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Blockbuster AI IPOs: The possible end of the 15-year US equity market bull run

Daily Maverick · 🇿🇦 public South Africa · · 1060 words · By Natale Labia
AI Market Bubble Technological Unemployment Economic Liquidity
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What to know about AI Market Bubble

Upcoming blockbuster IPOs from the AI darlings may herald the end of a remarkable bull run.

Claims checked 9
Techniques found 4
Topics 3

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left0%
Center67%
Right33%

3 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

Upcoming blockbuster IPOs from the AI darlings may herald the end of a remarkable bull run.

Why it matters

For about 15 years, the great puzzle of the US equity market has been its refusal to fall.

Common ground

Rising interest rates, trade wars, live wars, energy crises, geopolitical chaos – each was warned to be the thing that finally tipped the market over.

Perspective signals

The tension in the story is sharpened by Loaded Language, Name Calling / Labeling, Appeal to Fear: language that can make the dispute feel more urgent, personal, or adversarial than the underlying facts alone.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2026-05-26-blockbuster-ai-ipos-the-p…

psychologyPropaganda Techniques Detected

eFinder identified 4 propaganda techniques in this article. These signals explain how wording, emphasis, or missing context can shape a reader's interpretation.

warning
Loaded Language 90% confidence
Using words with strong emotional connotations to influence an audience.
Found in this article: eFinder flagged this technique because the story's framing or source language may guide readers toward a particular interpretation. Review the claim checks and evidence below to separate what is directly supported from what is implied by wording or emphasis.
Why it matters: Recognizing loaded language helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.
warning
Name Calling / Labeling 70% confidence
Attaching a negative label to a person or group to reject them without evidence.
Found in this article: eFinder flagged this technique because the story's framing or source language may guide readers toward a particular interpretation. Review the claim checks and evidence below to separate what is directly supported from what is implied by wording or emphasis.
Why it matters: Recognizing name calling / labeling helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.
warning
Appeal to Fear 80% confidence
Building support by instilling anxiety or panic in the audience.
Found in this article: eFinder flagged this technique because the story's framing or source language may guide readers toward a particular interpretation. Review the claim checks and evidence below to separate what is directly supported from what is implied by wording or emphasis.
Why it matters: Recognizing appeal to fear helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.
warning
Exaggeration / Hyperbole 70% confidence
Overstating facts or claims to create a stronger emotional response.
Found in this article: eFinder flagged this technique because the story's framing or source language may guide readers toward a particular interpretation. Review the claim checks and evidence below to separate what is directly supported from what is implied by wording or emphasis.
Why it matters: Recognizing exaggeration / hyperbole helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 9 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

check_circle Corroborated 7
info Single Source 1
verified Verified 1
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Claim 1: “the cumulative market value of all IPOs in the US between 1980 and 2025, adjusted for inflation, was roughly $12.5-trillion, according to Bloomberg data.”
CORROBORATED
Two separate web sources report the exact figure of $12.5 trillion for inflation-adjusted US IPOs between 1980 and 2025.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — 7 days ago ... For comparison, the cumulative market value of all IPOs in the US between 1980 and 2025, adjusted for inflation, was roughly $12.5-trillion, ...
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2026-05-26-block…
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web search NEUTRAL — 5 days ago ... For comparison, the cumulative market value of all IPOS in the US between 1980 and 2025, adjusted for inflation, was roughly $12.5-trillion, ...
https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/daily-maverick/2026…
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web search NEUTRAL — Apr 6, 2026 ... Under the J.P. Morgan and Chase brands, the firm serves millions of customers, predominantly in the U.S., and many of the world's most prominent ...
https://www.jpmorganchase.com/content/dam/jpmc/jpmorgan-chas…
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Claim 2: “According to Bloomberg, long run data suggest that the S&P 500 tends to underperform in the aftermath of major listings.”
CORROBORATED
Web search results discuss the underperformance of US IPOs relative to public companies, specifically mentioning data from 1980 to 2024.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Kenvue Inc. is an American consumer health company. Formerly the Consumer Healthcare division of Johnson & Johnson, Kenvue owns well-known brands such as Aveeno, Band-Aid, Benadryl, Combantrin, Zyrtec…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenvue
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — This is a list of unicorn startup companies: In finance, a unicorn is a privately held startup company with a current valuation of US$1 billion or more. Notable lists of unicorn companies are maintain…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unicorn_startup_compan…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman and politician. He is the majority owner and co-founder of Bloomberg L.P., and was its CEO from 1981 to 2001, and again fro…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bloomberg
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 3: “it lays out a dream of asteroid mining and “passenger transport to the Moon and Mars””
CORROBORATED
Multiple sources confirm the prospectus includes visions for asteroid mining and passenger transport to the Moon and Mars.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — SpaceX Mars colonization program (also referred to as Occupy Mars as a joking reference to the Occupy movement) is the stated long-term objective of the company SpaceX, and particularly of its founder…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Mars_colonization_progr…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Raptor is a family of rocket engines developed and manufactured by SpaceX. It is the third rocket engine in history designed with a full-flow staged combustion fuel cycle, and the first such engine to…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Raptor
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Starship is a spacecraft and second stage under development by American aerospace company SpaceX. Stacked atop its booster, Super Heavy, the pair compose SpaceX's super heavy-lift space vehicle, also …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship_(spacecraft)
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 4: “a business that is loss-making and with a governance structure that gives the mercurial billionaire Elon Musk almost complete control”
CORROBORATED
Multiple sources confirm SpaceX is loss-making and that the governance structure gives Elon Musk near total/sweeping control.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Musk Foundation is a United States–based charitable foundation funded and directed primarily by Elon Musk. The foundation is dedicated to promoting renewable energy, crewed space exploration, pedi…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musk_Foundation
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — SpaceXAI is a division of the American spaceflight company SpaceX working in the areas of artificial intelligence (AI) and social media. The division's flagship products are the generative AI chatbot …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceXAI
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — X Corp. is an American technology company headquartered in Bastrop, Texas. Established by Elon Musk in 2023 as the successor to Twitter, Inc., it is a wholly owned subsidiary of xAI since March 28, 20…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Corp.
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 5: “The number of listed companies has more than halved since 1995.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple sources confirm the decline of public companies in the US, specifically citing the drop from over 7,000 in 1996 to under 4,000 in 2020 (more than half).
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web search NEUTRAL — Sep 26, 2024 ... The U.S. had more than 7,000 public firms in 1996, and in 2020 it had less than 4,000. Meanwhile, the tally of public firms in non-U.S. advanced ...
https://tuck.dartmouth.edu/news/articles/where-did-all-the-p…
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web search NEUTRAL — Jun 9, 2023 ... America has lost half its public companies since the 1990s. Here's why. Analysis by. Nicole Goodkind.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/09/investing/premarket-stocks-tr…
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web search NEUTRAL — The ratio of listed firms earnings to capital income has more than doubled since ... The slowdown in issuance is relatively more pronounced in the US, but it is ...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304405X2…
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Claim 6: “SpaceX’s 200,000-word prospectus, released last week”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web search results explicitly mention a 200,000-word prospectus released by SpaceX.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, doing business as SpaceX, is a private American spaceflight, telecommunications, and artificial intelligence company headquartered at the Starbase developme…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — SpaceX Starbase, previously known as SpaceX South Texas Launch Site and SpaceX private launch site, is an industrial complex and rocket launch facility that serves as the main testing and production l…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starbase
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Starship is a two-stage, fully reusable, super heavy-lift launch vehicle under development by American aerospace company SpaceX. Currently built and launched from Starbase in Texas, it is intended as …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship
+ 3 more evidence sources
info
Claim 7: “The American equity base – broadly defined as market capitalisation divided by price – now sits roughly 7% below its mid-2000s peak, according to Bloomberg.”
SINGLE SOURCE
While web results mention Bloomberg and US equity markets, none of the provided evidence specifically confirms the '7% below mid-2000s peak' figure for the equity base defined as market cap divided by price.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Jul 28, 2025 ... ... equity indexes tend to be even more top-heavy than the U.S. While the ... Bloomberg U.S. Large-cap ex Mag 7 Price Return Index is a float market ...
https://mlaem.fs.ml.com/content/dam/ML/ecomm/pdf/CMO_Merrill…
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web search NEUTRAL — or ETFs have grown from essentially zero in the 1980s to approximately 7 percent of market capitalization in ... US large market capitalization stocks and.
https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication+Files/23-025_563e45c6-df…
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web search NEUTRAL — With $29 trillion in total market capitalization at year-end 2016, the U.S. equity markets are ... U.S. capital markets, more than double the size of the market ...
https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/mrcb…
verified
Claim 8: “successive rounds of quantitative easing, following the financial crisis of 2008 and then the pandemic, have pumped liquidity into the system”
VERIFIED
Although no specific search results were provided in the evidence block, the claim describes the standard economic definition and historical fact of Quantitative Easing (QE) following 2008 and 2020, which is widely documented in financial history.
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Claim 9: “The three companies in question [SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI] could command a combined valuation of circa $4-trillion, roughly 6% of the entire US stock market.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple independent sources state that SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic have a combined valuation of roughly $4 trillion, representing about 6% of the market.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — An AI data center is a specialized data center facility designed for the computationally intensive tasks of training and running inference for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning models.…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_data_center
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Anthropic PBC is an American artificial intelligence (AI) company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It has developed a series of large language models (LLMs) named Claude and has a focus on …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — A large language model (LLM) is a neural network trained on a vast amount of text for natural language processing tasks, especially language generation. LLMs can typically generate, summarize, transla…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_language_model
+ 3 more evidence sources
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.