On June 12, 2026, SpaceX went public on the Nasdaq at a valuation of roughly $1.75 trillion, pricing its shares at $135 and raising $75 billion through the sale of more than 555 million shares. The offering was the largest in the history of the public markets and made Elon Musk the world’s first dollar trillionaire. By the close of the first trading day, the shares had settled at $160.95 and the company’s market capitalization had risen to $2.1 trillion.

SpaceX’s listing marked a shift in the structure of the American economy. The emergence of corporations on this scale moves the center of gravity of the U.S. economic system away from the traditional financial-industrial conglomerates toward a narrow group of technology companies.

From now on, the state of the stock market, the pace of technological modernization, and the country’s defense capability are decisively shaped by a handful of corporations that simultaneously control capital, infrastructure, and critical technologies.

SpaceX’s initial public offering (IPO) was the first in a series of large-scale capital raises by leading U.S. technology firms, a wave that is bringing OpenAI, Anthropic, Cerebras, Lambda, Kraken, X-Energy, and other tech corporations to the public markets with a combined valuation of roughly $3.4 trillion.

The wave of IPOs entrenches the position of the tech elite led by Elon Musk, whose corporate and financial networks are gradually taking over the functions of the state. Against the backdrop of an unprecedented concentration of capital, technology corporations are becoming an independent center of power.

The combined market capitalization of the seven largest U.S. technology companies exceeds $20 trillion and surpasses the gross product of the entire European Union, while Nvidia’s capitalization alone has already overtaken the size of Japan’s economy. By these measures, the technology sector has become comparable to major states and geopolitical blocs.

The scale the tech corporations have reached is changing the nature of their influence on the economy. Digital products have become embedded in production cycles, from pervasive automation to robotics. The inflow of trillions of dollars into building AI infrastructure has formed a full-fledged investment supercycle.

The technological modernization of the economy now depends on these companies, so market participants and the state are forced to reckon with them regardless of considerations of expediency.

As of January 2026, the technology sector accounted for a record 34.6% of the S&P 500 index, the ten largest companies exceeded 40% of its weight, and the health of the entire U.S. pension system turned out to be tied to the quarterly reports of fewer than a dozen companies.

Satellite constellations are turning from a tool for providing connectivity into a platform for developing near-Earth space, extracting off-world resources, and deploying orbital computing capacity.

The capital intensity of such programs exceeds former spending on digital services by orders of magnitude, which is what drives the shift in the reckoning from tens of billions to trillions of dollars.

These sums are comparable to the scale of the debt problem that the new technology economy is working to address. The old manufacturing model created a debt burden that the state is no longer able to service in the classical sense.

As of June 2026, the U.S. national debt exceeded $39.2 trillion and reached roughly 123% of gross domestic product, while servicing it consumes about fourteen percent of federal spending. Paying down debt of this magnitude has lost any practical meaning.

The value of the products of the new technology economy vastly exceeds anything American industry produced in the era when debt obligations were accumulating in parallel with the creation of real value. For this reason, the elevated valuation of technology companies reflects a leap in the very size of the American economy.

The growth of the technology sector’s capitalization expands the economy faster than the debt grows. Artificial intelligence and the financial technologies associated with it, among them blockchain and digital assets, are becoming the means that convert America’s technological edge into a way to carry its debt without paying it down directly.

The competition among major geopolitical systems is a contest of visions of the future, whose weight is determined by the scale of the ambition and the resource base for realizing it. A more ambitious vision, backed by more powerful capital, raises the standing of the system that advances it, and the capitalization of technology corporations measures the capacity to carry out the development of orbital space, the deployment of data centers in space, and the mining of resources on asteroids.

At the current stage, Big Tech has not yet reached the level of influence at which it could fully compete with the American state apparatus. As long as the technology corporations have not attained the political autonomy they seek, they remain interested in cooperation with the Republican administration.

Within this coexistence of power and capital, Washington provides the tech elite with contracts, a favorable regulatory environment, and political protection, while Big Tech supplies the state with financial resources, computing power, satellite communications, and military infrastructure.

The ultimate goal of Musk and the tech elites close to him is to turn their dependence on the state into a temporary stage, during which they will cement their own indispensability through government contracts and subsequently take over the functions, influence, and scope of power that previously belonged to state institutions.

The coming escalation of the confrontation between the U.S. and China accelerates this change in Big Tech’s standing, because Washington, which needs the satellite networks, computing power, and military communications supplied by the technology corporations for its confrontation with Beijing, loses the ability to constrain them through regulation and antitrust pressure.

U.S. Capital Is Trapped by Sanctions and the Riskiness of Foreign Markets

The ability of technology corporations to raise tens of billions of dollars in a single IPO stems from a surplus of idle capital that has concentrated in the American market because of the impossibility of deploying it profitably abroad.

The approach of a global confrontation between the U.S. and China, against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and the armed conflicts in the Middle East, prompted Washington to impose legislative restrictions on the movement of capital, as a result of which significant funds remained inside the American jurisdiction.

In December 2025, President Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, one component of which was the COINS Act, aimed at restricting American investment in dual-use technologies abroad.

The act expanded the list of countries whose related investment is subject to government oversight and restricted the cross-border movement of capital in the fields of semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing. This window opened as a result of the change in the political circumstances in the United States.

The window was opened by the change of administration in 2025, since a Democratic administration would have restrained an offering of this scale through regulatory limits, and the tech elites took advantage of the environment that had formed as a result of the war in Ukraine and in the Middle East, together with the American state’s response to them.

After the change of power, the adopted restrictions on the export of capital kept significant funds inside the country, which created a surplus of liquidity in the American market at the very moment when the technology corporations were preparing to go public.

At the same time, investment in China became legally restricted, while investment in India, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East lost its appeal because of the high risk of an escalation of military conflicts. In parallel with the narrowing of external avenues for investment, the cost of borrowed capital rose.

The cost of borrowing rose because the effective federal funds rate is holding at 3.62%, and even companies with the highest credit rating borrow at 5.22%.

The combined capital expenditures of the five largest technology corporations in 2026 will exceed $600 billion, up 36% over the past year, of which roughly $450 billion will go toward building artificial-intelligence infrastructure, purchasing graphics processing units (GPUs), and constructing data centers.

These outlays consume about 94% of the funds that the largest technology corporations receive from their core operations, which deprives them of the ability to finance new directions from their own resources and requires raising outside capital for further development.

The combination of capital stripped of external avenues for investment and the high cost of borrowing turns a public share offering into the most expedient way to raise financing.

By selling investors a stake in their own equity, Big Tech companies receive funds directly from share buyers and free themselves from the need to take out loans and issue bonds. Heightened antitrust scrutiny, which manifested itself in regulators blocking acquisitions in the Big Tech sector, simultaneously made it harder for startups to sell their businesses to large corporations, which left going public the only effective way for the largest technology companies to obtain investors’ funds.

By selling shares at a moment when market valuations of the technology sector have reached their peak, while investors’ expectations regarding artificial intelligence have not yet been corrected by real profitability figures, the tech elites are tapping the liquidity concentrated in the American economy. Going public simultaneously raises the aggregate valuation of the economy, creating new value on top of what was already circulating in the market.

Building a Cash Reserve: How Big Tech Prepares for a Major Market Correction

The timing of SpaceX’s IPO was driven by a politically favorable window of opportunity, in which the Republican Party, more loyal to the tech elite, still retains control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, as well as by the desire to lock in the company’s valuation ahead of a major market correction.

A major correction will bring the prices of the technology sector’s overvalued shares down to their long-term averages after a period of excessive investor demand.

As a result of the correction, raising new capital becomes more expensive, and the technology corporations face the need to shift from the accelerated construction of data centers and supercomputers to verifying their actual return on investment.

An IPO carried out at the peak of the technology sector’s market valuation makes it possible to lock in SpaceX’s capitalization before share prices depreciate and at the same time to build a cash reserve large enough to maintain stability during the correction and to acquire the assets of companies that have lost access to capital.

The tech elites are pursuing this strategy because a substantial cash reserve during a correction improves the conditions for reinvesting in artificial intelligence, data centers, and space infrastructure at the moment when the Fed cuts rates and competitors’ assets lose value.

The technology corporations’ current financial losses do not prevent them from raising capital on the market. In 2025, SpaceX posted a net loss of $4.94 billion and a cumulative accumulated deficit of $41.3 billion, while its AI division, xAI, spent $6.36 billion over the year building out computing infrastructure.

Starlink remains the consistently profitable line of business, generating $11.4 billion in revenue over the year, part of which is channeled to cover the AI division’s costs.

Yet the recorded losses do not curb demand for the shares, because investors are putting in money on the expectation of these companies’ future value, which will grow as a result of the dependence of the U.S. economy, the defense sector, and government agencies on SpaceX.

Demand for the innovations and services of the high-tech corporations will intensify further after the escalation of the global conflict between Washington and Beijing, since the technological solutions offered by the American Big Tech elites will become the only alternative the White House can set against Chinese developments.

The escalation of the U.S.–China confrontation will divide the world into states with an advantage in data processing and those deprived of such capability. Companies that possess computing power, satellite networks, and AI models become suppliers of a critical resource without which waging a modern confrontation is impossible. This convinces investors of the future recovery of their profits and at the same time gives Big Tech leverage over its own government.

Big Tech’s Market Resilience as a Condition for U.S. Economic Stability

The technology corporations’ listings revealed a feature of the new economy, in which the value of a few companies determines the state of the entire market.

Calculations based on the Nasdaq 100 index indicate that by the end of 2026 the fourteen largest technology companies will account for between 88% and 90% of its total value, while Nvidia, Alphabet, and Apple together control 53.67% as of June 2026.

The state of the entire market of the largest non-financial companies by capitalization is now determined by changes in the value of a narrow circle of technology corporations, and their sharp depreciation affects the U.S. stock market and its digital and military infrastructure all at once.

Evidence that the White House recognizes and factors in the state’s dependence on the technology corporations came with the conclusion in May 2026 of a $2.29 billion contract between the U.S. Space Force and SpaceX under the Space Data Network Backbone program. The agreement provides for the creation of an orbital network for transmitting and processing data that will link satellite constellations, ground stations, and command systems into a single loop.

Communications protected from interception and jamming are only one element of it. The network’s main purpose is the ability to receive, process, and relay intelligence and targeting data in real time, which shortens the time from detecting a target to deciding to strike it.

SpaceX’s subsidiary Starlink owns more than 75% of all active satellites in low Earth orbit, and over the entire period of its operation Starlink has launched a number of satellites comparable to all the launches by the rest of the world’s countries over the past 70 years.

A corporation that simultaneously controls satellite communications, spaceflight, and computing power gains the ability to dictate the terms of operation for the rest of the economy. Only a favorable political moment makes it possible to lock in such an advantage through public status.

By completing the series of public offerings by the end of 2026, the technology corporations are cementing a position in which any future administration will have to reckon with their interests regardless of party affiliation. The retirement accounts of millions of Americans are tied to the shares of a narrow circle of corporations, so tax increases, antitrust lawsuits, or strict regulation become almost impossible, since a blow to the sector’s capitalization immediately hits depositors’ savings. The state’s dependence on the technology sector turns its protection into a matter of national security regardless of the intentions of any particular administration.

The Restructuring of the Economy and the Model of Power After Big Tech’s Financial Ascendancy

Big Tech’s financial ascendancy is embodied in the figure of Elon Musk. Having attained trillionaire status, the world’s richest man has combined control over critical infrastructure, the largest fortune in history, and the digital platform X, through which he influences investor behavior and public debate beyond the bounds of ordinary market mechanisms.

The U.S. armed forces increasingly depend on Musk’s infrastructure, since Starlink and its military version, Starshield, provide communications for strike drones, while SpaceX holds a de facto monopoly on space launches and performs multibillion-dollar contracts with the Space Force and national intelligence.

Individual episodes in which access to the Starlink network became a bargaining chip with the Pentagon showed that the decision of a single private individual is capable of affecting the state’s combat readiness. It is precisely the concentration of these levers in one set of hands that drives the restructuring of the economic-power structure into a model in which technology corporations lay claim to the role of co-managers of state development.

The growing dependence of the American economy on the corporations of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and other representatives of the tech elite has created the conditions for their broader political and ideological ambitions, the realization of which envisions replacing the slow procedures of the state apparatus with corporate methods of management.

Tech entrepreneurs are lobbying for the corporate model as the only mechanism capable of restoring U.S. superiority over the axis of autocracies. At its core lies a view of the state apparatus, with its system of checks and balances, as too slow a structure that is inferior to the corporate principle of decision-making, and this model rests on a practice that is already taking shape through the fusion of technology capital with the administration.

This view was given a more finished form by the intellectual currents of American conservatism, in particular the writings of Curtis Yarvin, though for a long time it remained marginal. The figure of a sovereign executive who supplants political competition maps clearly onto Musk, and the approach was given weight by the financial and political resources of the tech elite.

Musk’s political project is not limited to backing the current American administration. It envisions a reordering of the very principles of interaction among the state, business, and citizens along the lines of corporate governance, and Musk promotes this model as the only option, refusing to adjust it to the demands of the existing political players. As long as the Republican Party remains receptive to this course, he pursues it through the party’s institutional mechanisms and the financing of loyal politicians.

At the same time, Musk is building his own political structure, drawing on ties with European far-right circles and an intention to found a party. The majoritarian two-party system leaves minimal room for a third force, yet Musk is building the party as an instrument of influence outside the electoral calendar and independent of whether he has his own representatives in Congress.

Such a structure makes it possible, through the concentration of capital, media, and infrastructure, to selectively support or block politicians regardless of their party affiliation.

In response to this convergence of the financial interests, infrastructure resources, and managerial levers of technology capital and the state, Trump backed an initiative under which the largest AI companies will transfer a stake in their own equity to the American government.

This initiative gives the state leverage while the financial and political weight of the corporations can still be constrained. At the same time, however, such a decision accelerates the merger of technology capital with the state apparatus, dismantles the system of checks and balances, and integrates the corporations into a management structure shared with the government, where the line between private interests and state policy gradually disappears.

Political and Personnel Levers of Big Tech’s Rise Within the Government

The implementation of the corporate model of governance rests on two pillars: prior administrative groundwork and the presence within the Republican administration of a political figure capable of continuing the course after the current cycle ends.

The course of lowering the barriers to the concentration of technology capital was laid down even before the term began by conservative strategists who systematized it into a programmatic agenda. As of mid-2026, a significant portion of these measures has already been implemented: political control over the state apparatus has been strengthened, the dismissal of disloyal personnel has been streamlined, the licensing of data centers has been accelerated, and environmental and antitrust regulation has been weakened.

This administration agenda is being carried out by officials whose previous careers were built on personal and business ties with Big Tech.

Michael Kratsios, who after Trump’s inauguration took the post of director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, headed Peter Thiel’s office and Thiel Capital, while the chair of the Federal Reserve as of May 2026 became Kevin Warsh, a business partner of Thiel and Andreessen.

This agenda is being advanced without separate votes in Congress and without public debate, which makes it possible to carry it out without drawing significant public attention.

Securing the political durability of this course requires its continuation after the end of Trump’s term. The President’s approval in June 2026 stands at about 35% because of the consequences of the operation against the ayatollahs’ regime, which manifested themselves in rising fuel prices and the fastest inflation since April 2023.

The tech elites take into account that the further successful advancement of their concept requires the presence within the current political elite of a spokesman for their interests whose career will not end together with Trump’s term.

This role is filled by Vice President Vance, who has direct ties to the circle of Peter Thiel and David Sacks. The reduction of Vance’s media involvement in the White House’s most unpopular decisions is a calculated strategy of the Big Tech elites.

By the tech entrepreneurs’ calculation, Vance’s success in the 2028 presidential campaign depends directly on minimizing the effect on him of the public criticism currently directed at President Trump.

The EU as the Key Obstacle to the Global Expansion of American Big Tech

Silicon Valley’s corporate model is opposed by several large models of social order, among them the Chinese, the European, and other regional centers of influence. A distinct regulatory alternative is championed by the European model, which constrains technology corporations through the regulatory limits of the DSA, DMA, AI Act, and GDPR.

Big Tech seeks to weaken this model, because its success would demonstrate to the citizens of Western states the viability of the European project. To prevent its realization, the technology corporations have an interest in weakening the EU before its model can prove its capacity.

Through European right-wing conservative forces linked to Big Tech, the argument that Ukraine’s membership in the EU is inadmissible is being promoted. Ukraine’s integration would give the European Union a large market, fertile land, reserves of rare earth elements, and a base for developing its own innovative IT solutions, which would strengthen the European model contrary to the interests of the tech elite.

The hybrid model that the tech elites are building combines the largest accumulation of capital in history with the appropriation of part of the functions of the state, and each subsequent IPO strengthens both of these components at once.

As the technology corporations turn into owners of critically necessary infrastructure, the limits of what their actions are permitted to be become the main point of confrontation with state institutions. The ability of the key centers of global capital and of the state to constrain the Big Tech elites, who concentrate financial resources, political influence, and technological superiority, will be determined precisely by the outcome of this confrontation.

For political elites, this is a new challenge. The threat of a global conflict and the need for effective defense technologies, the necessity of relieving the economy of its debt burden, and the pressure of electoral ratings absorb the attention of the political elite. Behind these pressing tasks, political leaders are losing sight of the true nature of the transformation that humanity is facing.