TRO | SpaceX And OpenAI Make History: The AI Economy Is Going Public

Plus, register now and join our upcoming event: Leading the "Intelligence Economy"

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Meliora Company
May 25, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

 Subscribe | 25th May, 2026

In this fast-moving Vertical AI economy, headlines are everywhere but optimism is rare.

Here’s our take on 3 stories that will help you be relentlessly optimistic about the future.

Upcoming Event: Leading The “Intelligence Economy”

Join Evergent CEO Vijay Sajja and Meliora Managing Partner Clive Dickens to discuss how telcos can leverage agentic solutions to reduce churn and adopt prediction at scale to build loyalty, all whilst working around existing BSS technology.

1. SpaceX Files To Go Public, With OpenAI Right Behind

SpaceX has filed the official paperwork to go public, confirming plans for what would be the largest stock market debut in history, surpassing Saudi Aramco's 2020 record, and targeting a US$2 trillion valuation that would make Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire. The listing is expected next month. Musk's AI company xAI has been folded entirely into SpaceX ahead of the float. On the same day, OpenAI confirmed it is working with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley on its own listing paperwork, with a public offering targeting as early as September at a valuation of US$852 billion.

Here’s why this matters: Two of the most consequential companies in AI and space technology moving toward public markets in the same week is not coincidence, it is a race. For the investment community, these listings will provide the first public window into the financials of companies whose valuations have been set entirely by private negotiation. For the first time, the public will see the actual revenue, costs, and capital structure of the businesses shaping the AI era. Together they represent a transfer of the most concentrated private wealth in technology into public hands - and the start of a new era of accountability for the companies shaping what comes next.

2. Gemini Gets A Full Rebuild To Take On Claude And ChatGPT

At Google I/O, Google unveiled a rebuilt Gemini app with a new design language, a Daily Brief feature that pulls from a user's inbox, calendar, and tasks to generate a personalised morning digest, and a new 24/7 agentic assistant called Gemini Spark that continues working in the background when your phone is locked. The app also gains access to Gemini Omni, a new video generation model that combines audio, image, and text inputs to produce consistent, high-quality video output. Gemini now has 900 million monthly users across 230 countries.

Here’s why this matters: Google I/O 2026 marks a clear strategic shift: Gemini is no longer being positioned as a chatbot that answers questions, but as a platform that runs your day. The Daily Brief and Gemini Spark features are direct moves into territory currently occupied by Claude and ChatGPT, and the 900 million monthly user base gives Google a distribution advantage neither competitor can match. For the media and content industries, Gemini Omni is the announcement worth watching closely. A model that turns a text prompt into a high-quality video grounded in real knowledge changes the economics of content production at scale, and its integration with YouTube Shorts confirms Google intends to reshape how video content gets made as much as how it gets found.

3. Spotify Adds AI-powered Q&A Features To Podcasts

Spotify is rolling out an AI-powered Q&A feature for Premium mobile users in the U.S., Sweden, and Ireland. With this feature, users can ask questions about the episode they are listening to or a concept mentioned in the podcast to get answers. They can also ask for podcast recommendations on specific topics.

Here’s why this matters: This latest announcement builds on a slew of embedded AI integration news for Spotify - including a licensing agreement with Universal Music to allow fans to generate covers and remixes of their favourite songs using Gen AI features, and the announcement of plans for an ElevenLabs powered audiobook creation tool. With the rise of Vertical AI products like Suno and Udio, the music industry is rapidly transforming and more and more people are able to create their own audio experiences without needing deep technical or production expertise - and Spotify seems to finally be playing catch up.

Still Curious?

Our Pursuit Of Better

Stilta, a legal AI start-up automating the research behind intellectual property cases, has raised US$10.5 million in seed funding led by a16z. Users input a patent number and a network of AI agents searches for conflicting patents, flags similar IP, and pulls full filing and court history. Many companies sit on patents they have never enforced because analysis was too costly. Stilta aims to change that.

Nectar Social, an agentic marketing platform founded by two ex-Meta sisters, has raised US$30 million in Series A funding led by Menlo Ventures and its Anthropic-backed Anthology Fund. The platform uses AI agents to run social activity, creator workflows, competitive intelligence, and commerce conversations end-to-end for brands including Liquid Death, Figma, and e.l.f Beauty.

NanoClaw, a secure open-source alternative to OpenClaw built by two brothers coding from their couch, has raised a US$12 million seed led by Valley Capital Partners - turning down a US$20 million acquisition offer to do it. Backed by Docker, Vercel, and Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue, the start-up went from first line of code to term sheet in under six weeks, with executives at Amazon, Google, and Meta among its early users.

The Story of the Race that Nearly Broke the Internet

A bold idea was about to become a reality - for the first time, Australia's most iconic sporting event, The Melbourne Cup, would be live streamed to devices across the country. A story of courage, curiosity and creativity, delivering in just 100 days something that had never been done before.

The Pursuit of Better, Together

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