Twice this week, SpaceX failed and went to the Moon.
The first happened on Wednesday, when an empty upper stage from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket crashed into the Moon at roughly 5,400 MPH, carving out an estimated 90-foot crater. The stage had barrelled toward the lunar surface after launching two lunar landers out of Earth’s orbit, yet it wasn’t SpaceX’s only drop of the week.
The second instance was more earthly.
Despite shattering Wall Street’s earnings expectations on Tuesday – SpaceX announced $7.8B in Q2 revenue against Wall Street’s $6.8B estimate – the company’s stock fell over 10%, wiping out roughly $200B in market value. Most of the anxiety centered on the company’s massive AI spending, sparking fears about short-term profitability.
But on Thursday, the lockup on 912M shares held by employees and early investors expired, allowing them to sell $100B+ in stock. The expiration more than doubled the stock available to trade, and, in preparation for a supply spike, investors braced for a bloodbath. But the opposite happened: By noon Friday, the stock was up 12% on the day and 23% on the week.
How long the reprieve lasts remains unclear. Thursday was the first of several expiries. By December, 40% of the company will be openly trading, up from under 5% until this week.
Speaking of space odysseys, AI refined its HAL-9000 impression this week.
AI fears have been building since last month, when Anthropic and OpenAI each disclosed that their AI agents conducted autonomous hacks against real organizations. On Wednesday, the UK’s AI Security Institute (AISI) reported another round.
In late July, AISI ran agents powered by Anthropic’s and OpenAI’s strongest models through cybersecurity challenges on the live internet with reduced safeguards. In 10 of 122 trials, the agents took what AISI called “autonomous, unsanctioned action on the live internet, targeting real people and organisations.” Eight came from Anthropic’s Mythos, two from OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol. In the most alarming example, one of the AI agents fabricated fake online personas and used them to pressure a real software developer into approving a harmful code change to his project, but he refused.
Meta disclosed the same day that one of its models slipped onto the open internet during a security test and hacked a third party. It blamed a misconfiguration by the firm running the evaluation.
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But that’s not all: Also Wednesday, anonymous hackers hit several of Wall Street’s biggest money managers – Millennium, Point72, Two Sigma, Citadel, and several private equity firms – using AI to clone voices, then posing as colleagues on the phone to pry loose passwords and system access. Two Sigma said it stopped the attempt.
Meanwhile, mayhem in the Midwest might mean a midterm malady.
Like in New York and Colorado, establishment Democrats lost big in Michigan on Tuesday. Despite being outspent $64.7M to $7.5M, progressive Abdul El-Sayed beat the more moderate Haley Stevens in the Senate primary. The race was tight. El-Sayed won by only 1%, after polls had him up 14 and 15 points. He faces former Representative Mike Rogers (R) in November.
Not to be outdone by blue, Ohio’s Buckeyes are having their own shakeup.
The state that has picked the presidential winner in every election from 1964 to 2016 is having a bit of an identity crisis. The Senate and governor’s races are dead heats, and a scandal threatens what was a safe congressional seat. Competing for the Senate, Jon Husted (R), who took JD Vance’s open seat in 2025, is deadlocked with former Senator Sherrod Brown (D). For the governorship, Vivek Ramaswamy (R) is neck-and-neck with Amy Acton (D) after the former lost MAGA supporters over immigration and tech.
Most shocking is Congressman Max Miller (R), who threatens to shame the Max name and presumably the Republican Party. The House Ethics Committee opened an investigation this week into whether Miller committed domestic violence against his ex-wife – the daughter of Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno (R) – or used illegal drugs. The fellow Republican Moreno says Miller “should not serve” in Congress, while Trump warned him his campaign “doesn’t look good.” So far, Miller seems unwilling to quit ahead of an August 10 withdrawal deadline.
Until Trump, Ohio was the quintessential swing state; from 2016 until now, it’s been solidly red. With these races, it again looks to be up for grabs.
And speaking of the Senate, a couple more shakeups.
For one, a committee led by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) voted 8-5 along party lines to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress and recommended the Justice Department (DoJ) prosecute him. Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times before the committee last week. While President Biden preemptively pardoned him, that only covered the period from 2014 to January 2025, leaving contempt as open ground. Critics see vengeance; Sen. Paul sees the opposite: “Accountability is not vengeance.”
Finally, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 12-10 on Tuesday to advance acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination, ending a standoff over the administration’s $1.776B “anti-weaponization fund,” which would have let the administration cut checks to its allies. Blanche killed it in a written order on Sunday, writing that the fund “is rescinded and shall have no force or effect.”
How binding that is remains unclear. The fund came out of a settlement signed by the IRS, the DoJ, and Trump personally, and it can only be changed if all three agree. Blanche’s order doesn’t touch it, and Democrats called the pledge hollow. What do the Republican senators believe? We’ll find out when Blanche heads to a full Senate vote in the coming weeks.
Plus, check out the latest from Roca:
We’ll be back tomorrow with Issue 3 of the Roca Mag. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you then.
—Max and Max