Humiliation Ritual

Summary

Money Stuff: The Podcast

Episode: Humiliation Ritual

Date: April 10, 2026
Hosts: Matt Levine & Katie Greifeld (Bloomberg)

---

Episode Overview

This episode centers on the ever-evolving world of Wall Street dealmaking, focusing heavily on recent activism by high-profile investors like Bill Ackman, the drama around Elon Musk’s IPO maneuvers, and shifts in the ETF landscape. Themes of image, ritual, and the theatre of finance—especially, as the title hints, the “humiliation rituals” of the banking world—prevail as Matt and Katie dissect current market stories with trademark dry wit and approachable explanation.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Satoshi Nakamoto Speculation (01:50–04:47)

• Adam Back’s Possible Identity as Satoshi: The recent New York Times article identifies Adam Back (CEO of Blockstream, prominent cryptographer) as Satoshi Nakamoto, largely based on circumstantial evidence and linguistic analysis.
• Journalistic Wishful Thinking: Katie recounts having just interviewed Adam Back—missing the “big scoop” by a day.
  • Matt Levine (02:13): “All these things ... are basically shared by any of the, you know, 100 people who might have invented Bitcoin. So there’s a lot of skepticism of the identification.”
• Evaluating Body Language in Finance & Media: Matt muses on the perennial belief that people can “spot a liar” based on cues, paralleling how investors analyze executives.
• Modern Mysteries: They agree that the true identity of Satoshi remains one of the world’s great ongoing enigmas.

---

2. Bill Ackman, Universal Music Group, and Activism (05:09–13:48)

• Ackman’s Grand Proposal:
  • Ackman has proposed a €55 billion “acquisition” of Universal Music Group (UMG), but the transaction is more complex—featuring US listing ambitions, activist tactics, and financial engineering.
  • Matt Levine (05:38): “He has proposed to acquire all of Universal Music Group for €55 billion ... but that’s not true. ... He wants the company to borrow money to buy back stock. Classic activist move.”
• Financial Engineering and Public Relations:
  • Ackman’s plan involves selling UMG’s Spotify stake, borrowing for buybacks, and listing in New York—touting a potential share price jump to €30.
  • The nature of Ackman’s proposal (“merger” structure, complex math, media headlines) is scrutinized.
  • Matt Levine (07:11): “Blackbird has this thing called a spark. It’s like a SPAC only doesn’t have money.”
• Shareholder Dynamics:
  • Katie discusses the pivotal role of French billionaire Vincent Bolloré, whose response could make or break the deal.
• Ackman’s Other Ventures:
  • Discussion expands to his hedge fund structure, upcoming closed-end fund “Pershing Square USA,” and a possible new “doomsday” (tail risk) derivative fund.
  • Matt Levine (12:18): “The headline is something like he wants to profit from market complacency. ... He’s going to bet against complacency.”

---

3. Ackman’s “Doomsday Fund” and the Art of Not Getting Anxious (13:48–16:23)

• How Tail Risk Funds Work:
  • They contrast the usual “doomsday fund” (constant loss, rare jackpots) with Ackman’s more zen approach: mostly hold safe assets and only strike derivative bets at the last moment.
  • Matt Levine (15:53): “If you have the zen-like repose to just buy 12 stocks and hold them and tweet all the time, maybe you can do the Doomsday Fund the right way.”
• Investment Fantasies:
  • Katie ponders non-journalism career paths, fantasizing about a sedate, strike-only-when-confident investment style.
  • Matt Levine (16:10): “The best way to invest is to just buy a stock right before it goes up a lot. Or buy crash insurance right before the market goes down a lot.”

---

4. Elon Musk, SpaceX IPO, and “Humiliation Rituals” in Investment Banking (18:31–25:23)

• The SpaceX IPO and Grok Subscriptions:
  • The impending SpaceX IPO (possibly at a $2 trillion valuation) comes with an unusual demand: banks must buy large subscriptions to Musk’s AI platform “Grok” to lead the deal.
  • Matt Levine (19:44): “It’s a little frowned upon, but I don’t know why ... He’s like making a sale.”
  • Katie Greifeld (22:07): “Some of the banks have agreed to spend tens of millions of dollars on the chatbot.”
• Why This Matters:
  • Musk wants to showcase corporate adoption of Grok and drive AI cachet for the IPO narrative—even if bankers don’t plan to use it.
  • Matt Levine (20:28): “This company is going to go public at 100 times earnings or 100 times revenue or something. ... Every little bit helps.”
• Broader Commentary on IPO Rituals:
  • Matt recounts other “humiliation rituals” banks have performed to win IPO mandates (e.g., dressing in yoga pants for Lululemon’s IPO).
    • Matt Levine (24:18): “That is like a humiliation ritual. That’s amazing.”
  • They riff on the current AI IPO wave and how every bank now peppers pitchbooks with references to whichever AI is in the crosshairs.

---

5. ETF Market Intrigue: Competition for QQQ (28:09–35:56)

• BlackRock & State Street Attack QQQ:
  • BlackRock and State Street each filed for their own pure NASDAQ 100 ETFs, ending Invesco’s long reign with QQQ.
  • Katie Greifeld (29:08): “What’s interesting is that BlackRock 6am on Monday filed for a NASDAQ 100 ETF. ... Tuesday, State Street filed ... Invesco shares went straight down ... they might have some serious competition here.”
• Licensing and Branding Economics:
  • Matt and Katie debate why the “official” NASDAQ 100 matters when anyone could, in theory, just buy the constituent stocks.
  • Matt Levine (31:07): “If I launched a product ... and called it the 103 Tech Stock Index, that would get less traction than the NASDAQ 100.”
• Why Now? SpaceX and Index Fast-Tracking:
  • Katie and Matt theorize that NASDAQ is opening up licensing ahead of a possible SpaceX IPO—NASDAQ’s new index rules may fast-track hot tech IPOs, drawing flows into NASDAQ 100 ETFs before the S&P 500 catches up.
  • Matt Levine (33:53): “Crucially, for some period of months, it seems like SpaceX will be in the NASDAQ 100 and not in the S&P.”
• Fee Wars Loom:
  • The QQQ fee has already dropped to 18 basis points, but major players like BlackRock may go far lower, intensifying competition and threatening Invesco’s cash cow.
  • Katie Greifeld (34:51): “They have QQQM, which is 15 basis points ... pretty expensive. ... Very curious to see if BlackRock comes out with a three basis point product.”

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On spotting Satoshi Nakamoto:
  • Matt Levine (02:13): “All these things ... are basically shared by any of the, you know, 100 people who might have invented Bitcoin. So there’s a lot of skepticism of the identification.”
• On activist investing theater:
  • Matt Levine (07:17): “He’s going to go out and raise a billion dollars in the Spark. Or he won’t, because it’s backstopped by his hedge fund that has the money.”
• On the IPO 'humiliation ritual':
  • Matt Levine (24:05): “That is like a humiliation ritual. That’s amazing.”
• On the ETF index licensing business:
  • Matt Levine (31:07): “If I launched the product ... and called it the 103 Tech Stock Index, that would get less traction than the NASDAQ 100.”

---

Key Timestamps

• Satoshi Nakamoto & Adam Back discussion: 01:50–04:47
• Bill Ackman’s UMG play (incl. “Spark” mechanics): 05:09–13:48
• Ackman’s doomsday fund, tail risk investing: 13:48–16:23
• SpaceX IPO, Grok subscriptions, humiliation rituals: 18:31–25:23
• ETF licensing wars, QQQ, BlackRock moves: 28:09–35:56

---

Tone & Takeaways

True to form, Matt and Katie blend technical financial insight with wry, observational humor about the people and rituals of Wall Street. The episode offers incisive detail for finance nerds (index-licensing economics, hedge fund strategies), but also pokes fun at the foibles and self-seriousness of industry players—whether it’s bankers groveling for a mandate, or the endless guessing games around Satoshi’s identity.

Fans of “Money Stuff”—and curious investors alike—will find both entertainment and lucid explanations of why this week’s financial headlines really matter.

---

Transcript

[Tastytrade Announcer]

Are you ready to get serious about trading? Then join tastytrade stockbrokers.com's 1 broker for options trading 2026 stocks, options, futures and more. Tastytrade has everything you trade all in one platform. Get low commissions, including a $10 cap per leg on option trades so you can keep more of what you earn. Trade smarter with advanced charting tools, backtesting, a pre built strategy selector, risk analysis tools and more features. Visit tastytrade.com money for more info. TastyTrade Inc. Is a registered broker, dealer and member of FINRA, NFA and SIPC.

[Podcast Sponsor Announcer]

For many men, mental health challenges aren't recognized until they've already taken a toll. Work pressure, financial stress, changing relationships and traditional expectations around masculinity can quietly wear men down, often without clear warning signs. In season three of the Visibility Gap, Dr. Guy Winch and his guests explore how these pressures show up, how to spot them earlier, and how men can access meaningful support. Listen to Season of the Visibility Gap, a podcast presented by Cigna Healthcare.

[Chase Business Announcer]

Being a small business owner isn't just a career, it's a calling. Chase for Business knows how much heart and effort go into building something of your own. Manage all your business finances, from banking to payments to credit cards, all in one place with Chase's digital tools. Plus access online resources designed to help your business thrive. Learn [e-mail] business chase for business make more of what's yours the Chase Mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply JP Morgan Chase Bank NA Member FDIC Copyright 2026 JPMorgan Chase Co. Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News did you know I

[Katie Greifeld]

interviewed Adam Back on Tuesday?

[Matt Levine]

On Tuesday?

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah. Do you know when the New York Times article came out? Wednesday?

[Matt Levine]

Yeah. So that's fascinating. John Carrier at the New York Times identified Adam Back as Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin. And there's a lot of skepticism of this identification. A lot of the evidence for it is like sort of circumstantial stuff and a lot of like, linguistic analysis. And like, Adam Back is like a cryptographer.

[Katie Greifeld]

He's also British.

[Matt Levine]

British. And there's all these things that like, are basically shared by any of the, you know, 100 people who might have invented Bitcoin. So there's a lot of skepticism of the identification. But what I really like in the story, and this is why I wish you had interviewed him a day later, what I really liked in the story is that John Carrey, who doesn't hang his hat on these analyses, I met with the guy and asked him if he was Satoshi and he said no, but he looked shifty when he was doing it. And I love, I read about this all the time, like this notion that investors get information from the tone and body language of executives. I love the idea that everyone sort of goes around thinking that they can spot a liar or they can just look into someone's eyes and know if they're telling the truth. But it's possible that John Carrier. That's true of. Right. Like he's a accomplished investigative reporter. But I wish that you had looked at him back in the eyes and said, so, Satoshi.

[Katie Greifeld]

And then my follow up question could have been like, why are you so nervous? You know, you look shitty.

[Matt Levine]

Why are you turning red?

[Katie Greifeld]

Why is this Adam?

[Matt Levine]

So anyway, I love that as a category of evidence.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah.

[Matt Levine]

I don't know that I'm convinced, but I. I like it.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah, I like it too. I will say, I wish that New York Times article had come out a day earlier.

[Matt Levine]

Sure, sure.

[Katie Greifeld]

We were talking about quantum computing and I was filling in on our crypto show. I wasn't supposed to do it. It was just, you know, an anchor called out and I hopped in and it wasn't my best work.

[Matt Levine]

No. I tell you, if you had Satoshi Nakamoto on your show and you didn't add him as Satoshi Nakamoto, not your finest journalistic moment.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah. Instead I was just talking to the CE blockstream, you know, about quantum computing.

[Matt Levine]

Sure, sure, sure.

[Katie Greifeld]

Also potentially the founder of Bitcoin itself. I really think it is the most interesting modern mystery, you know? Yes. What else you got? Like truly modern, like still happening mystery?

[Matt Levine]

I don't know. My first instinct is that we are sort of training my children to be skeptical of the moon landing. Just for fun.

[Katie Greifeld]

Just for fun. Just, you know, I've been telling my nephew that I'm a witch for. Consistently for the past couple years. So.

[Matt Levine]

Yeah, I feel like that's a good ant joke.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah. He doesn't know if I'm joking. He's a little scared, apparently. I love this story. He was riding in the back of my brother and my sister in law's car and they hadn't been talking about me. But he very seriously asked, does Aunt Katie ride a broom? Like it's on his mind?

[Matt Levine]

Yeah. He's just thinking in spare moments about what it means that you're a witch. Hello and welcome to the Money Stuff podcast, your weekly podcast where we talk about stuff related to money. I'M Matt Levine and I write the money stuff column for Bloomberg Opinion.

[Katie Greifeld]

And I'm Katie Greifeld, a reporter for Bloomberg News and an anchor for Bloomberg Television.

[Matt Levine]

I feel like we have some money stuff. The podcast greatest hit. Bill Ackman keeps doing stuff. God, so much stuff.

[Katie Greifeld]

He has a lot going on.

[Matt Levine]

A lot going on. It's impressive. But yeah, the news this week is that he's doing something with Universal Music Group or proposing to do something with Universal Music Group.

[Katie Greifeld]

He wants to buy it.

[Matt Levine]

No, he doesn't.

[Katie Greifeld]

But he wants to do all this stuff that isn't necessarily just buying it.

[Matt Levine]

Yeah, I love it because, like, you love it. The headline is that he has proposed to acquire all of Universal music group for 55 billion euros. But that's not true. Like, what's happening is so Universal is like listed in Euronext and Ackman and a lot of people would like it to be listed in New York. And it's proposed to list in New York and like, delayed it. And so partly as a matter of speeding that along, Ackman has proposed basically a series of activist things. He wants the company to, like, borrow some money to buy back stock. Classic activist move. Stock buyback funded by borrowing. They own a stake in Spotify. He wants them to sell that off and use the cash to buy back more stock. He wants to buy some stock and they use those proceeds to buy back other people's stock. And all of that activist stuff he says in his letter to the board will cause the stock to go up from something like €17 now to 30 years. So we create a lot of value for shareholders.

[Katie Greifeld]

And that's good, theoretically.

[Matt Levine]

Yeah, yeah, strictly. This is his claim. Right. It's not like law of nature. It's just like that's. That's his. His analysis of what would happen if they changed their capital return strategy and, you know, listed in New York and did some other stuff for sure. And the way that he would buy stock and the way that they would do this. Borrowing to buy more stock is a transaction that's technically a merger. It's a merger with Bill Ackman, one of his vehicles. Kitty's like falling directly asleep here.

[Katie Greifeld]

The problem is I've read this so many times and my eyes glaze over every single time.

[Matt Levine]

So Blackbird has this thing called a spark. It's like a spac only doesn't have money. It's going to raise money later.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah, don't worry about it.

[Matt Levine]

So he's going to go out and raise a billion dollars in the Spark. Or he won't, because it's backstabbed by his hedge fund that has the money. And he's going to use the Spark to merge with Universal and the combined company will list on the New York Stock Exchange. So most of the stock in the combined company will be owned by existing Universal shareholders. Pershing Square will own 10, 11% of it. That's the transaction. But because it involves a merger, he can say things like, I'm proposing to buy all of Universal. And because it involves a merger, he can say, I'm proposing to buy it for a value of €30 per share. Even though that's not. He's not buying it for €30 per share, he's buying a little bit of it for €22 a share. But because the activist thing, like the math on it pencils out to being worth €30 a share, says him, he can say, I'm going to buy the whole company at a 78% premium. And get people to write that and be like, yeah, he's proposing to buy the company at a 78% premium.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah. And a lot of places did write that or a version of it.

[Matt Levine]

That's the headline. It's a good way to get attention for your activism because you send a letter being like, I want to buy a little bit of stock and I want you to make some changes in your capital return strategy. Yeah. Everyone says that all the time, right?

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah.

[Matt Levine]

And then you say, oh, it'll be worth a lot more money and sure, whatever. But if you say, I'm going to buy it, then it sounds real.

[Katie Greifeld]

So, I mean, the stock surged on this. ADRs popped. There are some very high hurdles to this happening.

[Matt Levine]

Sure.

[Katie Greifeld]

I mean, he has to convince two thirds of investors to agree. And also there's a certain stock pop

[Matt Levine]

suggests people like it.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah.

[Matt Levine]

You can wave away everything else and be like, well, listing in New York is going to be good for the stock.

[Katie Greifeld]

That's the interesting part. I mean, that makes sense to me. We've seen a lot of European companies come to New York or IPO on US Exchanges, but I didn't realize that Universal Music Group UMG had planned to do this, but then scrapped it just last month. Their plans to list citing market uncertainty, which is fair, but I mean, when

[Matt Levine]

it goes by this merger, maybe it's.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah, maybe it's nothing. What I don't really understand is why he wants to sell the stake in Spotify. Like, why that would be good long term. Because Spotify has crushed it over the Last five years or so compared to umg. Yeah, like that seems pretty valuable.

[Matt Levine]

Sure. But if it seems pretty valuable, you can sell it for money now.

[Katie Greifeld]

I know, but might be something you want to hang on to.

[Matt Levine]

Yeah, but if the market values it as highly or more highly than you do, then you should sell it now. But also it's just, it's like very standard activist playbook to be like the market never values some weird random minority stake at its full value because the market is focused on investing in the company's business. If you make the business a simpler story, then the market will ascribe more value to that story. If you can sell a minority stake in Spotify for more dollars than the market ascribes to its value when it's part of a bigger company. So I don't know. That's pretty standard logic. It might not be true, but if you're sure that Spotify is going to continue going up much more than the rest of the company, then sure, hang on to it.

[Katie Greifeld]

But anyway, I did want to bring up the French billionaire that he has to convince.

[Matt Levine]

Sure.

[Katie Greifeld]

I'm so bad at French names, so I'm scared to say it. Vincent Belair. Does that sound good?

[Matt Levine]

Sounds good.

[Katie Greifeld]

French person's going to write in anyway. He owns more than an 18% stake through his family holding company. But apparently Ackman said that he spoke to Bolaire and his investment group and said that they were quote, intrigued with the proposal.

[Matt Levine]

Right. Part of the point of the proposal is to maybe cash him out, you know, if he wants cash instead of a stake. But I'm not privy to those negotiations.

[Katie Greifeld]

No, no, that was billionaire to billionaire. Not. Not for us to know.

[Matt Levine]

The FC today, Thursday I think reported another. He's so busy he's got going on.

[Katie Greifeld]

I know. I was wondering if we were going to get there.

[Matt Levine]

Yeah, briefly, because I don't really understand it. He's got a big, let's say hedge fund, which is not really the right word for it, but he has a big pot of money that he invests in some stocks basically and he does the occasional like asymmetric derivatives trade as he would say. That makes a lot of money on for instance, Covid. And it's in this series of funds that are most prominently his closed end fund in Europe and he's launching a closed end fund in the us Pershing Square usa. We've talked about this a lot. It keeps being in the process of launching, hasn't launched yet.

[Katie Greifeld]

It's going to happen.

[Matt Levine]

It's Going to happen. But so he's raising five to $10 billion for that. He's ipoing the management company as part of that, blah, blah, blah. But the FC reported that he's also in talks to raise a separate fund that would only do the asymmetric derivative bets. So instead of owning a concentrated portfolio of large cap stocks and sometimes buying index CDS ahead of a pandemic, he would own treasury bills and occasionally buy index CDS instead of a pandemic, which. Okay, yeah, sure. Why not? Yeah, Sort of like a tail risk hedge fund, but a permanent capital vehicle.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah, the FT called it. Like he's making doomsday trades here.

[Matt Levine]

Yeah. The headline is something like he wants the profit from market complacency. Right. He's going to bet against complacency.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah.

[Matt Levine]

As opposed to the rest of the portfolio which is like owning large cap equities.

[Katie Greifeld]

This is something that apparently he has highlighted to investors as a way to turbocharge the firm's fee earnings. So it does play into the potential IPO here.

[Matt Levine]

Yeah, yeah. Right. The way the IPO works is that he is mostly selling shares of this closed end fund. He's mostly selling shares of a pot of, you know, investments, but he's partially selling shares in the management company. And so the more assets the management company runs, the more that is worth and therefore the more appealing it is to investors in the ipo. Right. So like if you're paying people to buy your closed end fund in the currency of your management company, then like the more funds you run, the better that is.

[Katie Greifeld]

Doesn't seem very Warren Buffett of him. I keep getting confused over who Bill Ackman is.

[Matt Levine]

You know, is he Warren Buffett or

[Katie Greifeld]

is he a bird?

[Matt Levine]

Yeah, I don't know Bill Ackman.

[Katie Greifeld]

Who are you?

[Matt Levine]

He's a bird. Don't answer that.

[Katie Greifeld]

Bill Ackman.

[Matt Levine]

Or do he's also like tweeting a lot. But that's a whole other story.

[Katie Greifeld]

The ronda of it all.

[Matt Levine]

Yeah, the ronda of it all. The thing I wrote today on Thursday is that it is not quite fair to say that Bill Ackman runs a portfolio of a dozen ish large cap stocks that don't change very much. But it's a little bit true and it's very cool. If you can do that and make money and be a hedge fund manager, you're just like, I'm going to own 12 stocks with the red 12 stocks and I'm not going to change it that much. I'm just going to Hang out here and tweet a lot.

[Katie Greifeld]

That's what I would do.

[Matt Levine]

That's what I would do. That is my dream as a money manager. The people who are like, oh, I'm going to work all day, Change my portfolio every day so I can capture every incremental piece of alpha. That sounds like a hard job. Whereas I'll just pick the right stocks and then tweet.

[Katie Greifeld]

I'll just pick. Good stuff.

[Matt Levine]

Yeah, incredible move. But what I like about this idea of the like, whatever, complacency.

[Katie Greifeld]

Doomsday.

[Matt Levine]

Doomsday fund. So one way to run a doomsday fund, the way people run their doomsday funds is basically you wake up every day and you buy some puts on the S and p and it costs you money. And at the end of every year, you send your investors a statement being like, I've lost 10% of your money. And then once every like 10 years, you're like, I've made 20,000% of your money. And they're like, okay, fine, it's like a bad profile. Right? But like the alternative way to run a doomsday fund, which is like a little bit what is implied by the FT article, though I don't. I have no idea, is you take the investor's money, just put it in treasury bills. Don't do anything. You're in 4% a year. And every once in a while you're like, you know what? Next week is doomsday. I'm going to buy puts on the S and P today. And if you're right all the time, every time you buy doomsday insurance, it pays off. Which is like what happened to ackman and Covid? Like you bought like some index cds. $27 million. And like the next week it paid off like billions of dollars. Right. So if you're just perfect at predicting doomsday like next week, then like your return profile is like, most years you just earn treasury bills and some years you return like 10,000%. That's a great fund. And the reason that no one does that is one, no one's perfect at predicting. And two, because like, you know, you have a job and you're like, oh, I'm like charging fees and taking investors money to protect them from doomsday. And so you end up buying a lot of doomsday insurance because it's just like what it says on the tin.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah.

[Matt Levine]

And if you're bill ackman and you have the zen like repose to just buy 12 stocks and hold them and tweet all the time. Then like maybe you can do the Doomsday Fund the right way, where you just don't do anything until it's almost doomsday and then you buy insurance and make a lot of money. You know, I always this is like a mostly joking suggestion, but I kind of like it.

[Katie Greifeld]

No, I like it.

[Matt Levine]

It's the only way to pull it off.

[Katie Greifeld]

I fantasize all the time, like what if I wasn't in journalism? What if I had a completely unrelated job? What if I was a novelist? Then I dream about what my portfolio would be and doing something like that sounds really fun, right?

[Matt Levine]

The best way to invest is to just buy a stock right before it goes up a lot. Or buy crash insurance right before the market goes down a lot. Yeah, it's hard to pull off both intellectually and as a matter of getting antsy. But Bill Ekman might not get antsy.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah, that's true.

[Tastytrade Announcer]

Are you ready to get serious about trading? Then join tastytrade stockbrokers.com's number one broker for options trading 2026 stocks, options, futures and more. Tastytrade has everything you trade all in one platform. Get low commissions, including a $10 cap per leg on option trades so you can keep more of what you earn. Trade smarter with advanced charting tools, back testing, a pre built strategy selector, risk analysis tools and more features. Visit tastytrade.com money for more info. TastyTrade Inc. Is a registered broker, dealer and member of FINRA, NFA and SIPC.

[Public.com Announcer]

Support for the show comes from Public Lately it feels like there are two types of investing platforms. Some are traditional brokerages that haven't changed much in decades, and others feel less like investing and more like a game. Public is positioned differently. It's an investing platform for people who are serious about building their wealth on public. You can build a portfolio of stocks, options, bonds, crypto without all the bugs or the confetti. Retirement accounts? Yep, High Yield Cash. Yes again. They even have direct indexing. Public has modern design, powerful tools and customer support that actually helps go to public.com market and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com market ad paid for by

[Matt Levine]

Public Holdings Brokerage Services by Public Investing

[Tastytrade Announcer]

member finra SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors SEC Registered Advisor crypto services by ZeroHash all investing involves risk of loss.

[Matt Levine]

See complete [e-mail] Disclosures the thing about AI for business?

[IBM Announcer]

It may not automatically fit the way your business works. At IBM, we've seen this firsthand, but by embedding AI across hr, IT and procurement processes, we've reduced costs by millions, slashed repetitive tasks, and freed thousands of hours for strategic work. Now we're helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business.

[Katie Greifeld]

IBM. Elon Musk, also a tweeter, also a very busy man. He's got a lot going on.

[Matt Levine]

A lot going on.

[Katie Greifeld]

He has one really big thing going on right now. Can you guess?

[Matt Levine]

I wonder. No, I actually wonder. If you went to him and said, what's the big thing you've got going on right now? Would he be like, fighting the Woke Mind virus?

[Katie Greifeld]

No, I think he'd say something like trying to make more people use Grok.

[Matt Levine]

Really?

[Katie Greifeld]

It'd be one of the things.

[Matt Levine]

I think it would be something much weirder. God, it would be like solving the population cris.

[Katie Greifeld]

That's my second big question of the podcast. Elon Musk, what's your big thing anyway?

[Matt Levine]

I believe the big thing you were referring to.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah.

[Matt Levine]

Is the space. The. The impending SpaceX.

[Katie Greifeld]

I mean, it's factually very big.

[Matt Levine]

It's very big.

[Katie Greifeld]

It keeps getting bigger.

[Matt Levine]

Probably soon. Although they filed confidentially, everyone says they're looking to go in June, although it's not clear that they will go in June. But yes, it's very big. $2 trillion, supposedly. And yes, as part of his quest to get everyone to use CROC and thus fight the wokemind virus.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah, for sure.

[Matt Levine]

The New York Times reported that it's making bankers who want to lead the IPO buy subscriptions to Krog for their banks, which is like a little frowned upon, but I don't know why. It's like, impolite. It feels somehow dodgy.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah.

[Matt Levine]

But I kind of respect it. You know, he's the CEO of. Or whatever he is. He's not actually. This. Is he the CEO?

[Katie Greifeld]

I don't think he's the CEO.

[Matt Levine]

Whatever. He's the owner.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah.

[Matt Levine]

And he. He's like making a sale.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah.

[Matt Levine]

He, like shows up this meeting like, hey, guys, you know what's great is Grok. You should buy Grok.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah.

[Matt Levine]

They're like, okay, we'll look into that. No, no, no. Buy Grok right now.

[Katie Greifeld]

And this matters personally to Elon Musk. It also matters to SpaceX. And SpaceX now owns XAI.

[Matt Levine]

Okay, so first of all, this company is going to go public at 100 times earnings or 100 times revenue or something. I don't actually know the revenue number. The $2 trillion valuation is not closely connected to any amount of revenue or income. But every little bit helps. And in particular, to the extent you are going public, not only as a rocket company, but as a. Ooh, AI. Everything's AI. Showing AI adoption is valuable, even if the AI is still a sort of smallish part of the business.

[Katie Greifeld]

Commercial.

[Matt Levine]

And so saying all of these big banks whose names are on the COVID of the prospectus, all these big banks have purchased subscriptions to grok. Some of the banks seems positive for. I mean, not if you have articles being like, oh, they only did it because they were forced to, but, you know, maybe they'll like it.

[Katie Greifeld]

Or I was also wondering, like, after they get the IPO over the line, can they just cancel their subscriptions?

[Matt Levine]

So, one, I'm sure they'll pay for some portion of it up front. Two, maybe they'll like it.

[Katie Greifeld]

Maybe it's the best.

[Matt Levine]

No, because Elon Musk is like a continual source of agita for banks. Right. And fees, you know, and so you're always looking to win continued business and, you know, a million dollars a year for Grok or whatever.

[Katie Greifeld]

That's fair. I feel like maybe it's good.

[Matt Levine]

Maybe they'll like it. Maybe they'll like it.

[Katie Greifeld]

Maybe they will.

[Matt Levine]

You'd hope that Sam Altman and Tayo Amadeo are reading this and be like, hey, we should do that too. And so now every bank has to buy subscriptions. Every AI.

[Katie Greifeld]

That's true. Of course. OpenAI and anthropic also potentially going public this year.

[Matt Levine]

Right.

[Katie Greifeld]

I love some of the details in this piece from the New York Times. Some of the banks have agreed to spend tens of million of dollars on the chatbot. But also, this is fun. Elon Musk also reportedly asked the banks to advertise on X, his social media site, also owned by SpaceX, but was less adamant about that request.

[Matt Levine]

Right. Which I think makes sense.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah. Because one, it's not a natural fit.

[Matt Levine]

It's not a natural fit. Right. Oh, use my AI because it'll help you run your banking business. Advertise on Twitter to run your banking. Like that doesn't make sense. But also because, you know, like, you're selling an IPO and being like, oh, our flagship AI product is being adopted by big Fortune 500 companies is a good pitch. Being like, oh, we sell some ads on our cesspool social media site is less of a good pitch. You're catering to IPO investors.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah, I will say, I mean, when it comes to all these chatbots, actually getting enterprise customers is like a big, big part of it because people, individuals use chatbots, but it's less common.

[Matt Levine]

No, enterprise is a big deal. And my impression is that Grok has some trouble there. Yeah, the marketing is like, oh, we're making Mecca Hitler or whatever.

[Katie Greifeld]

Well, that's the thing. Like from what I can, I don't really use chatbots in general, but I spend a lot of time on X, which means I spend a lot of time reading Elon Musk's posts on X. And everything he posts from Grok is like, I don't know, it's just like anime girls, you know, I could see

[Matt Levine]

not like a button down corporate stuff, but they have other marketing channels to corporate clients, like forcing them to buy it for the ipo.

[Katie Greifeld]

There you go. Yeah, twist my arm.

[Matt Levine]

I love it though, because I used to be an equity capital markets, I've heard.

[Katie Greifeld]

And how delighted would you be if they were like, guys, we have to use Grok.

[Matt Levine]

I wrote about this. There's so much stupid stuff in these pitches, right? There's so much like Michael Graham's drove an Uber for a year to pitch Uber. But also the one I always come back to is when Lululemon went public, every bank sent their teams in yoga pants to pitch the ipo.

[Katie Greifeld]

God, that's humiliating.

[Matt Levine]

And did that boost Lululemon's revenue A little bit. They had to go out and buy the yoga pants, but not materially. Not enough to move the numbers in the IPO perspectives. But how humiliating the bank is.

[Katie Greifeld]

That is like a humiliation ritual. That's amazing.

[Matt Levine]

Just a humiliation ritual. Whereas when you show up and Elon Musk is like, look, you can pitch me, but you got to spend $20 million on Grok, everyone's like, okay, that's like, it's not humiliating, it's just like transactional. Yeah, it's very straightforward. Yeah, I like it.

[Katie Greifeld]

Gosh, now I'm just saying it makes sense. Other possible humiliation.

[Matt Levine]

There's so many. Like, this used to be a real big thing.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah.

[Matt Levine]

Banks are really into thinking about how they could prove to companies that they loved those companies products.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah.

[Matt Levine]

You know, with AI, you have some of that.

[Katie Greifeld]

Right.

[Matt Levine]

Like I'm sure that everyone who's shown at the pitch OpenAI or anthropic or even xai on their IPO is like, we made this pitchbook with ChatGPT or Claude or you know, whatever the case may be. And some days they probably get it wrong. Right? They're like, we made this with ChatGPT and it's like, nope, you're pushing anthropic. But I'm sure they all do that. But now they have more direct revenue connection.

[Katie Greifeld]

We made Mecha Hitler.

[Matt Levine]

You have to show up and be like, we made this pitchbook with Grok. And he opens it and he's like, I don't know, it's kind of woke. You're like, no, no. Here's all the slurs.

[Katie Greifeld]

Where's the anime?

[Matt Levine]

I take it back. It would be pretty humiliating.

[Katie Greifeld]

That was fun.

[Public.com Announcer]

Support for the show comes from Public Lately it feels like there are two types of investing platforms. Some are traditional brokerages that haven't changed much in decades. Some and others feel less like investing and more like a game. Public is positioned differently. It's an investing platform for people who are serious about building their wealth on public. You can build a portfolio of stocks, options, bonds, crypto without all the bugs or the confetti. Retirement accounts? Yep. High yield cash? Yes again. They even have direct indexing. Public has modern design, powerful tools, and customer support that actually helps go to public.com market and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com market ad paid for by

[Matt Levine]

Public Holdings Brokerage services by Public Investing

[Tastytrade Announcer]

Member FINRA SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors SEC Registered Advisor Crypto Services by ZeroHash all investing involves risk of loss.

[Matt Levine]

See complete [e-mail] disclosures so there's a

[IBM Announcer]

lot of noise about AI. But time's too tight for more promises, so let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now a Global workforce of 300,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions, resolving 94% of common questions. Not noise. Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off. Deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business.

[My Policy Advocate Announcer]

IBM Here's a paradox. We buy insurance for peace of mind. Yet the very policies we trust can deliver the biggest financial shocks. Across America, millions of claims are denied every year. Not because people did anything wrong, but because policies quietly excluded the things that happened. The psychology of trust tells us we assume the contract is fair. But in insurance, the information gap is massive. The insurer knows every detail of what's covered. The policyholder rarely does. That's where my policy advocate comes in. For just 27 cents a day, their platform reads your policies and shows you in plain language where you're vulnerable. They're not selling insurance. They don't do that. It's about transparency, giving ordinary people the same understanding insurance companies have had for decades. Because when you know what's really in your policy, you can plan, protect and avoid surprises. Before you trust your policy to protect you, let my policy advocate tell you what it really says. Visit mypolicyadvocate.com today. Peace of mind starts with knowing the truth. Mypolicyadvocate.com.

[Katie Greifeld]

You know what's also fun, everyone?

[Matt Levine]

It's been a while since we talked about the weeds of the ETF market. So I'm going to leave and Katie's going to.

[Katie Greifeld]

If you are not interested, you can leave now for the dozen the dozen listeners who are still with us. Matt, you threw me a bone.

[Matt Levine]

You said I was like, should we talk about competition for qqq?

[Katie Greifeld]

And Katie's like, yes, obviously that's the fastest I've ever answered an email.

[Matt Levine]

I know.

[Katie Greifeld]

So this is interesting. So I promise. So the QS, QQQ, it's Invesco's NASDAQ 100 ETF. It's been around since 1999 is everywhere nice.

[Matt Levine]

Yes, we've talked about why they advertise everywhere, which is they have too much money.

[Katie Greifeld]

But yes, my eyes just lit up. They might not advertise everywhere going forward because their proxy vote passed at the end of 2025, so now they don't have to spend as much on marketing.

[Matt Levine]

I feel like I still see them on the trend, but anyway, well, they

[Katie Greifeld]

probably made commitments for 2026, you know,

[Matt Levine]

anyway, we're getting sidetracked anyway, we're still

[Katie Greifeld]

talking about the Qs anyway. So NASDAQ and the QS have had this long standing relationship where NASDAQ has been historically very selective about who they license out the NASDAQ 100 too. And at least in the US as of right now, there's only two ETFs that purely track the NASDAQ 100. You can. There's other ETFs that like add derivative income options, overlay stuff to it. But in terms of the pure NASDAQ 100, there's just two Invesco ETFs in the US outside in EMEA, there are NASDAQ 100 ETFs. But anyway, Matt is slowly inching towards the door. What's interesting is that BlackRock 6am on Monday filed for a NASDAQ 100 ETF. What is going on? You know what's crazier? Tuesday in the morning, State street filed for a NASDAQ 100 ETF. I know, it's nuts. So apparently NASDAQ is feeling a little bit, you know, more open. And Invesco shares, I mean, at least on Monday they went straight down. I think they closed 5% lower or something because they might have some serious competition here. I mean, the QS have been a cash cow and Invesco just figured out how to open the piggy bank and actually get some of that windfall since they have to spend less on marketing now. But to have blackrock show up months later, traders reacted appropriately here.

[Matt Levine]

So I really love that index licensing is such a thing.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah.

[Matt Levine]

Because if I in my personal account wanted to track the NASDAQ 100 index without buying any ETF that licenses that index, I could probably do. Okay. Like this is kind of all public

[Katie Greifeld]

knowledge, but if you went out and

[Matt Levine]

launched a product, if I launched the product right, and I called it the like 103 tech stock index, that would get less traction than the NASDAQ 100.

[Katie Greifeld]

We'll call it the Matt Levine, at

[Matt Levine]

least not just more traction. It is kind of weird to me that the licensing of the actual official indexes is so valuable because you can recreate most of that performance and there are some pan card will roll its own indexes sometimes to save on fees. But I guess the NASDAQ 100 has enough cache that you really do need to license it.

[Katie Greifeld]

It's funny to talk about this because as I was writing this article, I was talking to my husband about it very excitedly because this is huge. He's a, he's a very nice man, but he raised the same question.

[Matt Levine]

He was like, why googly eyed mask?

[Katie Greifeld]

He had like a sleep mask. But he was like, why can't I just go and buy all the stocks?

[Matt Levine]

Yeah, you can go buy all the stocks.

[Katie Greifeld]

I was like, you just, you can't, Joe. Okay? You can't. And probably the answer is that NASDAQ would sue you.

[My Policy Advocate Announcer]

No.

[Katie Greifeld]

If you launched a product, fine, Right, right. I'd sue you.

[Matt Levine]

Right. You'd have to be very careful to not use words like NASDAQ or 100 in the name of the product.

[Katie Greifeld]

It is interesting and fun to think about. Why now? Why is NASDAQ now?

[Matt Levine]

Is the answer SpaceX?

[Katie Greifeld]

I don't know. I mean, that's one of the big theories out there is that if SpaceX does go with NASDAQ as the exchange that they list on, and if they fast track SpaceX into the Nasdaq 100, Nasdaq is going to have a huge competitive advantage here over other industries, period,

[Matt Levine]

where Nasdaq 100 is a big deal. But S&P 500 is the main index that people index to.

[Katie Greifeld]

But they're not mutually exclusive.

[Matt Levine]

Well, they are in product terms.

[Katie Greifeld]

I know, but I'm saying, right, you

[Matt Levine]

can be in both indexes, but crucially, for some period of months, it seems like SpaceX will be in the NASDAQ 100 and not in the S and P, Right? Yes, it seems like NASDAQ has changed its rules to fast track listing SpaceX so that shortly, weeks after it goes public, it'll be in the NASDAQ 100 and the S and P moves more slowly. So there will be some period of months where if you want SpaceX in your index fund because you're buying index funds, but deep down you're an active stock picker, or at least that name, then you have to buy the NASDAQ 100 index funds.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah, that could be a theory.

[Matt Levine]

That is a pretty good theory. And then it's, you know, it's like also OpenAI all of the big tech companies, you know, the NASDAQ rules will allow them to fast track into the NASDAQ index and S and P might move more slowly. And so you have this period where like the big tech IPOs that everyone is most interested in will come first to the NASDAQ 100 if all breaks NASDAQ's way.

[Katie Greifeld]

I was also wondering if it connects to the proxy vote somehow. I mean, under the new fee revenue breakdown of the qs, NASDAQ is still getting paid. And I think that they're getting paid the same amount. So maybe that doesn't quite connect. But obviously Invesco is going to theoretically be marketing the QS less.

[Matt Levine]

Oh, yeah.

[Katie Greifeld]

So maybe that could be it as well, but maybe it's some delightful combination, you know.

[Matt Levine]

Right.

[Katie Greifeld]

See, wasn't this fun?

[Matt Levine]

I love it.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah. What I'm waiting for, what I can't wait to see, is that we haven't had fees listed on any of these filings yet. They're very preliminary filings from books.

[Matt Levine]

What do people pay for index licensing these days? Is it like a basis point? Is it less?

[Katie Greifeld]

Depends on the loan index. You know, the queues right now they were charging 20 basis points.

[Matt Levine]

Then Post proxy Invesco was charging customers.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yes, yes. Now that fee is 18 basis points. They have QQQM, which is 15 basis points. And we're talking about an index, like an index tracking etf. That's pretty. That's pretty Expensive. So very curious to see if BlackRock comes out with a three basis point product.

[Matt Levine]

I mean, I assume so. How much of that 15 or 20 basis points is NASDAQ getting?

[Katie Greifeld]

I believe when it was 20 basis points, it was something close to like seven or eight basis points.

[Matt Levine]

That's a lot.

[Katie Greifeld]

It is a lot.

[Matt Levine]

It's hard to undercut yourself.

[Katie Greifeld]

I know. So we'll see. They could do something. This is something that BlackRock does occasionally is, you know, they'll waive fees for the first year or something just to accumulate a bunch of scale and then

[Matt Levine]

they go, do you think they're paying NASDAQ like 7 basis points?

[Katie Greifeld]

That's what I'm so curious to find out. I want to know what's the space. If their fee is like 10 basis points, then you have to assume that. Okay, NASDAQ is still. Yeah. I'm also interested to see like if a van card files for a NASDAQ 100 ETF. That would be fun for me and.

[Matt Levine]

Yeah. Or for like a Big Tech 98 ETF. Yeah, right.

[Katie Greifeld]

Yeah, man. Thank you to everyone who's still listening. This was really great for me.

[Matt Levine]

I feel like we need to have like a reward.

[Katie Greifeld]

Tell a secret.

[Matt Levine]

Here comes that information or something.

[Katie Greifeld]

Right?

[Matt Levine]

And that was the Money Stuff podcast. I'm Matt Levine.

[Katie Greifeld]

And I'm Katie Greifeld.

[Matt Levine]

You can find my work by subscribing to the Money stuff newsletter on bloomberg.com

[Katie Greifeld]

and you can find me on Bloomberg TV every day on the close between 3 and 5pm Eastern.

[Matt Levine]

We'd love to hear from you. You can send an email to MoneyPod, ask us a question and we might answer it on the air.

[Katie Greifeld]

You can also subscribe to our show wherever you're listening right now and leave us a review. It helps more people find the show.

[Matt Levine]

The Money Stuff podcast is produced by Anna Mazarakis, Moses Andam and Alexis Haut.

[Katie Greifeld]

Our theme music was composed by Blake Maples.

[Matt Levine]

Amy Keen is our executive producer. Thanks for listening to the Money Stuff podcast. We'll be back next week week with more stuff.

[Chase Business Announcer]

If you follow markets, you know the value of long term thinking. You plan, you diversify, you prepare for volatility. But even the best strategies can't prevent every bad day. For more than 75 years, Cincinnati Insurance has helped individuals and businesses navigate tough moments. With expertise, personal attention and independent agents who focus on relationships, not transactions, the Cincinnati insurance companies, let them make your bad day better. Find an agent@cin fin.com deadlines shift, plans

[Podcast Sponsor Announcer]

change and sometimes you just need promo products fast. Turn to 4imprint 4imprint has hundreds of promotional items available with 24 hour turnaround from custom apparel and drinkware to trade show gear, writing tools and more. And their 360 degree guarantee promises your logo will be printed with care, your order ships fast and it'll show up right and on time. That's the certainty of 4imprint. Check out the full 24 hour selection at 4imprint.com for Imprint for Certain. Sonesta Travel Pass makes traveling more rewarding Designed to help you get more out of every stay. Sign [e-mail] to enjoy instant savings, bonus points and valuable perks like early check in, late checkout, room upgrades and free stays. Over time with Sonesta TravelPass, every stay brings you closer to your next reward. Choose from more than 1100 hotels across 13 distinctive brands and unlock the best available rates when you book direct with Sonesta TravelPass here today, roam tomorrow. Join [e-mail] terms and conditions apply.