Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.
In today's newsletter:
💸 Elon Musk's X launches payments in US
🇨🇳 China starts making its own chip machines
🏦 SoftBank lands $40B loan for OpenAI stake
💰 Nvidia invests $5B in Sutskever's AI lab
Plus: 🌍 11 macro news, 🏢 8 corporate news, 💰 5 deal flow, and 📑 5 research & reports.
| 💸 Elon Musk's X launches payments in US LINK |
- Elon Musk's X has opened its X Money banking service to all US Premium and Premium+ subscribers, offering deposits, peer-to-peer transfers, bill payments, wire services and check mailing directly inside the social media app.
- Premium+ members are offered up to 6% annual yield on deposits — well above the roughly 4% to 5% on leading US high-yield savings accounts — with funds held at Cross River Bank under FDIC insurance covering up to $250,000 per account.
- The service pits X against PayPal's Venmo, Block's Cash App and SoFi, though Senator Elizabeth Warren has questioned how X sustains such high rates, citing prior FDIC enforcement actions against Cross River over its lending practices.
| 🇨🇳 China starts making its own chip machines LINK |
- China has begun mass-producing its own immersion DUV chipmaking machines for the first time, via a state-backed Shanghai company, threatening the dominance of Dutch equipment giant ASML in a technology long seen as the hardest hurdle in semiconductor manufacturing.
- ASML shares dropped more than 7% after The Information broke the news, erasing an earlier 2% pre-market gain, as investors feared for its China DUV sales — revenue that had offset banned EUV shipments and made up 14% of net systems revenue last quarter.
- US equipment makers fell in sympathy on worries the rest of the supply chain could follow, with Lam Research down nearly 7% and Applied Materials and KLA both off about 5%, though China's output remains small at just five machines this year rising to 20 by 2026.
| 🏦 SoftBank lands $40B loan for OpenAI stake LINK |
- SoftBank has widened its $40 billion bridge loan backing its OpenAI investment, bringing in 21 additional lenders who took on roughly $7 billion of the facility, one of Asia-Pacific's largest such deals.
- First Abu Dhabi Bank, Singapore's sovereign fund GIC, and Standard Chartered each committed close to $1 billion, while original arrangers led by JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs still hold the remaining $33 billion, which may be distributed further.
- The 12-month loan, priced near a 6.14% interest rate and due March 2027, funds a $30 billion injection into OpenAI—valued at $852 billion in March—lifting Masayoshi Son's total commitment past $60 billion.
| 💰 Nvidia invests $5B in Sutskever's AI lab LINK |
- Nvidia has committed roughly $5 billion to Safe Superintelligence, the AI lab founded by former OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, though both sides described the sum only as "substantial" and declined to confirm the figure.
- The deal gives SSI access to Nvidia's forthcoming Vera Rubin chip systems, expanding its computing power tenfold, and follows an April 2025 funding round that valued the two-year-old company at $32 billion.
- The tie-up echoes Nvidia's existing OpenAI arrangement and rival AMD's pact with Anthropic, a sign that top AI labs are locking in hardware partners as competition for next-generation computing capacity intensifies, with Nvidia shares near record highs.
🌍 Macro News
- US equity futures jumped after crude oil tumbled on easing US-Iran tensions. LINK
- Oil prices sank and stock futures rose as US paused Iran bombing campaign. LINK
- South Korea's Kospi crashed 10.8% Tuesday, triggering circuit breakers amid tech selloff. LINK
- China accused US AI firms of copying its models, threatening retaliation without evidence. LINK
- Judge blocked Minnesota's prediction-market ban, ruling platforms fall under federal oversight. LINK
- Trump administration seeks single national AI framework to replace state-level rules. LINK
- Hong Kong launched a framework preparing banks for quantum-computing risks by 2030. LINK
- Japan plans to invest in overseas oil pipelines to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. LINK
- Iran held talks with Saudi Arabia and Oman to ease Strait of Hormuz tensions. LINK
- Stablecoin supply shrank $7.7 billion in June, even as transaction volume hit a record. LINK
- Wall Street is deeply split on whether the Fed will hold or hike rates. LINK
🏢 Corporate News
- Agility Robotics will go public in 2026 via merger with Churchill Capital Corp XI. LINK
- The Exploration Company seeks $300 million funding round valuing it above $2 billion. LINK
- Shein posted a $99 million loss after US tariff exemption ended. LINK
- Baidu began testing self-driving cars in London through its Lyft partnership. LINK
- Circle became the largest US patent holder in blockchain after buying IBM assets. LINK
- Fanatics bought Water Street Labs and CX Clearinghouse to expand into prediction markets. LINK
- Lido began migrating over $16.5 billion in staked ether to Ethereum's new validator design. LINK
- Storj Labs filed for Chapter 11, the fourth crypto firm to fail this week. LINK
📈 Stocks
💰 Deal Flow
- The Boring Company is in talks to raise $4 billion at a $20 billion valuation. LINK
- SoftBank is in talks to buy driverless-excavator maker Gravis Robotics for over $500 million. LINK
- Nuclear startup Antares raised $470 million to build reactors for US military bases. LINK
- Nuclear Turbines raised €17.5 million to develop compact nuclear power systems. LINK
- Alphabet's SpaceX stake is now worth $94.1 billion, its filing shows. LINK
📑 Research & Reports
- Jefferies warned US AI spending risks massive capital destruction amid cheaper Chinese models. LINK
- Global IT spending is projected to rise 14.2% to $6.37 trillion in 2026. LINK
- HSBC mapped SpaceX's share-lockup expiry, with 912 million shares eligible for sale August 6. LINK
- Strategy's new capital framework buys time but doesn't fix its structural problems, Galaxy says. LINK
- AI data-center spending lifted US durable goods orders 0.3% in June. LINK