The Week: SpaceX, Iran, and the World's First Trillionaire

Summary

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The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway

Episode: The Week: SpaceX, Iran, and the World's First Trillionaire
Date: June 19, 2026
Host: Scott Galloway
Guest Contributors: Ed Zetron, Howard Marks, Ian Bremmer, Heather Cox Richardson, Jessica Tarlov

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Episode Overview

This week’s episode breaks down monumental events in business, tech, and geopolitics: SpaceX’s historic IPO and Elon Musk becoming the first trillionaire; new revelations about OpenAI’s shaky financials and the frenzy in AI investment; and the latest in U.S.-Iran diplomacy after over 100 days of conflict. The episode also features a conversation with historian Heather Cox Richardson about the fragility of expertise and institutional trust as America approaches its 250th birthday.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. SpaceX’s IPO & the Emergence of the World’s First Trillionaire

[01:54 – 08:26]

• Record-Breaking Numbers:

  • SpaceX opened at $150/share, an 11% jump, briefly surpassing Amazon in market cap.
  • Elon Musk is officially the world’s first trillionaire.

• Financial Engineering Over Fundamentals:

  • Scott Galloway is critical of the IPO’s structure, arguing that manufactured scarcity drove unsustainable demand.
  • Quote (Scott, 03:04):
    “Musk threatened not to go public on the Nasdaq unless they waive the 12 month requirements for him to be included in the NASDAQ 100... the NASDAQ blinked... that means all the indices... have to put 4% of their assets under management into SpaceX stock, creating anywhere between 20 and call it $50 billion in additional demand that no IPO benefits from.”
  • Only 5% of shares issued (most IPOs require at least 10%), artificially constraining supply and fueling the price pop.

• Skepticism About Sustainability:

  • Scott’s advice:
    Quote (Scott, 04:13):
    “I would look at this as a trade, not as an investment because eventually that manufactured scarcity begins to leak.”
  • SpaceX ended up trading at 112x its previous year’s sales — compared to Meta’s 28x, Google’s 10x at IPO.

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2. AI Fever and the Case of OpenAI’s Leaked Finances

[04:38 – 08:26]

• Shock Value in OpenAI’s Numbers:

  • Ed Zetron details OpenAI’s financials:
    • $34 billion spent to make $13 billion.
    • $22 billion cash on hand at year’s end; net operational loss of $21 billion.
    • Quote (Ed Zetron, 05:12):
      “They turned from a nonprofit to a for profit, though they've remained profitless last year... The number I like to come back to is they lost $21 billion from operations and they spent astronomical amounts on sales and marketing. That $5.73 billion, is one I really like to hammer on.”

• Bubble Warnings:

  • Howard Marks (Oaktree Capital) reflects on repeated historical cycles:
    • Quote (Howard Marks, 06:49):
      “If this technological innovation with its exuberance doesn't produce a money losing bubble, it'll be the first. Maybe this is a good time to introduce... the rejoinder of the optimist: What do they say? This time it’s different... But the problem with that, Ed, is they always say that.”
    • Reminders of the late-1990s dot-com bubble.
  • The Shiller PE ratio is now above 40; last seen at this level in 1999.

• Meta-Perspective:

  • George Hahn summarizes: “We are officially in dot com territory.”

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3. Iran War: A Deal or Just a Pause?

[11:56 – 14:44]

• A Framework, Not Peace:

  • The U.S. and Iran announce a “breakthrough”—but it’s just a 60-day memorandum, not a final agreement.
  • The toughest issues—nuclear enrichment, sanctions, frozen assets—remain unresolved.

• Who Came Out Stronger?

  • Panel (Scott, Jessica Tarlov, Heather Cox Richardson) argues that Iran has gained leverage.
    • Quote (Scott, 12:46):
      “Iran has way more leverage after the escalation than before it.”
    • Quote (Heather Cox Richardson, repeating):
      “Iran comes out of this stronger, we come out of it weaker.” (13:05)
    • Unnamed Analyst, 13:09:
      “Even if they got exactly the same deal, the fact that they know they can shut down the Strait of Hormuz... is an enormous bargaining chip.”

• New Geopolitical Context:

  • Ian Bremmer notes the framework is only a U.S.-Iran deal, no EU, China or Russia backing.
    • Quote (Ian Bremmer, 13:56):
      “This new deal, it's only gonna be the Americans. And if the Iranians feel like they have more leverage going forward, then breaking an agreement that's only with the United States is less consequential...”

• Lingering Uncertainty:

  • Billions spent, markets shaken—yet the U.S. may not be better off than at the start.

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4. America at 250: Power, Expertise & Public Skepticism

[14:44 – 17:48]

• Crisis of Expertise:

  • Historian Heather Cox Richardson discusses why leaders “who just read a book” believe they can outdo experts, and the overlap with authoritarian populism.
    • Quote (Richardson, 15:26):
      “...The idea that you just have a hotline to the universe or God or to intelligence... overlaps strongly with Trump’s sort of fascist, traditional ideas about some people being better than others.”
  • Quote (Richardson, 16:24):
    “Our government is the best performing organization in history. And I think we have just taken for granted at every level how thoughtful and credentialed people in the CDC are... And when we... take out our entire Iranian diplomatic corps staff, our intelligence agencies and our security apparatus with loyalists as opposed to people [with] any background that eventually you end up with poor execution... I think a lot of this is our fault.”

• Institutions on Autopilot?

  • Americans, she suggests, have begun to see institutions as machines that run themselves, failing to value the expertise that made past successes possible.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:54] – SpaceX IPO coverage begins
• [03:04] – Scott details financial engineering behind the IPO
• [04:38] – OpenAI’s finances leak; Ed Zetron commentary
• [06:49] – Howard Marks on tech bubbles and investor psychology
• [08:26] – Comparison to dot-com era, Shiller PE reference
• [11:56] – Iran deal “breakthrough” segment begins
• [12:46] – Scott/Panel discuss Iran’s leverage
• [13:56] – Ian Bremmer on the new deal’s limitations
• [14:44] – Broader aftermath of the Iran conflict
• [15:26] – Heather Cox Richardson on expertise and populism
• [16:24] – “Crisis of competence” in U.S. governance

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Notable Quotes

• Scott Galloway (03:04):
  “Musk threatened not to go public on the Nasdaq unless they waive the 12 month requirements for him to be included in the NASDAQ 100... that means all the indices... have to put 4% of their assets under management into SpaceX stock, creating anywhere between 20 and call it $50 billion in additional demand that no IPO benefits from.”

• Ed Zetron (05:12):
  “They turned from a nonprofit to a for profit, though they've remained profitless last year... They lost $21 billion from operations and they spent astronomical amounts on sales and marketing.”

• Howard Marks (06:49):
  “If this technological innovation with its exuberance doesn't produce a money losing bubble, it'll be the first... the rejoinder of the optimist: What do they say? This time it’s different... The problem with that is, they always say that.”

• Heather Cox Richardson (15:26):
  “The idea that you just have a hotline to the universe or God or to intelligence... overlaps strongly with Trump’s sort of fascist, traditional ideas about some people being better than others.”

• Heather Cox Richardson (16:24):
  “Our government is the best performing organization in history... we have just taken for granted at every level how thoughtful and credentialed people in the CDC are... And when we decide to take out our entire Iranian diplomatic corps staff... with loyalists as opposed to people [with] any background that eventually you end up with poor execution.”

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Episode Tone & Style

• Smart, direct, slightly irreverent: Scott doesn’t mince words, especially when parsing hype versus fundamentals.
• Expert-driven: Regular injection of outside expert voices (Zetron, Marks, Bremmer, Richardson)
• Cautiously skeptical: Both of market euphoria (SpaceX/AI) and overconfidence in U.S. strategy and institutions.

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Conclusion

This episode serves as a reality check on headline-grabbing stories: beneath the hype of trillion-dollar valuations and supposed diplomatic “breakthroughs,” the hosts and guests urge skepticism, historical perspective, and renewed respect for real expertise. As the nation approaches a milestone birthday, the importance—and fragility—of institutional competence is a recurring theme.

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Transcript

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[George Hahn]

Welcome to the week from Prof. G Media where we break down what mattered and what it all means. I'm George Hahn and it's Friday, June 19th. Today, the biggest IPO in history finally landed, minting the world's first trillionaire. Then is the Iran war over? And finally, historian Heather Cox Richardson on expertise, power and America's future at 250. Let's get into it. SpaceX went public this week. After years of waiting, the largest IPO in American history finally landed, opening at $150 a share, an 11% jump from its offering price and climbing from there. By day three, SpaceX was briefly worth more than Amazon Elon Musk is now the world's first trillionaire. But Scott wasn't celebrating his argument. What happened this week wasn't a market event. It was financial engineering.

[Scott]

And what I don't think people are focused enough on here and there's been news on it, but it's really, I think the whole shooting match is that Musk threatened not to go public on the Nasdaq unless they waive the 12 month requirements for him to be included in the NASDAQ 100. So they backed down, they blinked. The S and P said no, the Dow Jones said no. But the NASDAQ blinked and the result is they're immediately included in these indices. If it's at $2 trillion and there's 50 trillion of market cap in the NASDAQ 100, that means all the indices that track the NASDAQ 100 now have to put 4% of their assets under management into SpaceX stock, creating anywhere between 20 and call it $50 billion in additional demand that no IPO benefits from. In addition, traditional IPO rules are that you have to issue at least 10% of your shares. They didn't, they issued 5%. So massive artificial demand or demand that no one else has benefited from 5 from constrained supply that no one else has been able to manufacture. And what you have is a pop, a 20% or 25% pop on what I think is manufactured scarcity. Now the question is where do you go from here? And I would argue someone called me and said I have access to shares, should I do it? I said I think you should. But I would look at this as a trade, not as an investment because eventually that manufactured scarcity begins to leak.

[George Hahn]

When the dust settled, SpaceX was trading at 112 times last year's sales. For context, Meta went public at 28 times, trailing revenue, Google at 10. And just as investors were digesting the biggest IPO in history, another piece of the AI story emerged. OpenAI's financials leaked and the numbers were staggering. Here's self proclaimed AI skeptic Ed Zetron who first reported on the leak.

[Ed Zetron]

So last year OpenAI spent about $34 billion to make about 13.01. Sorry, oh, $7 billion. And had about $22 billion in cash at the end of the year lost about $21 billion. That 38, $39 billion number is what I would describe as Gap voodoo. There is some very strange stuff and I'll be going into this in future episodes going on in the balance sheet and everything with this company. They turned from a nonprofit to a for profit, though they've remained profitless last year, which means that they have. Their net loss is quite strange. It's like $38.5 billion. But the number I like to come back to is they lost $21 billion from operations and they spent astronomical amounts on sales and marketing. They spent $7.5 billion on cost of revenue, $19.18 billion in R& D. But that sales and marketing cost, that $5.73 billion, is one I really like to hammer on. Because what it's like, there's just like, it's just like, excuse me, well, how much did you spend?

[George Hahn]

How much of today's AI boom is being driven by fundamentals? And how much is being driven by the belief that someone else will pay even more tomorrow? Morningstar recently estimated SpaceX's fair value at roughly $780 billion, less than a third of where it's currently trading. And on markets this week, Howard Marks, co founder and co chairman of Oaktree Capital Management, put the moment in historical perspective.

[Howard Marks]

So I wrote in a memo recently this year, and I think it's true that if this technological innovation with its exuberance doesn't produce a money losing bubble, it'll be the first. Now it could happen. You can't rule these things out. And maybe this is a good time for me to introduce the rejoinder of the, of the optimist. What do they say? This time it's different. Okay, that was true about the railroads, it was true about radio, it was true about computers and the Internet. But this time it's different. And this time we have a development of incalculable, unlimitable value. So this time it's really true that there's no price too high. That's what they say. But the problem with that, Ed, is they always say that this time it's different, is never different. And they've said it in each of those bubbles that I mentioned, I think. So nobody, including me, should say definitively that this is a bubble, that the people who invest in these early stages of AI will lose their money, that the people who, who invest in the companies you named will pay prices that they'll never see again. But you must be alert to the possibility.

[George Hahn]

The Shiller PE ratio, a measure of how expensive stocks are relative to long term earnings, now sits above 40. The last time it got this high was 1999. Back then, investors believed the Internet had changed the rules. Now maybe AI has. We are officially in dot com territory. We'll be right back after the break.

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[George Hahn]

It feels good to have support. It feels good to geico. Welcome back. After 107 days of war, the United States and Iran announced what the White House called a breakthrough. The problem? It's not exactly a deal, it's a framework or as Scott says, a memorandum of understanding, a 60 day negotiating period meant to produce an actual agreement. Later, the hardest questions, nuclear enrichment, sanctions, relief, frozen assets remain unresolved. On raging moderates this week, Scott and Jessica Tarlov discussion.

[Scott]

And then the uncomfortable truth that no one wants to own up to is that Iran has way more leverage after the escalation than before it.

[Narrator/Host]

We come out of this weaker, they come out of it stronger.

[Heather Cox Richardson]

Let me just repeat that.

[Scott]

Any honest analysis of this.

[Narrator/Host]

Iran comes out of this stronger, we

[Heather Cox Richardson]

come out of it weaker.

[Scott]

Your thoughts?

[Unnamed Analyst]

I wholeheartedly agree with you and would just add that even, even if they got exactly the same deal, the fact that they know that they can shut down the Strait of Hormuz whenever they want and hold the world hostage is an enormous bargaining chip. And you know, we're quibbling over the Iranians basically saying, no, we're not, it's not going to be toll free. Right. Like we can work towards that perhaps, but it's not going to go from, you know, 60 to 0. Right. When this reopens tomorrow or when the blockade gets lifted.

[George Hahn]

Ian Bremmer joined the show earlier this week and made a similar point. His argument, even if the final terms resemble the old nuclear agreement, the geopolitical context has changed dramatically.

[Ian Bremmer]

Well, first, one obvious thing is that the JCPOA was not a unilateral U.S. deal. It involved the Europeans. It also involved the Chinese and the Russians. So you had a lot of countries that had various degrees of influence, inequities in their relationships with Iran, that had a stake in ensuring that the deal actually held up, that the inspections actually went ahead, that the sanctions that remained on Iran remained on Iran, all of these things. So that's one point is that this new deal, it's only gonna be the Americans. And if the Iranians feel like they have more leverage going forward, then breaking an agreement that's only with the United States is less consequential than breaking a deal that involves countries like Russia and China that Iran really does not want to antagonize for other reasons.

[George Hahn]

The broader concern isn't just what's in the deal, but what the war accomplished. After months of escalation, billions spent, and global energy markets repeatedly thrown into turmoil, we're left with an uncomfortable question. Did the United States end up with a better outcome than than the one it started with? On this week's Conversations episode, Scott spoke with historian Heather Cox Richardson. As America prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday, they reflected on power, expertise and why so many voters have become skeptical of institutions.

[Heather Cox Richardson]

Here's Heather and one of the things that jumps out to me about the people in power right now is the degree to which they have simply said, well, I'm gonna put the best people in charge, or I read a book, I then can go in and I can negotiate Middle east peace in a way that nobody who's studied this and been trained and so on has been able to do for 40 years. And the thing about that is we have never put those people at the highest levels of our government before, the idea that you just have a hotline to the universe or God or to intelligence. And in this moment, it seems to me that that idea overlaps strongly with Trump's sort of fascist, traditional ideas about some people being better than others. And that, I think is interesting because I think that's one of the reasons that evangelicals adhere to him as closely as they do. And I don't really know how to grapple with that. What do you think about that?

I think in America, it has become a national pastime of being critical of our government. And I would argue our government is the best performing organization in history. And I think we have just taken for granted at every level how thoughtful and credentialed people in the CDC are and the diplomats who try and hammer out and cross the T's and dot the I's of an incredibly complex deal like this, and that we have essentially gutted and neutered the competence of the best organization in the world. And Americans have taken for granted, believing that these things just operate on some sort of autopilot. And I think we're about to figure out in a very painful way that, no, there were very smart people working at the tsa. There were very smart people working in the irs, the cdc, those people were there for a reason. And when we decide to take out our entire Iranian diplomatic corps staff, our intelligence agencies and our security apparatus with loyalists as opposed to people have any background that eventually you end up with poor execution and I think a lot of this is our fault. I think a lot of Americans have taken for granted the commitment and expertise that is resident in our government, and I think that those chickens are coming home to roost.

[George Hahn]

We spent the week talking about big promises that AI will change everything, that a fragile peace will hold, that the right leader can succeed where institutions have failed. Maybe all of that turns out to be true. But history has a way of separating confidence from competence, and eventually the results speak for themselves. We'll be back next Friday with a fresh edition of the week from Prof. G Media, breaking down what mattered and what it all means. I'm George Hahn. Have a bangin weekend.

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