Good morning! PE's exit drought is claiming its latest victim, the IRR, as investors shift focus to cash distributions instead. Ozempic and Wegovy may have a surprising side effect: stalling cancer. And Blackstone, Anthropic, and Hellman & Friedman's new AI services firm snapped up San Francisco-based Fractional AI as its first deal.

Jamie Dimon said JPMorgan will hire more AI specialists and fewer bankers, mostly through natural turnover. Citi and BofA are eyeing $30 billion in bonds for the Warner Bros. LBO. And smart ring maker Oura filed confidentially for an IPO with Goldman as lead left.

Plus: JPMorgan is fighting over millions of comic books locked in a Mississippi warehouse. And why Musk will be SpaceX CEO for life.

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SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

Uncle Sam Becomes a Quantum VC

After Intel (10% stake), MP Materials (15%), Lithium Americas (10%), Trilogy Metals (10%), a "golden share" in US Steel, and stakes across multiple rare-earth firms, the U.S. government keeps taking equity in strategic companies. The Council on Foreign Relations counts 15 deals totaling ~$20.9 billion since January 2025, the biggest government push into private-sector ownership since WWII.

The latest: the Commerce Department signed letters of intent to deploy $2 billion across nine quantum computing companies under the 2022 CHIPS Act, with the government set to hold minority, non-controlling equity stakes when the deals close.

IBM surged 12.5% after landing the biggest award, a proposed $1 billion CHIPS incentive to launch Anderon, a 300-millimeter quantum wafer foundry in Albany, NY, billed as America's first pure-play quantum foundry. IBM is contributing a matching $1 billion in cash plus IP, assets, and workforce.

The smaller awards were spread unevenly: GlobalFoundries got $375 million (~1% stake); Atom Computing, D-Wave, Infleqtion, PsiQuantum, Quantinuum, and Rigetti got roughly $100 million each; Diraq got $38 million. The small-cap stocks ripped: D-Wave +33.5%, Rigetti +30.6%, Infleqtion +31.5%.

Nobody knows who wins quantum yet, so Washington is spreading capital across multiple architectures and letting the portfolio sort itself out. A senior Commerce official acknowledged it could take years to pay off. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna compared quantum to AI chips a decade ago. McKinsey estimates quantum could create $1.3-$2.7 trillion in economic value by 2035.

The playbook works in real numbers too. Last August, the administration converted $8.9 billion of Intel's unpaid CHIPS Act grants into a 9.9% equity stake at $20.47/share. That stake is now worth ~$36 billion, roughly a 4x gain on paper.

Supporters call it strategic capitalism. But critics say it blurs regulatory boundaries and resembles state-directed market intervention. Both are probably right.

Takeaway: The U.S. government is increasingly acting as a direct equity investor across strategic industries, with a longer time horizon than any fund and a mandate that's basically whatever it wants it to be. When Washington takes stakes in nine quantum companies simultaneously, it's a signal worth tracking, regardless of how you feel about the policy.

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HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Private equity's exit drought claims its latest victim — the IRR metric (WSJ)

• Popular weight-loss drugs may have surprising side effect: stalling cancer (WSJ)

• Anthropic's new consulting venture makes its first acquisition (BB)

• Dimon says JPMorgan will hire more AI people, fewer bankers (BB)

• Banks eye $30 billion of high-grade bonds for Warner Bros. LBO (BB)

• Oura, maker of popular smart rings, files confidentially for IPO (BB)

• JPMorgan, publishers fight over bankrupt comic distributor Diamond's assets (BB)

• Why Musk will be SpaceX CEO for life (Axios)

• Anthropic, Microsoft in talks in talks for AI chip deal after $5 billion investment (CNBC)

• NYC mayor Mamdani launches Twitch show, evoking FDR fireside chats and LaGuardia's radio era (CNBC)

• SpaceX launches upgraded Starship V3 for the first time (WSJ)

• Mamdani's tax plans risk hurting New York, says JPMorgan's Dimon (BB)

• SpaceX's Starlink growth and profits, revealed in Nasdaq IPO filing (CNBC)

• Private credit's unthinkable becomes reality as trading revs up (BB)

• Anthropic's revenue is growing explosively, and the company had its first profitable quarter (CNBC)

• Morgan Stanley named stabilization agent (WSJ)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• U.S. equities finished higher as investors reacted to earnings results from NVIDIA and Walmart

• Walmart posted better-than-expected sales but issued cautious forward guidance amid higher energy-price pressures

• Initial jobless claims were little changed at 209,000, pointing to stable labor-market conditions

• WTI crude oil reversed earlier gains and closed lower as optimism around a potential Iran ceasefire increased

• The 10-year Treasury yield declined modestly to 4.56%

IPO Activity Heats Up

• SpaceX publicly filed IPO paperwork, with reports suggesting the company could seek to raise up to $75 billion in what may become the largest IPO in history

• Shares are expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq as soon as next month

• OpenAI is also reportedly preparing IPO paperwork, with a potential public listing later this year

• Historically, large IPOs have seen elevated volatility during their first year of trading despite strong investor enthusiasm

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Spotify ($SPOT) +13% after hosting its 2026 Investor Day in NYC, where co-CEOs laid out long-range revenue and free cash flow targets through 2035.

• (+) IBM ($IBM) +12% because the Trump administration awarded $2 billion in federal funding to nine quantum computing companies, with IBM among the largest beneficiaries.

• (–) Intuit ($INTU) -20% after announcing it will cut 17% of its workforce (~3,100 jobs) and incur $300–$340M in restructuring charges.

Prediction Markets

• This market closes today at 2:30pm EDT.

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• Medtronic agreed to acquire SPR Therapeutics, a provider of peripheral nerve stimulation therapies, for $650 million

• Exa Labs, an AI search startup, raised $250 million

• Mercury, a business banking startup, raised $200 million

• Kalshi raised $200 million in Series F extension funding

• Primer, a payments infrastructure startup, raised $100 million

• Moment, an investment management platform, raised $78 million

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

PRESENTED BY ENHANCED GAMES

Let the Enhanced Games Begin

This Sunday in Las Vegas, Enhanced Games holds its inaugural event, a first-of-its-kind sports league competing across swimming, track, and weightlifting.

Around 50 elite athletes will compete for up to $25 million in prize money, including Olympic sprinter Fred Kerley, world-class swimmer Ben Proud, and Hafþór "The Mountain" Björnsson from Game of Thrones.

The company is billed as "Red Bull meets Hims & Hers": a media-driven sports league paired with Live Enhanced, a telehealth and longevity platform. It's backed by Peter Thiel, Donald Trump Jr., and the Winklevoss twins, and founded by Aron D'Souza, Christian Angermayer, and Max Martin.

Enhanced went public this month via SPAC and now trades on the NYSE under $ENHA, one of the only publicly traded sports properties on US markets alongside TKO (UFC + WWE) and Formula 1.

The Games stream free on Roku, YouTube, Twitch, and Kick, with Roku alone reaching 100M+ households across the Americas. Tune in Sunday, May 24. 🍿

BOOK OF THE DAY

Easy Discipline

Description:
A refreshing take on productivity and achievement from Jia Jiang that challenges the idea that discipline must feel painful or exhausting. Instead of relying on brute force willpower, the book focuses on designing systems, environments, and mindsets that make consistent action feel more natural and sustainable. Blending behavioral psychology with practical frameworks, it shows how ambitious goals can be pursued with less friction and more momentum.

Book Length: 272 pages
Release Date: July 14, 2026

Ideal For:
Anyone looking to build consistency, reduce procrastination, and achieve ambitious goals without relying solely on motivation or extreme self-discipline

The most sustainable discipline is the kind that feels easy enough to repeat every day.

DAILY VISUAL

Most Reputable Companies

PRESENTED BY COVERD

Buy Now, Pay Maybe?

Coverd has evolved.

The app that allows you to win up to 100% of your purchases back has upgraded into a full-scale finance and entertainment app. In addition to tracking your spending (and winning it back), calculating and comparing your net worth, and playing old school games like Flappy Bird, Coverd has added a sports picks feature and tiered reward system.

Their flagship product, the Coverd Card, is set to release in the next two months. Each purchase with the card is like a free spin where you may or may not actually pay. Buy now, pay maybe. 

Join the waitlist for the Coverd credit card in the app today.

DAILY ACUMEN

Inverted Curiosity

Most people use curiosity to confirm what they already suspect. They read the books that align with their worldview, follow the thinkers who agree with them, and engage critically only with ideas they were already skeptical of. This is not curiosity. It is search behavior, optimized to reinforce an existing model of the world.

Real curiosity is uncomfortable, because it points in exactly the opposite direction. It means sitting with the writer whose conclusions you instinctively dislike. It means taking seriously the framework you have already dismissed. It means asking, with genuine openness, what someone you disagree with might be seeing that you are not. The willingness to do this is rare enough that it has become a competitive advantage in any field that rewards original thinking.

You cannot get to a non-consensus answer through consensus questions. The people who consistently see what others miss have trained themselves to look exactly where everyone else has decided not to.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• Mobility has become the new hedge for the ultra-wealthy

• How to find focus when it’s most elusive

• The counterintuitive habit for creativity

• How to break free from the same conversations

• A 4-word phrase to learn from criticism

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

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