The Rundown - SpaceX Merges with xAI, Palantir Delivers Blowout Earnings

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

Market update for Tuesday February 3, 2026Check out the Public app for incredible investing tools and to support the show (LINK)Cathie Wood Interview (Spotify, YouTube)Follow us on Instagram (@TheRundownDaily) for bonus content and instant reactions.In today’s episode:SpaceX merges with xAI, creating the most valuable private company on EarthPalantir shares surge after blowout earnings and strong guidance driven by AI demandDisney officially names Josh D’Amaro as its next CEO, ending a long succession saga

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zad Admani, and today is Tuesday, February 3rd. In today's episode, we'll break down the X-A-I-Spacex merger and tell you why Elon combined the two companies. We'll also recap earnings from Palantir and PayPal. Then stick around to the end of the show to learn a shocking stat about Disney CEOs and the New York Knicks. We got a great show for you. you today. Let's go.

Stocks kicked off February on a positive note. The S&P 500 was up half a percent yesterday and very close to closing at a new record high. The NASDAQ did even better, climbing 0.6%. The big winners yesterday were industrial and transportation stocks. Those sectors rallied after a shockingly strong manufacturing report. The ISM Manufacturing Index jumped to 52.6 in January, January, which was way up from the 47.9 in December. In fact, it's the highest reading since mid 2022. This report measures manufacturing activity in the U.S., and for the first time in two years, manufacturing is finally expanding. Now, we were supposed to get even more economic data this week with the January jobs report dropping on Friday, but that data has now been delayed.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the partial government shutdown has pushed back the release, which means we're going to be flying blind on one of the most important pieces of economic for a bit. Big picture, though, the economy still looks resilient. Stocks are near record highs. Manufacturing is showing early signs of life. And despite the volatility, investors continue to buy the dip. Now, speaking of buying the dip, let's talk about gold and silver. Because after a historic sell-off on Friday, the price is starting to recover. Gold is up nearly 10% from its Friday lows, getting back to the $5,000 an ounce price. And silver is up nearly 20% from its lows. The same can't be said about Bitcoin, though. It's up only 4% from its weekend lows.

which is pretty wild given the fact that Michael Saylor's company's strategy bought $75 million worth of Bitcoin last week at $88,000 per coin. But despite that huge purchase, the price just kept falling anyways. Now, speaking of Bitcoin and gold, we had Kathy Wood on the podcast over the weekend. Her firm, Arc has a $1.5 million price target on Bitcoin. So I asked her about the gold versus Bitcoin debate. She gave an interesting response defending Bitcoin. If you want to hear her thoughts, go check out that interview.

We'll put the link in the description. And while you're at it, make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast and tuning in every day to stay in the loop. There's a lot going on right now. Let's run through some headlines, starting with Elon Musk. Elon Musk is buying his own company. SpaceX announced yesterday that they are merging with XAI in a deal that values the combined companies at $1.25 trillion dollars, making it the most valuable private company in the world. Here's how the deal breaks down. SpaceX, which is being valued at $1 trillion, is buying XAI for $250 billion in an all-stock deal. XAI investors are receiving one share of SpaceX for every

four shares of XAI they own. So that means that SpaceX had to issue $250 billion worth of new shares to pay for this merger, diluting existing SpaceX shareholders. I'm sure existing SpaceX holders didn't love that, but since Elon Musk has a controlling stake in SpaceX, he can push this deal through. You know, I've said this before, but I feel like SpaceX has the least number of haters for any company. They are by far the leader in their category with very little competition, but the same can't be said about XAI, which is the fourth player in the AI space in burning a ton of cash, and they also have a ton of haters. So why is Elon doing this merger? Well, he says it's to build data centers in space, which he thinks will be the cheapest and most scalable way to power AI.

So combining SpaceX and XAI creates this vertically integrated AI empire. You know, I've been skeptical of the whole AI data centers and space thing, but I guess he's moving forward with it. Now, some are saying that Elon is doing this merger to bail out XAI. You know, XAI has been burning through a billion dollars per month trying to compete with OpenAI and other AI companies, and they still haven't had the adoption to back it up. So this could be less about data centers in space and more about using SpaceX's cash flow to bail out XAI. Also, keep in mind, SpaceX is planning to IPO sometime this year. Could be early as June. And They're hoping to raise $50 billion in the process, which would be the biggest IPO in history.

And now because of this merger, Elon can use that money to continue to fund and build XAI. So yeah, very interesting financial engineering happening from Elon Musk. I feel like the biggest winners here, though, have to be XAI shareholders because they now went from holding XAI stock to having SpaceX stock. Let me know in the comments on Spotify and YouTube, what you think about this merger. Like, do you really think it's about AI data centers in space? Now, speaking of an AI company going to the moon, let's talk about Palantir. They reported earnings last night and had blowout numbers in an even stronger outlook.

The company reported quarterly revenues of $1.4 billion, which was up 70% year over year. That easily beat Wall Street estimates and marked an acceleration from the prior quarter's 63% growth. And profitability is also scaling fast for the company. They reported record profits of $609 million last quarter, which was up $209 million. last quarter, which was up 28% quarter over quarter. And the guidance is what really got investors excited. Palantir now expects 2026 revenues to grow 61%, implying about $7.2 billion in sales this year, well above the $6.3 billion the Wall Street was expected.

The biggest driver for their business continues to be the U.S. side, which brought in $1.1 billion in revenue, which is up 93% from a year ago. And what really stood out to me is the growth in the commercial side, U.S. commercial hit $507 million. That's more than double from a year earlier as more and more private companies adopt Palantir's AI tools. Now, government contracts still make up the bulk of U.S. revenue.

It's at $570 million, growing 66%. You know, Palantir stock had a bumpy start of the year. It was down 17% year to date and down nearly 30% from the November highs, but the stock is getting a nice pop this morning after the earnings. It's up 7% at the time of this recording. Let's talk about some stocks.

making moves today. Intel's shares are moving higher this morning after announcing a major collaboration with the Japanese investment giant soft bank to develop next generation memory chips for AI. This project is being led by SI Memory, a soft bank subsidiary, and it's part of what they're calling the Z-angle memory program, or ZAM for short. The goal here is to build memory chips that are faster, more energy efficient, and better suited for massive AI data centers where power usage and heat have become real bottlenecks. Now, the timeline is pretty far out, though, prototypes won't arrive until 2028, and the actual product won't hit the market until 2029, which is an eternity in tech. But investors are clearly excited about Intel getting into the AI memory game,

and Intel stock is up around 5% this morning. Now, on the flip side, PayPal stock is getting absolutely crushed today. The payment company reported week, fourth quarter earnings, and gave a terrible outlook for 2026. PayPal expects profits to decline slightly this year while Wall Street was expecting 8% growth. Management pointed to the continued weakness and branded checkout because there's a lot more competition in that space with Apple Pay, Google Pay, Shop Pay, and a firm just to name a few. Personally, I always check out with Apple Pay when that's an option because it's the easiest to do. So people are using PayPal less and that's hurting their business. In fact, things have gotten so bad that PayPal's board fired the CEO and he's being reporting.

place with Enrique Lores, who ran HP for more than six years. Mr. Lores is stepping into a tough spot, though. PayPal stock is down 17% this morning at the time of this recording and down more than 50% in the last 12 months. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. Well, it's official Disney has named Josh DeMorrow to be the next CEO taking over from Bob Eiger effective March 18. And we talked about this a little bit on yesterday's show, but it was officially announced

by the company this morning. Now, DeMorrow has been at Disney for 28 years. He rose to the ranks to run the most important and profitable business for Disney, which is the theme parks, resorts, and experience division. And now he's going to become just the ninth CEO in Disney's 102-year history. That's pretty impressive if you think about it. Disney has had fewer CEOs in a century than the New York Knicks have had head coaches in the last 20 years.

Sorry, Nick's fans. Now let's hope that the Disney board nailed this pig because this is the second time they tried to replace Bob Eiger. The first time was back in 2020 when they picked Bob Chapig to be CEO. He also came from the Parks Division, but he was very bad as being the overall CEO, and he got fired in 2022, and Bob Eiger came back. And if you look at Bob Eiger's second tenure as CEO, the stock only went up 13% since he came back in November of 2022.

And overall, the stock is down more than 40% from its peak in 2021. Now, Bob Eager will still stick around as a senior advisor until the end of the year. But then he says he's finally done. For real, this story. time. Probably. Maybe. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. If you did, and you have like five extra seconds, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you listen to your podcast. And if you are listening on Spotify, don't forget the vote in today's Spotify poll. Leave us a comment on Spotify. All that

engagement really does help us out and it helps other people find the show. Thank you guys so much for listening, watching, and commenting, shout out to Mike and Connor for all the work behind the scenes. And we'll see you guys back here tomorrow. Rosen lasagna, medium power, 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time. Let's play. Feel the fun with Play-Ojo, the online casino with all the latest slot and live casino games.

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