Greed Beats Fear as Berkshire Anchors Google’s $80 Billion Raise and SpaceX Girds for Liftoff of Mega IPO

Jun 5, 2026

David Solomon summed up the mood on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, which he knew would generate headlines. The CEO of Goldman, in an interview with CNBC’s Leslie Picker at a packed Economic Club of New York luncheon, said, “we are definitely in a moment where there is more greed than there is fear,” in explaining the euphoria around AI and the booming stock market.

We are witnessing one of the great capital market booms in history alongside technology’s greatest innovation, a combo that is creating an inexorable need for capital. When the markets are open to buying equity, sell equity, advised David. Google’s equity raise was the largest single raise ever and was well received by the markets.

There’s no question that the U.S. capital markets are the deepest and most creative and envy of the world, including private and public equity, bank financing, the public bond market and the private credit market, and all are being used to fund the Mag Seven. David’s recent Odd Lots interview can be heard here.

The fact is, there are multiple trillion-dollar market cap companies about to go public with SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI. The market is so euphoric that 15 companies grew by $500 billion in the past few months alone (pre-Broadcom rout). SpaceX is expecting such great demand, it’s squeezing its underwriters to reduce the $500 million honeypot.

“There seems to be an unlimited supply of willing buyers to fund AI”, wrote WSJ columnist James Mackintosh. “As we move into a new era of capital-heavy companies, the stock market stops being merely a way for private investors to exit, but an attractive source of capital.”

In the debt markets, the sheer volume means that the amount of corporate debt raised is close to outpacing U.S. Treasuries, Jim Zelter noted. “The scale of what you need to be relevant is much higher than it ever was before. These numbers are unprecedented, but it shows you the scale of the marketplace.”

At David’s lunch, he began his remarks with the only really crucial thought on every New Yorker’s mind: “Let’s go Knicks!” Enjoy the jingle.

Have a great weekend,

GPP Team

ACTIVISM

Financial Times: Most Activist Investors are not Really Activist Investors
It turns out that shareholder activists are not necessarily “active” and that things are driven from a “small core of sophisticated repeat players” led by Elliott Management. This is according to a new report from the EMEA Sustainable Investing Research team at JPMorgan that finds from 2018 to 2026, 70 per cent of activists were involved in only one campaign and 82 per cent in no more than two. Read More

Financial Times: Activist Fund Elliott Calls for Sale of Australia’s Largest Gold Miner
Elliott Management has called for Northern Star to sell itself after a series of operational and governance missteps that have triggered multiple profit warnings and production downgrades along with CEO Stuart Tonkin announcing he will step down next year. Read More

Bloomberg: Activist Toms Capital Ramps Up Campaign at Voya Financial
Toms Capital continues to pressure the insurance company to consider changes including a sale, arguing that there are interested buyers who could “see Voya finally get the value it deserves.” Read More

M&A

Financial Times: Berkshire Buys Homebuilder Taylor Morrison for $8.5bn in Abel’s First Big Deal
The deal, which is Greg Abel’s first substantial acquisition and is a big bet on the housing market, signals to the market a potential appetite to allocate its nearly $400 billion cash reserves. Krystal Hur of The Wall Street Journal also discussed the Berkshire’s $10 billion purchase of Alphabet shares and noted that these moves give “shareholders reason to believe he is a savvy dealmaker.” Read More

The New York Times: Diller Plans a Takeover Bid for MGM Resorts
The Barry Diller led company announced a cash offer to purchase the remaining shares of MGM Resorts in a bet on the casino giant’s hard assets and a comeback by Las Vegas. Read More

CNBC: Eli Lilly’s Top Dealmaker Says Don’t Be Surprised to See More M&A That Pushes Lilly into New Areas
Despite an already busy year of dealmaking, Eli Lilly’s head of corporate business development said in an interview that the company is funding its new dealmaking strategy through strong sales of its GLP-1 drugs and that there could be more to come from the pharmaceutical giant. Read More

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

Other People’s Votes: The Law and Economics of Proxy Advice
A new paper from Professors Edwin Hu, Nadya Malenko, and Jonathon Zytnick discusses the role proxy advisors play while discussing an economic framework for evaluating proxy advice and the reforms proposed to regulate it. Read More

The Wall Street Journal: The Exxon Example for Corporations
Using Exxon’s recent reincorporation to Texas from New Jersey, the Journal’s Editorial Board dives into the decision and argues that Exxon could become a “harbinger” of similar moves as it might become a “corporate governance duty.” Read More

The Wall Street Journal: A Short Seller’s Fraud Conviction Is Spooking Wall Street
In a move that could transform the landscape of short selling, or even “hasten the decline” of these short selling firms, prominent short seller Andrew Left was convicted of securities-fraud charges that could carry a decades-long prison sentence. Read More

IPO

The Wall Street Journal: Terms Revealed for SpaceX’s Unconventional $75 Billion IPO
In a rare move, SpaceX announced that they are planning on marketing its IPO at a fixed price that could make the rocket builder the 7^th largest U.S. company when it makes its Nasdaq debut on June 12^th. Read More

Barron’s: Quantinuum Stock Trades Higher in Blockbuster Quantum IPO Debut
In one of the most anticipated IPOs of the year, the Honeywell-backed quantum computing company made its debut on the Nasdaq and while it initially jumped up to $68, it gradually moved down into the close and finished at $60.38 (up 0.63%). Read More

The New York Times: Anthropic Files to Go Public, Setting Stage for Huge I.P.O.
The AI company behind Claude took the next step towards potentially entering the public markets by confidentially filing an S-1 in what would be among the biggest IPOs of all time. Read More

FROM OUR DESK TO YOURS

This week, we trekked down Lexington Ave to try out Oyatte, a brand-new farm-to-table restaurant that opened just last month.

Helmed by the rising Korean star Chef Hasung Lee who, having previously honed his craft with stints at The French Laundry, Atomix, Gramercy Tavern and Copenhagen’s Geranium, is stepping out on his own for the first time.

Chef Lee envisioned Oyatte as a contemporary tasting menu combining Korean, French and Nordic cuisine, experiments in fermentation and preservation with seasonal ingredients sourced from the nearby Crown Daisy Farm in Staatsburg, New York.

Each week offers a delicious, if not boldly experimental, 14-course experience that is accompanied by an excellent wine pairing. For our meal, we especially enjoyed the fermented carrot “donut” and a smoked eel mousse with cucumber and caviar to start.

After the first few courses, we moved onto the “mains” which consisted of scallops, roasted lamb and boned smoked quail with braised einkorn and fermented barley butter hollandaise. Our experience concluded with a shockingly refreshing mugwort ice cream with kiwi jerky (yes, you read that right) for dessert.

Looking ahead foodies, if you’re looking for your sandwich (yes, sandwich) fix, check out Hot Dogs with Friends this weekend in Brooklyn. The event remixes traditional Jewish deli hot dog toppings to create the “Not So Jewish Deli Dog.”

Finally, also in Brooklyn, mark your calendars for La Paulée’s Off Gird Block Party on July 9^th, where you can discover a new side of Burgundy with a walk-around tasting featuring over 50 wines from the region’s hidden gems.