Civitas Snippets - June 14, 2026
Issue 57
Dear friends of Civitas Growth Partners,
This issue arrives in a period when Wall Street collectively decided that the best use of $255 billion in fresh capital is to bet on AI infrastructure - while Bernie Sanders demanded the government take half of it, Argentina granted AI agents legal personhood, and the New York Knicks made nosebleeds at MSG go for $8,000. The AI governance debate has officially escaped the seminar room and entered the U.S. Senate floor. SpaceX is about to IPO at $1.78 trillion. The Pope wants AI disarmed. A software engineer in North Carolina just claimed a religious exemption from using Copilot. This is edition 57 of the Civitas Snippets – and in many ways, this feels like the most outlandish of all time (which is a pretty high bar).
Henry David Thoreau saw the shape of this a century and a half before the first server rack powered on or when AI had become "recursive":
"Men have become the tools of their tools."
With that, let's get to it…
Politics and Current Events
The New York Times runs Bernie Sanders’ op-ed proposing a sovereign wealth fund built from a one-time 50% stock seizure of OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI — while David Sacks posts a rebuttal arguing government AI ownership would produce a CCP-style social credit system, not a Norwegian pension fund. Both are correct that the AI labs predicted their own technology causes mass unemployment and then lobbied against accountability. Neither has a solution that doesn’t create a worse problem.
Forbes reports the Social Security Trust Fund is now projected to run dry in 2032 — two years ahead of prior estimates — leaving 78% of benefits payable after that date, a 24% haircut for every retiree. Congress has known this actuarial math since approximately always; their track record on preemptive fiscal action is documented (and unfortunately falls well short of their illustrious investing careers).
Reuters covers Argentina’s court ruling granting an AI agent legal standing in a property dispute — the first such ruling anywhere — while Yuval Noah Harari warns in the FT that personhood is the gateway drug to political rights and that the question is which jurisdiction blinks next — and here’s to hoping that it is not the US.
The FT reports Trump administration officials are in discussions with OpenAI about the US government taking a preferred-share stake, while Trump separately signed an AI executive order expanding government oversight of AI in critical infrastructure. When the administration that ran on deregulation is simultaneously proposing to own AI equity and regulate AI systems, the ideological coherence has left the building.
Bloomberg reports solar power has surpassed coal in US electricity generation for the first time — a historic shift driven by falling panel costs and the AI data center buildout accelerating demand for any generation that can actually get permitted. Coal’s final defeat was hastened by the very technology now straining the grid.
Axios Pro Rata covers the fight to break China’s rare-earth dominance, with a new front opening in Brazil. China controls 60%+ of global rare-earth processing; the strategic response is real and underfunded relative to the dependency it is trying to address.
The WSJ covers a UK murder case reigniting accusations of police bias against white victims — one of the more uncomfortable stories European institutions are navigating this year. The forensics of differential treatment are the same; the political reaction is not.
The WSJ reports North Korea’s economy is experiencing surprising growth, driven by weapons export revenue from the Russia-Ukraine war. The most sanctioned country on earth found its comparative advantage in artillery shells. We do not recommend the development model, but we respect the pivot.
Economy, Markets, and Business
Axios reports the five hyperscalers have raised $255 billion in 2026 alone and committed to spend three-quarters of a trillion on AI data centers by year-end, with SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI all preparing IPOs that could add $200-plus billion more. The market has absorbed more AI equity and debt issuance in six months than in all prior years combined. At some point this stops being a technology story and becomes a credit story. We are already there.
The FT reports Apollo and Blackstone closed a $35 billion private credit deal — “Project Big Sky” — to finance Anthropic’s GPU purchases via a three-tranche SPV with Broadcom guaranteeing the senior tranches at 5.75%. This is CDO-of-GPUs territory.
The Wall Street Journal reports Alphabet is raising $85 billion in equity — including $10 billion from Berkshire Hathaway — while Bloomberg reports Google is simultaneously paying SpaceX $920 million per month for 110,000 Nvidia GPUs. A company with $126 billion in cash is issuing equity and renting GPUs at $8,400/month each. Either the capex needs are genuinely staggering, or Google wanted to share the risk.
The Financial Times reports Meta is weighing a multi-billion equity raise after already borrowing $55 billion and halting buybacks. Zuckerberg’s “personal superintelligence” roadmap consisting of Ray-Ban smart glasses apparently cannot be financed from $48 billion in annual operating cash flow.
OpenAI filed confidentially for its IPO at $1 trillion-plus; Anthropic filed separately at $900 billion; SpaceX went out on Friday at $1.78 trillion. Three companies with a combined paper value of $3.7 trillion are racing to the public window simultaneously. The 2021 full-year IPO record was $492 billion. The math on “the biggest IPO year ever” would no longer be close.
The Wall Street Journal reports data center construction is falling dramatically behind schedule — over 60% of capacity planned for 2027 isn’t yet under construction, and electrical transformers take 18 months to manufacture. You can raise $85 billion in a week. You cannot build a substation in a week. The constraint was never capital.
Axios reports four harsh AI business realities confronted investors this week: AI is too expensive per a new Bain study, enterprises say it isn’t paying off, Broadcom’s infrastructure forecast disappointed, and the Fed signals rates higher for longer. The productivity thesis is real; the near-term ROI is not keeping pace with the capital being deployed – and how long will the markets wait?
Bloomberg Odd Lots highlights three charts that sum up the AI debate: Chinese big tech has raised almost no capital relative to US peers, Chinese model prices are 10-25x cheaper than US frontier models, and carbon credit futures show a record gap between current prices and speculator bets on data center power demand. Token efficiency is compounding faster than the frontier models themselves. The Nespresso pods analogy — not everyone needs an espresso machine — remains the most underrated AI investment thesis.
Axios Markets reports Oracle’s free cash flow was negative $1.87 billion in Q4, with a 12-month FCF burn of negative $23.7 billion. Oracle is betting that becoming a hyperscaler late is worth destroying its free cash flow machine. The market disagrees; the stock fell after earnings. This feels like the AI bellwether in the public markets.
The FT profiles the unlikely corporate winners of AI: Caterpillar (generators), Corning (optical fiber, up 270%), Comfort Systems USA (HVAC, up 260%), Eaton (power management, 240% more data center orders). The infrastructure tax flows to whoever owns the physical layer, and that apparently includes 175-year-old glass companies in Ohio.
Axios Pro Rata reports DeepSeek is raising $7.4 billion at a $52 billion valuation while its models are already 10-25x cheaper per token than US frontier alternatives. The US AI lead is real at the frontier; the cost efficiency gap is also real and compounding. Enterprise buyers routing on cost will not wait for the curves to converge.
The FT reports Morgan & Morgan is exploring a private equity stake sale via a managed services organization structure. The real question here: will fees and carry be free unless they win?
Huddle Up estimates the Knicks’ playoff run is generating $140 million in gross revenue at 55% margins — while the WSJ documents Wall Street paying up to $176,000 for a single Finals ticket. A PE concierge explained the psychology: “If you’re not there, you’re a loser.” We’re unsure whether this describes NBA Finals access, the SpaceX IPO allocation process, or general sentiment in the current AI capital cycle. Possibly all three.
Axios reports oil demand may be structurally declining faster than expected, with Chinese demand potentially down 9% as EV adoption accelerates. The Iran-war energy shock may be accelerating the very transition it was supposed to stress-test. Bloomberg separately reports used Toyota RAV4 hybrids are now selling above their original sticker prices because new models have waiting lists. The auto market is repricing efficiency as a scarcity.
Society and Culture
Axios AM runs VandeHei and Allen’s “Rattled Generation” diagnosis — the gap between objectively good macro data and record-low consumer sentiment. The three-shock thesis (social media, COVID, AI acceleration) explains why a generation that grew up in historically safe conditions feels historically bad. Whoever credibly closes the perception gap — not the reality gap — wins the next decade.
Capgemini’s World Wealth Report 2026 finds global high-net-worth wealth hit $98.3 trillion in 2025, an 8.7% gain — the largest since 2018. The parallel story: one-third of all American household wealth is now in stocks while the bottom 90% holds 13% of that equity. The K is shaping.
WSJ reports Americans are keeping their cars for an average of 13 years — an all-time high driven by $50,000 average new-car prices and high rates. The aftermarket is now worth more to dealers than new-car sales. For aftermarket roll-up platforms, this is the demand environment they have been waiting for.
The New York Times reports two academic studies have now linked smartphone penetration to the post-2007 fertility decline — one estimates the iPhone caused up to half the birth rate drop between 2007 and 2011. The mechanism is consistent across 128 countries. We don’t remember that part of Steve Jobs’ “one more thing” pitch…
New York Magazine reports 16 colleges will exceed $100,000 in total annual cost this year, led by Harvey Mudd at $104,512. Brown is at $99,984 — apparently $16 shy by design. The $100K milestone is both a number and a message…is this really the value for higher education?
The WSJ reports the autism therapy industry has exploded into a multibillion-dollar business with billing fraud up 300% at Aetna in one year — one Brooklyn network billed $30,500 for a single day of care ($436 a minute). Minimal licensing requirements, insurance mandates, and 457% growth in behavior technicians since 2019 is a textbook example of capital meeting a mandated market with no price anchor. PE has noticed.
Den of Geek covers YouTube filmmaker Kane Parsons, whose debut Backrooms opened to $81 million — A24’s biggest ever. Both he and his closest competitor bypassed film school entirely. The incumbent institutional advantage in Hollywood was always distribution, not talent. Same story as legacy media, legacy music, and legacy finance.
Yahoo News reports a North Carolina software engineer secured a religious exemption from using AI at work under Title VII. Pope Leo has called for AI to be “disarmed.” The funniest possible timeline: the AI mandate era ends not with regulation but with HR departments processing Title VII filings from software engineers. She notes she completes her coding tasks just as fast without it. That data point will not appear in any vendor’s slide deck.
The New York Times / The Athletic reports ESPN and Pat McAfee are negotiating a new deal at $60-65 million per year, up from $30 million. Stephen A. Smith is at $100 million for five years; Tom Brady is at $37.5 million to call games. The broadcast talent arms race has exceeded the franchise value of most minor-league sports teams.
The Wall Street Journal reports NIL-era college football recruits are spending $30,000 to $80,000 on their high school proms — Bentley limos, Audemars Piguet watches, event planners. Opendorse projects freshman athletes will earn $780 million next year. Personal finance lessons in the NIL era are going to be more interesting than any financial literacy curriculum ever written.
CNN Business reports Christian energy drinks are entering the market, with “Yahweh Energy” competing against Monster, Red Bull, and a 186-gram-sugar Crumble Cookie drink. Someone is going to do a SPAC for this. We can feel it.
The Wall Street Journal reports ultraprocessed food is associated with a 58% higher risk of dementia in a Harvard study of 5,300+ adults. RFK Jr.’s dietary guidelines and the Crumble Cookie drink are running parallel campaigns for America’s cognitive future. Only one of them is adding 186 grams of sugar to a beverage.
AP News reports NYPD is investigating groups entering and exiting NYC sewers at night — up to seven people emerging from manholes with headlamps and shovels, changing clothes at parked cars. Wasn’t this the plot of The Dark Knight Rises?
One Final Thing
In our last issue, we asked whether enterprise AI ROI is a myth. The vote was lopsided: 82% said wrong — the gains are real, just not yet measured — and 18% said too early to call. Nobody agreed it was a bust. That is either a well-calibrated readership or a selection effect; we will revisit when the Bain study has a sequel.
For this week’s survey we’re pivoting from AI and focusing on the beautiful game. Who do you think will win the World Cup?
We're Looking for Exceptional, Overlooked Businesses
At Civitas Growth Partners, we invest our own capital in founder-led B2B businesses with $1M to $4M in recurring revenue, strong retention, and best-in-class products, but that fall outside the traditional VC or PE mold. These businesses are often bootstrapped, breakeven, and haven't yet invested meaningfully in sales and marketing. Growth is steady (0–25% annually), and the product quietly leads its niche.
This is a category of company that is often overlooked, but we see tremendous opportunity. Our model is to help these businesses scale to $10M or more in revenue by providing flexible capital (minority or control), supporting both organic and M&A growth, and deploying an operational playbook honed through years of work with capital-efficient founders. Because we invest our own capital — not institutional LP funds — we bring no artificial timelines or exit pressure. That gives founders room to build enduring value. Our partners have achieved more than 6x equity outcomes without compromising what makes their companies special.
We're actively looking for our next great partner. If you know a founder or operator building something exceptional — and overlooked — we'd be grateful for an introduction. We value the relationships that lead us to great companies and are always happy to have a conversation about referral arrangements. Reach out anytime at team@civitasgrowth.com.
Cheers,
The Civitas Team