$TRUMP Deflates Post "World's Most Exclusive Con-ference"

Trump II's meme-coin ($TRUMP) continues to lose value.  The two "dine with the President" events provided brief spurts to $TRUMP but did not break the overall decline over decline trend.  

Dinner #1 was at Trump National in Northern Virginia.

It boosted his meme-coin price about $4 dollars.

Dinner #2 at Mara-Lago occurred in the midst of his war of choice on Iran.  It got his coin to $4 after a $1 boost.  

$TRUMP is trading at $1.98 as of this posting.  Early Trump buy and hold "investors" have taken a pasting.  Earlier this week it traded as low as $1.83.  

Trump II set this up so he makes money from trading.  His corporate entity takes a cut of the fees.  

Trump II, the digital Caligula, brought unethical business practices to government.  Politics already had little to no ethical foundation.  

His recent Kennedy Center judicial defeat has him verbally divesting the enterprise, just as he tried to do with America's military allies regarding the Strait of Hormuz.  

After jacking everything up in the Persian Gulf he told other countries "to go get your own oil."  It brought to mind the dystopian future pictured in Mad Max movies.  Trump innovated by making it a water version.  

This might be Trump II's Water World, where he just looks old and soggy.   Meanwhile, $TRUMP is looking weak and saggy.

Trump Wedding Surfaces Epstein's Banker

Palm Beach is the investment center of gravity.  Trump II's Mara-Lago is one site where insider deals get done, recently at "the most exclusive conference and dinner in the world."

A different merger took place in that area, the nuptials of Don Jr. & Bettina Anderson.  The bride's late father owned Palm Beach Bank & Trust, which handled at least $12 million in Epstein money from 2004 to 2011.

JP Morgan looked at Epstein's use of funds in 2011.  An internal e-mail stated:

JP Morgan's note cites 2004 allegations against Epstein.  Bettina Anderson was 17 years old.  Fortunately, she was not poor, struggling or whatever other criteria Epstein used to target his victims.

Who'd have thought a Trump wedding would surface Epstein's former local banker?

"Redacted" sent Harry Loy Anderson Jr.'s obituary to Epstein in December 2013.  

TechGod Peter Thiel Lands in Argentina

TechGod Peter Thiel left his home and businesses in Miami for Argentina.  In the last year Thiel relocated Founders Fund, Thiel Capital and Palantir to Miami.  Fellow TechGod Jeff Bezos moved to Miami in 2024 and Hedge Fund Giant Ken Griffin did so in 2022.

Did Thiel move his family (again) because of the telegraphed upcoming U.S. attack on Cuba?  

Iran sent drones and missiles into UAE data centers.  If Cuba could hit Palantir's offices I imagine they would consider that a success.  

Maybe, Mr. Thiel got some secret intelligence only available to big money political insiders.  That would be uniquely American.  

Politicians Red & Blue love PEU and their new TechGod/Cryptobro brethren.  Increasingly, more are one.

Carlyle Promotes Defense-Government-Industrial with New General

Carlyle Group Vice Chair James Stavridis may not get his desired economic opportunity in Iran but Trump II's disastrous war provides profit opportunities just the same.  

Carlyle cut its teeth flipping defense contractors for grand returns under CEO Frank Carlucci, former Secretary of Defense.  Carlucci died in 2018 which shows how long this game has been going on.

The Admiral is ready to do so again with help from General Bryan Fenton, Carlyle's new operating executive in the Defense-Government-Industrial (DGI) space.  Fenton retired in November 2025 and already picked up two board seats, USAA and Mantech.  

Carlyle is excited about the return of the go-go hypersonic defense spending days, calling investment opportunities "unlimited."  

Limitless opportunity?  Carlyle has a history of puffery.

"Unlimited" is as realistic as Elon Musk's promise that the new AI economy will provide everyone a penthouse.  

Politicians Red & Blue got together to save college sports, another area targeted by private equity.  Policy making billionaires, another Carlyle Group innovation, may also be making a comeback.

Politicians Red & Blue love PEU and their new TechGod/CryptoBro brethren.  Increasingly, more are one.  

TechGod penthouses have tight security, ready access to ketamine and spectacular views.  Ours will have a centerfold.  So that's why Grok undresses teens...Elon always fulfills his promises.

From Side Hustle to Wide Hustle: SpaceX IPO

WSJ wrote about Elon Musk's doling out access to SpaceX stock to friends in April 2025.  Space Exploration Technologies (dba SpaceX) has a scheduled IPO launch for June 12, 2026.   

An expert in corporate governance gave a warning on CNBC.  The guest noted lease agreements between SpaceX and Valor Equity Partners as Valor founder & CEO Antonio Gracias is on SpaceX's board of directors.

Rules and norms do not apply to TechGods.  These super-humans can hold multiple full time jobs. Just a dash of their time is incalculable in terms of value.  That power extends beyond the C-suite to the ballot box.

Shareholders normally get a vote.  One share, one vote.  The S-1 indicates SpaceX has several classes of stock, Class A, Class B and Class C.  Musk owns 93% of Class B shares with each share having ten votes.  Class A has one vote per share while Class C has no voting rights.  

Class B shareholders (i.e. Elon Musk) select 51% of the board, while Class A together with Class B select the other 49% (once again Elon Musk).  

The filing states:

...we will be a “controlled company” within the meaning of Nasdaq and Nasdaq Texas corporate governance standards. Under the listing rules of Nasdaq and Nasdaq Texas, a company of which more than 50% of the voting power with respect to director elections is held by another person or group of persons acting together is a “controlled company” and may elect not to comply with certain Nasdaq and Nasdaq Texas corporate governance requirements

This harkens back to when The Carlyle Group, a politically connected private equity underwriter (PEU) went public, but the three founders controlled the board makeup with their outsized share holdings.

Two SpaceX shareholders got special mention in their Investor Rights Amendment (filed in 2020). 

Antonio Gracias may be familiar to close watchers of DOGE.  He "helped" Elon Musk with Social Security from March to July of 2025.  

CEO Antonio Gracias had resigned from his position working 80 hours a week for the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. A Valor spokesperson stated that Gracias was no longer freelancing for the U.S. government.

Gracias also sits on the Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago.  The Chicago Maroon reported on his DOGE involvement:

In meetings with senior staff, SSA Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek has referred to Gracias and other DOGE staffers as “outsiders who are unfamiliar with nuances of SSA programs,” per a March 6 Washington Post article. 

Despite DOGE staffers’ lack of experience, “I am receiving decisions that are made without my input. I have to effectuate those decisions,” Dudek told senior SSA staff.

Gracias spoke alongside Musk at a Social Security Townhall in March.  Their claims did not hold up under scrutiny.  Vanity Fair excoriated the effort:

....didn’t just use untruths to justify their work at the Social Security Administration. They also used their own inability to analyze data, as well as massive hubris...

The second SpaceX shareholder receiving special mention is Peter Thiel's Founders Fund.

It's not clear how much Elon Musk, Peter Thiel or Antonio Gracias will make in the SpaceX IPO, but one thing is for sure.  TechGods remain firmly in control.  

Update:  Musk floated a SpaceX - Tesla merger.  He has the votes...

Power of the TechGods

Trump II's alignment with the TechGods began with his selection of J.D. Vance as his Vice President.  Vance is a junior TechGod having been christened from his tutelage under Peter Thiel.  

Thiel lectures on the anti-Christ, i.e. any person or collection of governments that would limit AI or any of his thousands of tech solutions to a major societal problem (Thiel's not having enough power and money).

Palantir's AI targeting is rumored to be behind the deaths of Iranian school girls early in Trump II's disastrous war of choice on Iran.  It may have targeted Ukraine's recent bombing of a Russian college.  Thiel founded Palantir alongside Alex Karp and the company cut its teeth protecting the global elite.  It now may be erroneously killing children and young adults.

U.S. companies are scurrying to deploy AI which costs far more than employing real people.  TechGods recently joined with private equity underwriters (PEU) to profit off the spread of AI throughout their owned companies.  AI will be the latest excessive PEU charge to affiliates atop interest expenses and management fees.  

AI has become the subject of graduate jeers at college commencements.  TechGod speakers have been shocked that students, the primary users of AI, don't want their "garbage in-garbage out" models taking entry level positions.

TechGods have been insulated from their staff and protected from outside scrutiny by non-disclosure agreements.  Trump II wants to foist those on federal workers.  

Unaccountable politicians serve unaccountable billionaires with the sorry lot wanting to be trillionaires.  It's a thicker crap sandwich for the common person.

Politicians Red & Blue love PEU and their new TechGod/CryptoBro brethren.  Increasingly, more are one.  

Update: An X post noted:

Step 1: Scrape the entire internet. Every book, every article, every conversation, every piece of art, every forum post. Do it without asking. Do it without paying. 

Step 2: Train a model on all of it. Call it "artificial intelligence." Step 3: Go to BlackRock's Infrastructure Summit and announce: "We see a future where intelligence is a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter." 

Step 3 is where you sell people's own knowledge back to them. On a meter. They took the collective output of human thought, compressed it into a model, and now they want to charge you by the token to access a version of what you and everyone you know already created. 

One Reddit user put it perfectly: "They stole all this data from us, the people, our life's work, creativity, art, by devouring the internet and blowing through all copyright laws. Now they want to sell it back to us in the form of a utility."

General's Global PEU Odor

Responsible Statecraft reported on May 14th (ten days ago):

Known as “one of Israel’s staunchest allies in the American defense establishment,” Ret. Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who just retired from his post as head of U.S. Central Command last summer, will feel right at home presenting the keynote at the Israeli-American Council's "Strength in Unity" gala tonight. 

According to Jewish Insider's morning newsletter, others speaking at the event will include pro-Israel megadonor Miriam Adelson and former Mossad Deputy Director Henrike Weissberg.

 General Kurilla was appointed Senior Advisor for Lazard last fall.

Lazard CEO Peter Orszag recently wrote a piece on State directed Capitalism which seems uniquely directed at AI, space, rare earths, defense, intelligence and energy.  

The Pentagon targeted private equity collaboration after several key leadership appointees came from that sector.  Lazard was already a major player in the PEU world but they added more capability with Campbell Lutyens.

Retired Generals and Admirals hold significant positions within major private equity underwriters (PEU).  They also often work for TechGods, which more recently prioritized doing business with Uncle Sam (long a PEU practice).

Kurilla is my latest find, but I'm sure there are many more.  Turn over a rock in Washington, D.C. and you may find a PEU, an elected official, a retired four star or a newly officed TechGod.  

Politicians Red & Blue love PEU and their new TechGod/CryptoBro brethren.  Increasingly, more are one.