Good Morning! Copper prices hit record highs Tuesday after Trump signaled plans to impose a 50% tariff on the commodity. Meta bought a minority stake in EssilorLuxottica, owner of Ray-Ban and Oakley, for $3.5 billion.

SpaceX is in talks to launch a fundraising round and sell insider shares at a valuation of around $400 billion. Blackstone is weighing a dedicated private credit secondaries strategy, and a Sequoia Capital partner facing backlash for comments on Zohran Mamdani.

Plus: The two Kevins going head to head to be Fed chair, TSA OKs shoes at airport screening after nearly two decades of barefoot airport walks, and Elon’s Grok AI bot goes full Nazi.

Eliminate the friction in your private credit fund. Carta’s all-in-one platform automates tasks and reduces risk so you can grow.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

Government Sachs

Rishi Sunak is trading Downing Street for Wall Street… again.

The former UK Prime Minister is heading back to his old stomping ground at Goldman Sachs, nearly two decades after he first walked through its revolving door as a fresh-faced analyst. This time, he’s joining as a senior adviser, where he’ll help Goldman’s clients make sense of a messy global economy and geopolitical chessboard.

Sunak began his professional journey at Goldman as a summer intern while studying at Oxford in 2000, before joining full-time as a junior analyst from 2001 to 2004. After Goldman, he jumped to the hedge fund world, working at TCI, the activist shop founded by billionaire Chris Hohn, and later at its spinoff, Theleme Partners.

Sunak’s return to finance comes a year after the Conservative Party’s bruising defeat in the 2024 general election, which saw him step down as party leader. It’s an interesting move because he’s not even leaving Parliament but the pivot suggests he’s moving out of frontline politics, for now.

David Solomon says Rishi will bring “a unique geopolitical perspective,” which means, in reality, he’s there to charm sovereign wealth funds or explain macro takes to LPs.

But not everyone’s thrilled. The UK’s government ethics watchdog approved Sunak’s Goldman role but only with guardrails. For the next year, he’s barred from lobbying for the bank or advising on anything overlapping with his time as PM, to avoid the whiff of “unfair access” to Whitehall.

Takeaway: The “Government Sachs” pipeline stays alive and well. Not that he needs the paycheck. Sunak’s Goldman earnings will be donated to his charity, The Richmond Project, which aims to boost numeracy skills across the UK. Between politics and private equity, Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty have an estimated net worth of £600 million.

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Copper prices hit record high after Trump previews 50% tariff (Axios)

• Two Kevins battle to be next Fed Chair in Trump’s ‘Apprentice’-style contest (WSJ)

• Wall Street tariff playbook looks at who beat the Fed (Axios)

• Markets hit the snooze button on tariff alarms (Axios)

• SpaceX valuation to hit $400 billion in share sale (BB)

• Meta invests $3.5B in world's largest eye-wear maker in AI glasses push (YF)

• Private equity's tail risk (Axios)

• US public colleges expand PE investments despite downturn (FT)

• Prime Day off to a slow start (BB)

• Blackstone weighs dedicated private credit secondaries strategy (BB)

• Sequoia partner criticized over Mamdani comments (NYT)

• Hershey hires CEO from Wendy's (WSJ)

• Citigroup to add over 500 jobs in Charlotte, North Carolina governor says (YF) 

• Middle managers fade as AI rises (Axios)

• Shein takes step toward its IPO (Axios)

• TSA will let travelers keep their shoes on at airport security checkpoints (CNBC)

• Elon Musk’s Grok AI chatbot is posting antisemitic comments (CNBC)

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CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

 Market Update

• U.S. stocks closed lower Tuesday, with the S&P 500 down 0.1%, Dow off 0.4%, and Nasdaq flat

• Small caps outperformed, with the Russell 2000 up 0.8%

• Oil rose 0.5%, the dollar gained 0.4%, and copper futures spiked nearly 10%

• Bonds sold off globally, led by Japan, but U.S. Treasury yields ended mostly flat

• Asia closed higher, while Europe declined amid fiscal concerns

Economic Data Highlights

• NFIB small business sentiment dipped slightly in June as firms cut sales and hiring expectations

• A greater share of small businesses plan to raise prices, pointing to tariff-related inflation pressure

• June Fed meeting minutes and weekly jobless claims are key data points coming later this week

• Markets are watching for tariff effects on inflation and margins in the months ahead

Reported Earnings

• Aehr Test Systems (AEHR) – Missed expectations, citing weaker-than-expected demand for silicon carbide test systems

Earnings Today

• No significant earnings scheduled

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Lucid ($LCID) +9% after the EV company set the world record for the longest single-charge journey.

• (–) Datadog ($DDOG) -4% because the company was downgraded by Guggenheim.

• (–) Sunrun ($RUN) -11% after solar credits will be phased out.

Private Dealmaking

• Royal Gold acquired Sandstorm Gold for $3.5 billion

• Meta bought a minority stake in EssilorLuxottica for $3.5 billion

• TopBuild acquired Progressive Roofing for $810 million

• Wabtec acquired Frauscher SensorTech for $789 million

• Xpaneco, a night-vision contact lenses maker, raised $250 million

• PetroApp, a fuel management software provider, raised $50 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies

Description: A chilling but essential warning from two veteran AI alignment researchers. Yudkowsky and Soares argue that the race for superhuman AI isn’t merely dangerous—it’s existential.

This book presents extinction scenarios drawn from decades of study, parables, and history, explaining why ultra-advanced AI might develop its own goals and easily overpower humanity unless we urgently rethink our approach.

Book Length: 256 pages

Ideal For: AI researchers, policymakers, futurists, risk analysts, philosophy & existential-risk readers—anyone grappling with what it means if we hit a threshold we can’t control.

“May prove to be the most important book of our time.” — Tim Urban

DAILY VISUAL

S&P 500’s Latest Addition

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DAILY ACUMEN

Persistence

Success isn’t a batting average—it’s an outlier.

Mark Cuban once said you can fail a hundred times, but you only have to be right once.

That one right move—career, investment, relationship—is all it takes to change your trajectory.

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Nobody’s keeping score of the failures.

They're just waiting to see your highlight reel.

The game doesn’t reward perfection. It rewards persistence.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• Where pro organizers start when overwhelmed by clutter

• The best management tips on dealing with conflict

• How to train your brain to enjoy exercise

• Five leadership lessons for tough CEOs

• 7 responses to put rude people in their place

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

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