Elon’s Hit List

“Energy and persistence conquer all things.” – Benjamin Franklin

Most people who come into serious money protect it. They diversify, buy a nice house, and settle in. In 45 years of watching people get rich, I’ve seen that story play out plenty of times.

But a few individuals do the opposite. One of them is Elon Musk.

Take a look…

In 1999, he sold Zip2 to Compaq and cleared roughly $22 million. He was 27 years old. He put the bulk of it into an online bank called X.com at a moment when most bankers thought internet banking was a bad idea. X.com became PayPal. And when eBay bought PayPal in 2002, Musk walked away with about $175 million.

Musk then split almost all of it between a rocket company and an electric car company, at a time when private citizens did not build rockets and electric cars were a punchline. By 2008, both were nearly bankrupt. He mortgaged what was left to keep them alive.

And when he had real money to spend, he paid $44 billion for Twitter, renamed it X, and folded it into xAI. Whatever you think of that purchase, it provided him with an endless stream of human conversation he could use to train an artificial intelligence (AI) system.

Every payday becomes fuel for the next project. That’s the whole pattern, and it hasn’t broken…

Which brings us to June 12 of this year.

SpaceX went public in the largest initial public offering (IPO) in Wall Street history, closing its first trading day at a $2.1 trillion valuation. Employees became millionaires overnight. The financial press ran out of superlatives.

Now, that $2.1 trillion figure is a market valuation, which is a very different thing from a checking account balance. The offering itself raised roughly $85 billion, which is the number Musk himself has pointed to. That is the money that is actually available to spend.

And based on my years of watching this man, I don’t believe a dollar of it is going to sit still.

In fact, he’s already begun to put it to work.

Within a week of the listing, he moved on a private AI coding firm valued around $40 billion. And in July, he quietly spent about $1 billion buying a gas turbine company for one reason: to generate electricity for Grok, his AI system.

That purchase tells you everything about how he thinks. He didn’t shop for a partner or negotiate a supply contract.

He bought the factory.

The Obvious Play

At this point, most investors reach the same conclusion. If Musk is about to reshape the space economy, buy SpaceX and ride along.

I understand the instinct, and I recommended two ways into SpaceX before its IPO. But now that it’s public, I’m looking somewhere else too…

I’ve made it a top priority to identify potential acquisition candidates that will take SpaceX to the next level.

Why?

Because when a company this size goes shopping, the fortunes are made by the people who already own the target company.

When Yahoo needed streaming in 1999, it paid $5.7 billion for Broadcast.com, and Mark Cuban became a billionaire overnight. When Google needed video in 2006, it paid $1.65 billion for YouTube, and Sequoia Capital turned $11.5 million into more than $500 million in about a year. When eBay needed payments, it bought PayPal, and the check went to a young Elon Musk.

Now the man who got rich from that buyout is the one doing the buying. He’s bound to be laser focused on filling the biggest gaps in his empire.

And I’ve isolated a few candidates that could be at the top of his list.

Target No. 1: The Chipmaker Elon Already Tried to Buy

There is one word you need to understand to make money in the Musk economy, and that word is compute.

Compute is raw processing power for AI. In the 20th century, oil generated the horsepower that ran the economy. In this one, compute does. Every rocket Musk launches, every Starlink satellite he manages, every Tesla on the road, every model xAI trains… All of them run on it.

And when Musk needs more of it, he stands in line at Nvidia, alongside Apple, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Amazon. He is competing for silicon with the same companies he is trying to beat.

Now, if you listened to the SpaceX earnings call in early August, you already know that Musk said SpaceX will build exclusively on Nvidia’s systems going forward.

But the key point is that Musk picked an architecture. He did not solve a supply problem.

SpaceX has publicly acknowledged that its orbital AI ambitions require significantly more chips than are currently available to it. Declaring a preferred supplier does not manufacture additional silicon or put you at the front of the line.

That brings me to Cerebras Systems (Nasdaq: CBRS), which builds wafer-scale engines. Instead of cutting a silicon wafer into hundreds of small chips, Cerebras leaves the wafer whole and turns the entire thing into a single processor.

The result is a chip roughly the size of a dinner plate. It holds trillions of transistors built to run AI at speeds that conventional hardware cannot approach.

Now, there’s an obvious reason I landed on Cerebras. Musk has had his eye on this company for years.

Cerebras chief executive Andrew Feldman has said publicly that Musk attempted to acquire it back in 2018. The deal didn’t happen. But Musk wasn’t the only suitor.

Shortly before Cerebras went public this May, Arm and SoftBank made an eleventh-hour run at buying it outright. With multiple players trying to scoop up the chip company, Cerebras clearly held strategic value – even before the age of AI.

And regardless of whether an acquisition comes, this business stands on its own.

In the second quarter of this year, Cerebras posted core revenue of $209.9 million, up 103% from a year earlier. Cloud and other services revenue was up 281% to $126 million. Gross margin came in at 41%, and the net loss narrowed to $6 million. The company finished the quarter with $8.6 billion in cash, equivalents, restricted cash, and short-term investments, and it guided to full-year core revenue of $880 million to $890 million.

Its customer list explains the trajectory. Cerebras signed a multi-year agreement with OpenAI covering 750 megawatts of inference capacity, valued at more than $20 billion. It also launched a partnership with Amazon Web Services. In July, it announced a joint inference system with AMD, and it has a security partnership with CrowdStrike as well as a 200-megawatt European buildout.

If an acquirer moves on Cerebras, whether that is Musk or one of the several other parties who have already circled this asset, the stock could jump sharply on the announcement. But a company guiding to strong revenue growth – with an AMD partnership, an AWS partnership, and a $20 billion contract with the largest AI lab in the world – is worth owning on its own merits.

Recommendation: Buy Cerebras Systems (Nasdaq: CBRS) at market. While this should be considered a long-term position, some Members may prefer to use a 25% trailing stop to protect their principal and profits. Also consider selling after an acquisition offer arrives, if gross margin keeps stepping down without a matching acceleration in revenue, or if the growth story weakens.

Target No. 2: The Motherlode on the Ocean Floor

Musk’s empire runs on a short list of very specific materials. Lithium, nickel, graphite, cobalt, manganese, copper, and rare earths. Without a reliable supply of them, everything he has built (and plans to build) will slow to a crawl.

Musk has said as much himself. On a Tesla earnings call, he said anyone who likes minting money should get into lithium refining. He has called raw materials Tesla’s biggest challenge, complained publicly about supply chain price pressure, cut cobalt content out of his batteries, taken stakes in mines, and signed special contracts with miners around the world.

How much he actually needs is difficult to picture.

A single Tesla Gigafactory running at capacity consumes an estimated 126,000 tons of graphite a year, 25,000 tons of lithium, and 7,000 tons of cobalt. And Musk is building dozens of Gigafactories. Analysts expect SpaceX’s own mineral consumption to rise roughly tenfold over the next decade.

And the problem is the refining of most of these materials runs through China.

Starting January 1, 2027, defense contractors will face strict restrictions on using rare earth magnets from China in qualifying weapons systems. That includes Musk, as SpaceX is a defense contractor. It launches national security missions. And Starshield, its military communications arm, is now defense infrastructure.

Which brings me to a company sitting on one of the largest untapped mineral deposits ever identified.

The Metals Company (Nasdaq: TMC) holds rights in the Clarion Clipperton Zone, an area of international seabed in the Pacific southwest of San Diego. The deposits there are polymetallic nodules, potato-sized rocks scattered across the ocean floor that contain nickel, cobalt, copper, and manganese in commercial concentrations. They don’t have to be blasted out of a mountain. They are lying loose on the seabed, waiting to be collected.

The scale is remarkable. The Metals Company’s prefeasibility study and initial assessment put the combined net present value of its projects at more than $23.6 billion.

In the past year, the regulatory picture has changed – and it’s the part most investors have missed.

The Metals Company’s U.S. subsidiary is pursuing permits through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) under the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act. On May 1, NOAA determined that the company’s consolidated application was in full compliance. That filing expanded the commercial recovery area from roughly 25,000 square kilometers to about 65,000, covering an estimated 619 million tonnes of nodules with another 200 million tonnes of exploration upside. Four weeks later, NOAA certified a second application covering an additional 122,000 square kilometers and an estimated 1.02 billion tonnes.

There are still steps the company has to complete, but it expects this process to conclude before the end of the first quarter of 2027.

Here’s why those milestones matter. In the 45 years since Congress passed the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act, NOAA has never issued a single commercial recovery permit. The Metals Company filed the first consolidated application under the new rules and remains the furthest along of the companies now in the queue. If it clears the process, it’ll hold the first permit ever granted to recover minerals from the deep seabed under U.S. law.

Now, despite this promising development, the company has no revenue. First production is targeted for the fourth quarter of 2027.

But this is a company with a strategic resource the U.S. government has explicitly said it wants developed, a partnership on the refining side, a working collection system, and a permitting process that is advancing rather than stalling. If Musk needs a domestic supply of the exact materials his rockets and batteries consume, and he needs it before a federal deadline, there are very few phone calls he can make. This is one of them.

Recommendation: Buy The Metals Company (Nasdaq: TMC) at market. While this should be considered a long-term position, some Members may prefer to use a 25% trailing stop to protect their principal and profits. Also consider selling if a denial from NOAA comes through, there’s a materially adverse environmental finding, or there’s a successful international legal challenge.

Target No. 3: The Rival He Launches Into Orbit

Starlink is the engine that pays for everything else Musk does. It generated roughly $11.4 billion in revenue last year and more than $4 billion in operating income – at profit margins above 60%. While the rocket and AI divisions lost money, Starlink covered them.

So consider the following arrangement…

There is a global satellite communications company competing directly with Starlink in aviation, maritime, rural broadband, and defense. It has decades of operating history, long-term contracts with major airlines, and deep government relationships. And it pays SpaceX to put its satellites into orbit.

Musk is personally launching his own competition into space, on his own vehicles, for a fee.

The company is Viasat (Nasdaq: VSAT), and that arrangement may not survive much longer.

Acquiring Viasat would do more than remove a competitor. It would hand Musk two things that cannot be manufactured at any price…

The first is spectrum. These are exclusive rights to specific radio frequencies, approved by the Federal Communications Commission and coordinated internationally.

The second is orbital slots, the specific positions in space where a satellite is permitted to operate.

Think of both as beachfront property. Once claimed, no amount of money creates more. Viasat got there first, and analysts at Needham raised their price target on the stock specifically on the value of those spectrum assets in mid-2026.

In its most recent quarter, Viasat delivered adjusted earnings of $0.17 per share against a $0.10 consensus, on revenue of $1.16 billion. Free cash flow rose to $72 million, and the GAAP net loss narrowed to $51.7 million. Aviation service revenue grew 11%, with roughly 4,530 commercial aircraft in service, up 10%. Government satcom service revenue grew 10%. Companywide new contract awards rose 10% to $1.3 billion, and total backlog reached $4.2 billion.

Now, Viasat has had a few hard years. Its ViaSat-3 satellite suffered a near-total antenna failure in orbit, a costly setback. And fixed broadband revenue is still falling, down 27% year over year, as Starlink takes the residential market. Capital spending will run between $950 million and $1 billion this fiscal year, and the company carries meaningful debt it is working to pay down.

But this stock has roughly doubled in the past year – and what you’re buying is a company at an inflection point. Management has guided to mid-single-digit revenue growth and about $180 million in free cash flow for its fiscal year. If that capacity converts into aviation and defense revenue the way the backlog suggests it will, this could become a considerably more valuable company… and a considerably more attractive target.

Recommendation: Buy Viasat (Nasdaq: VSAT) at market. While this should be considered a long-term position, some Members may prefer to use a 25% trailing stop to protect their principal and profits. Also consider selling if a buyout offer comes in, which raises the stock price… or if both satellites are in service by year-end and the revenue has not followed within a few quarters.

Bonus: The Competitor He Cannot Afford to Leave Standing

Cerebras, The Metals Company, and Viasat are companies that fill gaps in Musk’s empire. But this bonus pick is perhaps Elon’s strongest competitor. So buying it might be his best move yet.

I’m talking about Rocket Lab (Nasdaq: RKLB). And the company is on fire right now…

In the second quarter, Rocket Lab posted record revenue of $234 million, up 62% year over year, with a record backlog of $2.36 billion.

It has also gone on its own buying spree.

Rocket Lab finalized the acquisition of Mynaric earlier this year. It agreed to acquire the space robotics firm Motiv. And it struck an $8 billion cash-and-stock agreement to acquire Iridium at $54 per share (expected to close in mid-2027). That transaction would give Rocket Lab a global satellite network, licensed spectrum, and more than 2.5 million subscribers, which is very close to the vertically integrated model Musk built with Starlink.

The defense business is accelerating even faster. In late July, the company was awarded a $266 million Space Force contract for suborbital launches. Then, just days later, it won a $397 million Space Force award under the Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator program, covering the development, launch, and operation of a new class of flat satellites.

And the company’s chief executive has been openly telling the market that his firm has the right combination to break the SpaceX monopoly.

For Musk, Rocket Lab is more valuable to own and more dangerous to ignore. That is exactly why I believe it belongs on this list.

Granted, Rocket Lab now carries a market capitalization around $46 billion as of mid-2026, so an acquisition would be enormous even by Musk’s standards.

However, this company is executing well enough to matter regardless of whether it’s an acquisition target, and that success is precisely what puts it in the crosshairs.

More Names to Add to Your Radar

The hit list doesn’t stop there. There are other companies that own something Musk needs and cannot quickly build, and I want them on your radar.

The first is Hexcel (NYSE: HXL), which makes advanced carbon fiber and composite materials. Every rocket, satellite, and aircraft that has to be strong and light depends on these materials, and the supply is constrained. Qualifying a new composite for flight hardware takes years. You can’t simply order more.

Hexcel is executing well. Second quarter sales rose to $529 million, adjusted earnings came in at $0.66 per share against $0.50 a year ago, and adjusted operating margin improved to 13.9% from 11.1% last year. Management raised full-year sales guidance to a range of $2.025 billion to $2.125 billion and adjusted earnings guidance to a range of $2.30 to $2.40 per share – while maintaining free cash flow guidance above $195 million.

The company is also restarting a previously idle carbon fiber line to meet demand.

Most of Hexcel’s revenue today comes from commercial aircraft programs like the Airbus A350 and the Boeing 787, and its space and defense sales actually declined 7% last quarter as the company pruned its portfolio. The stock has also climbed sharply over the past year, so it’s not undiscovered.

The second is KVH Industries (Nasdaq: KVHI), and this one is a microcap with an unusual position.

KVH sells satellite connectivity to commercial maritime, leisure marine, and military and government vessels. It has become one of the significant channels through which Starlink reaches the maritime market, and the relationship is showing up in the numbers.

Second quarter revenue rose 27% year over year to $33.7 million. Airtime revenue rose 31% over the same time frame. Low Earth orbit service sales, driven by Starlink and OneWeb subscriber growth, now account for more than 55% of airtime service sales, compared with under 32% a year ago.

The balance sheet is clean. Roughly 19.5 million shares outstanding, $59 million in cash, and little debt, making it an ideal candidate for a buyout.

A Clear Setup

Musk has $85 billion, a supply chain that runs in part through Beijing, and a federal deadline looming on January 1.

I expect him to make a move. Mostly likely on one (or more) of the companies in this report.

When he does, the investors already holding these companies could win big.

Now, I can’t promise every recommendation will be a winner. No one can. There will be losses along the way. Because of that, you should never invest more than you can afford to lose, in this strategy or any other.

But in 45 years of following markets, I’ve rarely seen a setup this clear, with a deadline this specific attached to it.