Rivals

Tesla ($TSLA), Nvidia ($NVDA) and Boeing’s ($BA) CEOs have something in common. They’re all part of a White House-assembled delegation for Trump's trip to China this week. A Beijing banquet that won’t include AMD’s ($AMD) Lisa Su, who was notably left off the invite list.

The agenda spans trade, rare earth exports, Iran, Taiwan, and inevitably AI. But U.S.-China relations are a complex bilateral dynamic: the two largest economies are each other's biggest trading partners, locked into an AI arms race. And Stanford researchers say the AI model performance gap between them has effectively closed.

AI rivals are closing the gap in the U.S. too. The OpenAI vs Anthropic contest took a turn when Anthropic crossed the US$30B of annualised revenue run rate in April, outpacing OpenAI’s US$25B. The bigger picture for investors? Path to profitability. Based on pre-IPO investor docs, Anthropic projects profitability as early as 2028, while OpenAI foresees breaking even only after 2030.

Timelines on both those IPOs remain fluid, but a big-ticket one that’s definitely on the cards is SpaceX with a reported US$2T valuation. Retail investor hype building around the space theme benefits already-listed operational proxies like Rocket Lab ($RKLB). Shares rallied after Q1 earnings, where the second-largest launcher in the U.S. posted revenue of US$200.3M and revealed a US$2.2B backlog.

A newer Rocket Lab competitor without quite the same scale is Firefly Aerospace ($FLY). It builds rockets and lunar landers for government and commercial space missions. And it's had a massive run since listing in August 2025. Shares surged 17% heading into earnings but pulled back after the company reported US$80.9M in Q1 revenue but a big EPS miss. 

That’s to be expected from early-stage growth companies. Not so much from the broader market. We’re at the tail end of earnings season, and 84% of S&P 500 companies have beat EPS estimates – the highest magnitude since Q1 2021. 

It officially tips the scales for Wall Street’s always-on rivalry: bulls vs bears. Right now, the bulls are in charge.

Samy Sriram

Markets Analyst

Samy is a markets analyst at Stake, with seven years of experience in the world of investing, working across roles in private banking, venture capital and financial media. She has a Master’s degree in Finance and Data Analytics from The University of Sydney Business School.