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Good morning.
The follow-up to The Social Network is still two months away from release, but reality is providing plenty of fodder for a threequel.
Today marks the start of a trial in yet another lawsuit accusing the social media giant of harming underage users, and this one brings especially high stakes. Attorneys general from California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey allege the company knowingly and deliberately designed features to get children addicted to its platform, plus gathered data on children under the age of 13 in violation of federal law. The states are seeking as much as $1.4 trillion in damages, Meta said in a court filing. For reference, the company’s market cap is just north of $1.4 trillion. In March, a California state court awarded $6 million in damages to a single plaintiff who successfully argued that Meta as well as Google’s YouTube sparked a social media addiction, while a New Mexico judge recently ordered the company to pay $942 million in penalties after a jury ruled in March the company willfully violated the state’s consumer protection laws by failing to safeguard young users. Meta said it plans to appeal that ruling, but its many legal woes are adding up: In its earnings call last month, the company said it spent $2.4 billion on legal proceedings in the second quarter. If there’s one group who still loves the infinite scroll, it’s lawyers.
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MARKETS
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Stock data as of market close on August 17, 2026.
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Those three words rolled into one heard throughout New York City sum up last month’s anxiety-driven selloff of memory chip stocks on Wall Street: Fuhgeddaboudit.
Memory chip makers surged Monday behind a wave of good news that rallied investor confidence in the artificial-intelligence boom. Companies that suddenly find themselves crucial to the supply chain, like the Bay Area’s Sandisk, are proving the biggest winners.
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
Big Tech spending on AI, set to reach trillions of dollars, has stretched the supply of high-capacity memory chips to levels of exhaustion rivaling those of Salinger’s insomniac Holden Caulfield. Chipmakers are warning that advanced memory chips needed to run top AI models face years-long shortages. Demand has driven up prices and, in the process, made consumer goods like laptops and smartphones that also require memory more expensive. The crunch has bitten so hard that Apple is reportedly testing memory chips from blacklisted Chinese companies while appealing to Washington for a green light to buy them, in order to ease shortages and reduce pricing pressure.
On its face, that could be viewed as a negative for US memory chipmakers, but the past week has steered tailwinds in their favor. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told The Wall Street Journal that the Trump administration is discouraging Apple from buying Chinese chips, telling the company there are “other solutions.” In another boost, Bloomberg reported leading AI lab Anthropic grew revenue more than 14 times year over year in the second quarter to more than $11.5 billion. This followed the major AI hyperscalers — Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon — reaffirming their plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on AI-related capital expenditures in their latest earnings reports. For Sandisk, the news couldn’t have come at a better time:
- The memory chip maker last week reported a $94 billion customer backlog and forecasted 15% annual sales growth and an 80%-plus gross margin through the end of the decade. The company, which makes flash memory, is developing an alternative to the high-end DRAM market dominated by South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix and Idaho’s Micron Technology.
- Memory is historically a boom-and-bust business, but Sandisk’s report could signal a sea change. Bank of America analysts wrote the company’s outlook “suggests the industry may be entering a more durable phase” as large AI customers enter into long-term contracts.
Sandisk shares rose 8.9% on Monday and have added 44% in the past five trading days. According to Zacks Investment Research, the average analyst price target for the stock is $2,170.23, implying a 21% upside.
  Good to Remember: Micron rose 4.1%, and two US data storage companies, San Jose’s Western Digital and California-based, Irish-domiciled Seagate, rose 5.3% and 2.2%, respectively, on Monday. They’re creating lasting memories for investors everywhere.
Written by Sean Craig
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It’s a summer makeover for Peter Thiel: New country, new house and new $400 million investment portfolio.
The PayPal and Palantir co-founder decamped his family to Buenos Aires, Argentina, back in April, and his hedge fund Thiel Macro has since reoriented its portfolio around eight holdings (six new and two returning), according to the fund’s second-quarter 13F filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The disclosure reveals just how energized Thiel is about the energy sector.
Energy Shock
Thiel Macro last made waves when it revealed in its third-quarter filings last year that it had dumped a roughly $100 million stake in Nvidia. That move prompted fears of an AI bubble, back when that was a topic of daily discussion. The fund then reported two consecutive quarters of no holdings at all. After sitting on its hands, Thiel Macro is suddenly back in action with a roster that seems less concerned about an AI bubble and more concerned with an AI bottleneck.
Seven of the firm’s holdings are energy and energy utilities companies, which have suddenly found themselves at the center of the AI infrastructure rollout, while the eighth and largest holding is a familiar name in the AI game:
- The energy players include American Electric Power, which just signed on as partner for a 10-gigawatt data center in Ohio; FirstEnergy, CMS Energy, DTE Energy, Vista Energy, Vistra Energy, in which it had previously held a stake, and recently IPO’d nuclear developer X-energy.
- Amazon, meanwhile, is now the largest holding in the fund, with Thiel’s firm holding a $118 million stake in the e-commerce, cloud computing and AI giant; it last held a position in Amazon back in the fourth quarter of 2024. Amazon also owns a stake in X-energy.
Shale We Dance: Vista (not Vistra) is the fund’s second-largest holding, with a $76 million stake representing roughly 1% of the energy company. Vista bills itself as both the largest independent energy company and shale producer in Argentina, and Thiel’s interest in it is hardly surprising. Since moving to Argentina, the politically minded tech mogul has reportedly met several times with senior members of Argentina’s ideologically aligned President Javier Milei’s government, which has been intensely focused on attracting foreign investment into the country’s natural resources economy. Consider it a sign that Thiel is liking his new digs.
Written by Brian Boyle
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Photo via BluSky AI
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In news that would’ve made little sense to most people five years ago, Nestle is using AI to develop GLP-1 companion products. The food company is turning lemons into lemonade, or to be more accurate, protein shakes.
More people are losing their snack cravings as they go on weight-loss drugs including Ozempic and Wegovy, leading sales to sour for treat-makers like Nestle. But the packaged-goods industry has been plotting a comeback.
Ozempiconomics 101
The percentage of Americans taking GLP-1 drugs has nearly quadrupled from 3% in 2024 to 11% this year, Gallup found in a poll last month. And the snack aisle has taken a direct hit from consumers’ small appetites: People who started GLP-1s cut their grocery budgets by 6%, amounting to $416 in annual shopping hauls per household, a study by Cornell University and Numerator found. Higher-income households cut back even more ($690 annually), and spending fell the most for higher-calorie products including chips and cookies.
Companies like Nestle are trying to turn the loss into an opportunity:
- Nestle tapped AI to help create new products that cater to GLP-1 users by supplementing the nutrients and protein their skimpier diets might be missing, while reformulating flavors to appeal to palates that can be dulled by the drugs (according to a study published last year). Nestle already launched its Boost Nutrition Protein Shake, explicitly targeting GLP-1 takers, and is adding collagen protein to its Vital Proteins products to offset hair and skin issues linked to rapid weight loss.
- PepsiCo, which saw sales from its food biz slip 2% in the second quarter, has said its smaller, portion-controlled packs have been popular.
Less Can Cost More: Companies could be looking to make up for lost sales volume with better margins per product. Chips, cookies and other little treats aren’t priced per calorie, and food companies can charge more for products perceived to be loaded with functional add-ins. Food companies are coming up with creative ways to sell GLP-1 users products that cater to a new array of “needs.” How much people really need the packaged products, versus whole foods, isn’t so clear to nutritionists.
Written by Jamie Wilde
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- In the Drone: Uber is adding autonomous drones to its food delivery service via a partnership with drone company Zipline; dropoffs are set to begin in US cities by the end of the year.
- Northern Exposure: Canada is bracing for US tariffs of up to 50% on some of its exports, including wine, furniture and cement, that President Donald Trump has threatened starting tomorrow.
- Please Yield: The yield on the 30-year US Treasury advanced to 5.31%, its highest mark since June 2007, as traders fear escalation in the US-Iran conflict.
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