A Moment for Pause

This week, SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 per share — a $1.77 trillion valuation, the largest public offering in history, raising $75 billion in a single day. Hot on its heels, Anthropic raised $65 billion at a $965 billion valuation and is targeting a public listing before year's end. OpenAI is eyeing a $1 trillion IPO that could dwarf even that. Together, these three companies are valued at approaching $4 trillion and are expected to raise a combined $200 billion from public markets.

“The question of who they’re accountable to — and who shares in what they build — is one we can no longer afford to treat as secondary.”

What these companies have actually built is genuinely staggering. SpaceX has done what most aerospace engineers once thought impossible — repeatedly landing orbital rockets, building global satellite internet from scratch, and seriously advancing humanity's capacity to become a multi-planetary species. Anthropic and OpenAI have compressed decades of AI research into just a few years, producing tools that are already reshaping medicine, scientific discovery, education, and the nature of knowledge work itself.

These are not incremental achievements. They are civilizational.

And yet.

Elon Musk's net worth crossed $970 billion today — largely on the back of his ~42% SpaceX stake — making him the world's first trillionaire. A single early investor holds a ~$68 billion position in SpaceX alone. Anthropic's seven founders each saw their personal stakes hit roughly $8 billion in a single day — the largest single-day addition of billionaires from one company in Bloomberg Billionaires Index history. The combined net worth of founders and major shareholders of just five AI-adjacent companies grew by approximately $1.2 trillion between January 2024 and early 2026 — a wealth accumulation rate exceeding any previous period in history, including the original Gilded Age.

None of this happened in a vacuum. These companies were built on publicly funded university research, decades of government contracts, tax-subsidized infrastructure, and the intellectual labor of tens of thousands of people who will see a fraction of this wealth.

Which brings me to a harder question.

Should wealth of this magnitude — generated at this speed, from technology this foundational — be governed primarily by shareholder value? Or have these companies crossed a threshold where they're better understood as public goods?

““Reward” and “unchecked accumulation” are different things. At some scale, private control of civilizational infrastructure stops being a success story and starts being a governance problem.”

It's worth noting that both OpenAI and Anthropic incorporated as Public Benefit Corporations, a structure that legally requires directors to balance profit with broader social benefit. OpenAI's stated public purpose is literally "to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity." Anthropic's founders have pledged to donate 80% of their personal wealth. These are meaningful commitments — and they deserve credit for making them. But a pledge is not a policy. And a PBC filing doesn't automatically determine how value flows when a company is worth a trillion dollars.

AI models are fast becoming what roads, electrical grids, and telecommunications networks once were — essential infrastructure that underpins nearly every economic and civic activity. Space-based internet is already providing global connectivity that governments couldn't build. When infrastructure reaches this level of ubiquity and dependency, economists and legal scholars increasingly argue that the standard shareholder-primacy model breaks down. Not because the founders don't deserve reward — they do — but because the implicit social contract that makes these companies possible demands something in return.

The questions worth sitting with:

• If AI becomes as essential as electricity, should access to it be treated as a utility — regulated, universally available, and priced accordingly?

• If these companies were built on publicly funded research and government subsidies, what does society have a legitimate claim to in return?

• Is there a point at which a single individual holding $970 billion — while the infrastructure that created it relied on public institutions — represents a structural failure of how we distribute the gains of innovation?

I don't think the answer is to punish ambition or penalize risk-taking. The founders of these companies took extraordinary bets on ideas most institutions wouldn't touch. That deserves real reward.

But "reward" and "unchecked accumulation" are different things. At some scale, private control of civilizational infrastructure stops being a success story and starts being a governance problem.

We are at that scale now.

These are remarkable institutions doing genuinely important work.

The question of who they're accountable to — and who shares in what they build — is one we can no longer afford to treat as secondary.

Schneider Electric Repositions to an Energy Technology Partner

From Background Utility to Strategic Advantage

Global energy demand is accelerating — projected to rise 60% within the next 15 years as AI, automation, and connected devices expand everywhere. The grid is straining under this growth, and energy has become one of the most dynamic and disruptive forces reshaping every industry.

Price volatility and supply instability are no longer temporary concerns. They’re rewriting business strategies, forcing new thinking around resilience, investment, and operational planning. At the same time, electrification is transforming every sector — from homes adopting heat pumps to industries shifting to electric processes and transportation going all-electric.

Renewable generation is rising fast too. Solar and wind are leading the global growth story, bringing clean power but also new complexity. Managing intermittency and ensuring grid stability now depend on smarter, more connected energy systems.

Turning change into opportunity

At Schneider Electric, we don’t just adapt to these changes — we enable them. Together with our partners, we’re driving the transition from traditional energy dependency to intelligent, software-defined energy technology.

• Data centers: As digital infrastructure expands, Schneider solutions are powering sustainable, autonomous operations — from hyperscale to edge — through innovations in liquid cooling and AI-driven power management.

• Buildings and homes: Smart systems like the SpaceLogic Room Controller turn passive spaces into active energy producers, using embedded analytics to optimize HVAC performance and cut energy waste.

• Grids and infrastructure: IoT-enabled platforms and AI microgrid advisors equip utilities and operators to balance supply, cut carbon intensity, and boost resilience.

• Industry: With software-defined automation, manufacturers can respond to disruption in real time — keeping efficiency, continuity, and sustainability at the core of every process.

Energy technology is Schneider’s domain — one we’ve been shaping for decades. Now, with our partners, we’re scaling it to define the next chapter.

Innovation in motion

For nearly 200 years, Schneider has thrived by anticipating and enabling what’s next. Our innovation engine drives this momentum: over 1,400 patent applications last year alone. Today, our technologies power over one million buildings, 40% of the world’s hospitals, and much of the infrastructure behind leading cloud providers.

No other company offers our combination of real-time energy control, scalable software, and digital services — spanning from the electrical grid to the production line. And through our partner ecosystem, that impact scales even further.

Making the energy transition actionable

Our EcoStruxure platform connects technologies, data, and people across every level of enterprise. By combining connected products, edge control, and advanced digital services, EcoStruxure turns complexity into opportunity — strengthening safety, efficiency, sustainability, and uptime.

Through open architecture and interoperability, EcoStruxure is more than a technology stack — it’s a system of systems. Together with our partners, we build ecosystems where innovation flows across networks, supply chains, and industries.

Our global partner ecosystem includes over one million professionals — contractors, integrators, distributors, and innovators — all accelerating the digital energy revolution. With SE Ventures, our $1B+ venture fund, we’re also backing startups driving sustainable progress where it’s needed most.

Purpose and impact

Sustainability is woven into every part of how Schneider and our partners operate. Our Net-Zero target is validated by the Science Based Targets initiative, and since 2017, we’ve cut our own scope 1 and 2 emissions by 75%. Programs like the Zero Carbon Project and Materialize extend this impact across our supplier and customer ecosystems.

Our recognition as the World’s Most Sustainable Company by TIME and Statista underscores what drives us — measurable progress and shared purpose.

Partnering for the future

The energy landscape is transforming faster than ever. But at Schneider and across our partner community, we see that as opportunity. With nearly two centuries of innovation and partnership behind us, we’re building the foundations for what comes next — cleaner, smarter, and more resilient energy for all.

Viral Fury, Empty Wallets

Ragebait marketing has emerged as a highly used strategy for brands seeking to cut through the noise of a crowded digital landscape. By provoking controversy, companies can generate massive attention, fuel social media debates, and amplify their brand’s visibility—sometimes even without a meaningful product or clear value proposition. This approach, perfected by online influencers and now embraced by major brands, leverages the algorithms of social platforms that reward engagement, regardless of whether the sentiment is positive or negative.

However, attention alone is not a reliable indicator of sales.

While campaigns like Friend’s AI necklace or Nucleus Genomics’ fertility ads may go viral, the spike in awareness rarely translates into sustained revenue growth. The reality is that most consumers who react to outrage are not the ones making purchases—they’re simply participating in the spectacle. The result is often a disconnect between viral fame and actual business outcomes, with brands left with a large audience but a shrinking customer base.

Worse, ragebait strategies can erode brand perception and polarize consumer sentiment. By courting controversy, brands alienate moderate audiences and narrowing their appeal to a small group of zealot fans. This polarization can make recovery from backlash difficult and limit long-term market expansion (see 2017 Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad and 2025 American Eagle Jeans ad with Sydney Sweeney for notable failure and a long road to recovery). The most loyal customers may remain, but the broader market often moves on, leaving brands with a reputation for controversy rather than trust or value.

For brand strategy teams, the caution is clear: while ragebait can offer a shortcut to visibility, it is not a path to consistent and longitudinal growth. Relying on outrage risks hard-coding negative associations, accelerating brand wear-out, and pushing previously neutral or curious consumers into the “never buy” category. Over time, this will shrink addressable audiences, making it harder to win back mainstream trust or expand into new segments. Instead, brands should prioritize strategies that foster authentic connection, relevance, and value—building loyalty that lasts beyond the next viral controversy.

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**Referenced Washington Post Article:**

The Washington Post article, “[You might hate these companies’ ads. That’s the point.],” explores how ragebait has become a mainstream marketing strategy, with brands deliberately provoking outrage to gain attention and drive engagement. The piece highlights several recent campaigns, from Friend’s AI necklace to Nucleus Genomics’ fertility ads, and examines the broader cultural and algorithmic trends that make controversy profitable in the digital age.