, and options brokerage continued to ride a rally set off by the announcement that it would be added to the S&P 500 Index.

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)

Robinhood appears to be benefiting from the so-called inclusion effect, a market phenomenon where companies that are added to major market indexes can see a price move as index funds — whose holdings must mirror the membership of the index — rush to buy the stock.

For what it’s worth, it seems like Robinhood will upon entry (effective prior to the market open on September 22) be the top-performing member of the index, as its roughly 220% gain this year is more or less double that of the current leader, Seagate Technology Holdings.

Luke Kawa

15h

GameStop posts impressive Q2 results with big sales beat

Don’t call it a comeback!

GameStop is jumping aftermarket as the video games and collectibles retailer posted an impressive set of second-quarter results.

Net sales: $972 million (estimate $823 million).
Adjusted diluted earnings per share: $0.25 (estimate $0.16).

Note: these consensus estimates, compiled by Bloomberg, are from only two analysts.

The sales beat is particularly noteworthy, as the company had already done an exemplary job of expense control to help protect its bottom line. Revenues were up more than 20% versus the year-ago quarter, the biggest annual jump in sales since the company (and the world) was emerging from the pandemic in 2021.

The options market implies a move of plus or minus about 9.4% on earnings.

For a while, GameStop’s ability to generate positive net income was purely a function of the interest earnings on its substantial cash hoard. But now, GameStop has strung together five consecutive quarters of positive operating cash flows for the first time in its history!

This was the quarter when the company began to act on its bitcoin treasury strategy, raising money through the sale of convertible notes and using some proceeds to purchase the crypto asset.

Because of how much market value has been ascribed to potential for GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen to use its significant cash holdings to transform the company, the prospect of converting cash into bitcoin initially did not sit too well with investors following the announcement of this new strategic push in March.

Shares of the once-upon-a-time meme stock really didn’t get too much love during retail frenzies earlier in the summer, and were down about 25% year to date heading into this release.

As of the close of the quarter, its bitcoin holdings were valued at $528.6 million.

Western Digital Seagate Technology Rise to top of S&P 500

Data storage is so hot right now

A rapid turnaround in profitability helps explain how Seagate Technology and Western Digital have clawed to the top of the S&P 500 this year.

Matt Phillips17h