We used to not have $3 trillion companies. Now, thanks in part to President Trump’s tariffs roiling the markets, we don’t again. Since Trump took office in January, Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple have all shrunk from their $3 trillion market caps. Apple is the latest to leave the club after the iPhone maker shed more than $300 billion yesterday alone.
And that’s before Tesla invested $2 billion in xAI, which it has since converted to a stake in SpaceX.
Apple may have missed out on the first wave of generative AI when it comes to software, but its hardware is another story.
The current OpenClaw craze — where users run their own AI agents on a dedicated computer in their homes, and chat with it via messaging apps — has made the once sleepy Mac mini and pro-level Mac Studio an unlikely hit.
Reports of shortages are not lost on Apple.
During this week’s earnings call, outgoing CEO Tim Cook acknowledged the supply constraint of the popular desktops:
“On the Mac mini and the Mac Studio, both of these are amazing platforms for AI and agentic tools, and the customer recognition of that is happening faster than what we had predicted. And so we saw higher-than-expected demand.”
Cook noted that the Mac mini was the top-selling desktop computer in China last quarter, where the DIY agentic AI boom is especially popular. In addition to strong customer demand, Cook cited supply chain constraints adding to the problem, which “may take several months to reach supply/demand balance.”
The Mac mini is one of the products that Apple will be making in the US starting later this year.
Reports of shortages are not lost on Apple.
During this week’s earnings call, outgoing CEO Tim Cook acknowledged the supply constraint of the popular desktops:
“On the Mac mini and the Mac Studio, both of these are amazing platforms for AI and agentic tools, and the customer recognition of that is happening faster than what we had predicted. And so we saw higher-than-expected demand.”
Cook noted that the Mac mini was the top-selling desktop computer in China last quarter, where the DIY agentic AI boom is especially popular. In addition to strong customer demand, Cook cited supply chain constraints adding to the problem, which “may take several months to reach supply/demand balance.”
The Mac mini is one of the products that Apple will be making in the US starting later this year.
Apple’s second-quarter earnings beat expectations and underscore its growing strength in China, where it is closing in on the top spot in the smartphone market.
“We are thrilled with the performance in Greater China,” CEO Tim Cook said, noting that the iPhone was “the top-selling model in urban China.” Cook first called the iPhone the rather than a top-selling model there during the company’s first-quarter earnings earlier this year.
Data from IDC and Counterpoint Research shows Apple accounted for 19% of smartphone shipments in China in the first calendar quarter of 2026, just behind Huawei at 20%. Analysts say Apple is poised to take the lead soon, helped in part by rising memory chip costs, which are pushing up competitors’ prices.
Apple’s China revenue rose 28% in the March quarter, ahead of analyst estimates, and is up 33% in the first half of the year.
Data from IDC and Counterpoint Research shows Apple accounted for 19% of smartphone shipments in China in the first calendar quarter of 2026, just behind Huawei at 20%. Analysts say Apple is poised to take the lead soon, helped in part by rising memory chip costs, which are pushing up competitors’ prices.
Apple’s China revenue rose 28% in the March quarter, ahead of analyst estimates, and is up 33% in the first half of the year.
The conditions of SpaceX’s pay package for founder Elon Musk were revealed in a confidential registration statement, which was reviewed by Reuters last week.
While the compensation plan, approved by the SpaceX board in January, includes a sky-high valuation target of $7.5 trillion, it turns out Musk will only be awarded 200 million in super-voting restricted shares if he also establishes a permanent human colony on Mars with more than a million people, according to excerpts from the statement.
Luckily, there might be some volunteers to become cosmic X-patriates, since Mars just so happens to be Americans’ celestial body of choice. A new YouGov survey, published Tuesday, found that Mars is Americans’ favorite planet (19%), followed by ring-laden Saturn (14%) and 143,000-kilometer-wide Jupiter (8%).
Respondents were less enthused by Mercury and almost-planet Pluto, with roughly one in five respondents calling one of these their least favorite planet — though a majority of US adults (55%) simply didn’t know what their least favorite planet was, like the 38% who couldn’t say what their top choice was.
Whether Mars is America’s favorite because of manifold endeavors to colonize it, or whether its proximity to Earth, relatively livable climate (Mercury’s temperatures, for example, are a little more mercurial, hitting 800 F in the day then dropping to -290 F at night), and grip on pop culture, from Ziggy Stardust to chocolate bars, have given us a rosier view of the Red Planet, is unclear.
Ahead of the company’s highly anticipated IPO, it had appeared that SpaceX’s priorities were shifting away from Mars, further toward Earth’s moon. But if the world’s richest man wants to ensure even more company shares come June, SpaceX’s path to Mars shouldn’t be eclipsed.
Luckily, there might be some volunteers to become cosmic X-patriates, since Mars just so happens to be Americans’ celestial body of choice. A new YouGov survey, published Tuesday, found that Mars is Americans’ favorite planet (19%), followed by ring-laden Saturn (14%) and 143,000-kilometer-wide Jupiter (8%).
Respondents were less enthused by Mercury and almost-planet Pluto, with roughly one in five respondents calling one of these their least favorite planet — though a majority of US adults (55%) simply didn’t know what their least favorite planet was, like the 38% who couldn’t say what their top choice was.
Whether Mars is America’s favorite because of manifold endeavors to colonize it, or whether its proximity to Earth, relatively livable climate (Mercury’s temperatures, for example, are a little more mercurial, hitting 800 F in the day then dropping to -290 F at night), and grip on pop culture, from Ziggy Stardust to chocolate bars, have given us a rosier view of the Red Planet, is unclear.
Ahead of the company’s highly anticipated IPO, it had appeared that SpaceX’s priorities were shifting away from Mars, further toward Earth’s moon. But if the world’s richest man wants to ensure even more company shares come June, SpaceX’s path to Mars shouldn’t be eclipsed.
