Cern Basher

Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer at Brilliant Advice
My posts here are not financial advice. Tesla referral link:

[Cern Basher @CernBasher]

https://t.co/0F4FI5rM3X

[Cern Basher @CernBasher]

@jontwigge I'd take one!

[Cern Basher @CernBasher]

https://t.co/n0jzWCRegz

[Cern Basher @CernBasher]

@Scott_X_Inc Two weeks...

[Cern Basher @CernBasher]

Tesla will be selling lots of Cybercabs, Cybertrucks and Optimi this holiday season.

Everyone can buy one!

[Cern Basher @CernBasher]

https://t.co/78hHYQsTw2

[Cern Basher @CernBasher]

This is how we change minds about the benefits of AI.

Tesla could do it with Robotaxi.

SpaceX could do it with Grok Bot.

[The Real Mike Rowe @mikeroweworks]

This is not an ad for @Meta. Facebook didn’t pay me to share this. But I’m sharing it anyway, because I think it matters. If you agree, pass it on.

[Cern Basher @CernBasher]

@888ox888 @TeslaBoomerMama Yes, Grok Bot did a nice job

[phil beisel @pbeisel]

Another 2+2 with @CernBasher

A shocking list of things to talk about this week.

[Cern Basher @CernBasher]

There are four potential grounds for removal:

1) Sharing confidential information: Knowingly or recklessly providing sensitive NVIDIA information to unauthorized parties.

2) Improper commercial treatment: Favoring Megaspeed through preferential pricing, chip allocations, financing, or circumventing export controls.

3) Dishonesty or concealment: Misleading the board, shareholders, or government investigators, or failing to disclose a material conflict of interest.

4) Loss of confidence: Even without proven illegality, the board could conclude that his judgment, conduct, or the resulting regulatory consequences make continued leadership untenable.

Of course in the event of #4, the board must understand that removing him could destroy considerably more shareholder value than the scandal itself.

[Cern Basher @CernBasher]

@pbeisel New Zealand

[Cern Basher @CernBasher]

@MattGriscom Let's not confuse vocation (a necessary job) with avocation (a hobby pursued for pleasure). Humans are moving from vocations to avocations.

[Cern Basher @CernBasher]

You can win every political argument and still be unprepared for what comes next.

Left versus right. Rich versus poor. We spend enormous energy debating how to allocate today’s wealth.

Meanwhile, automation will transform how that wealth is created - and whether most people can still earn a living through work.

If machines do more of the work, who owns them? How does everyone else pay the bills? And how do we turn extraordinary productivity into widespread prosperity?

[Cern Basher @CernBasher]

https://t.co/RxMUFrcK3W

[Cern Basher @CernBasher]

https://t.co/jJmJcNqX58

[phil beisel @pbeisel]

The NetP site now shows Starlink sats overhead.

Just flip the Satellites toggle ON.

Pick your home state/country and see what's overhead in real-time.

The NetP app does this as well. In fact, it's better at it! 🚀

https://t.co/wgUY6rn15M

[Cern Basher @CernBasher]

Two Guys, Two Weeks Video

Here is a summary of the topics @pbeisel and I talk about in the video:

Tech Espionage and Nvidia

Scandal and Infiltration Concerns: We open by discussing reports involving Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and a woman named Alice, raising questions about potential Chinese espionage targeting top U.S. tech executives.

Policy and Competition: We examine Jensen's historical advocacy for selling chips to China and note reports that Nvidia hired a crisis PR firm a year prior, while emphasizing that nation-state espionage threatens the entire U.S. technology sector.

Starship, Starlink V3, and "Star Mind"

Starlink Capacity Surge: Upcoming Starship Flight 15 will deploy 26 Starlink V3 satellites (Group 31-2), adding 26 terabits per second of downlink capacity - equivalent to 10 Falcon 9 launches!

In-Network Orbital Compute: Using inter-satellite laser links (ISLs) that carry four times the downlink capacity, SpaceX is building out a space-based compute layer referred to as "Star Mind". This allows data to travel directly to orbital GPUs and remain inside the Starlink network without routing through terrestrial fiber gateways.

Disrupting Telecom: Following Elon's comments at the Ron Baron conference and talks with Qualcomm regarding 6G, we speculate on SpaceX's ambitions to disrupt legacy mobile carriers - or potentially acquire one - to maximize spectrum efficiency for Starlink Mobile.

Exponential AI Compute Demand & Space Data Centers

The AI Compute Curve: Comparing the previous mobile/CPU era (which grew roughly 60% per year) to the current AI era, Phil highlights that AI compute demand is growing at an exponential 2.2x to 3.4x+ annually. Unlike human-driven internet traffic, autonomous AI agents query and process data continuously, further accelerating demand.

Overcoming Power and Chip Bottlenecks: Because terrestrial data centers face severe electricity and chip constraints, Elon is pursuing Terafab for chip supply and Starship for orbital power and compute.

Orbital Cooling Physics: We push back against critics who claim space data centers cannot dissipate heat, citing Elon's explanation that the required radiator cooling surface is only one-fifth the surface area of the solar arrays. We also contrast SpaceX's rapid, hands-on "founder mode" culture with the bureaucratic slowness of legacy tech giants.

Google and SpaceX: "Competing with Yourself"

Board Departure: Alphabet executive Don Harrison stepped down from SpaceX's board on November 4 due to increasing conflicts of interest between the two companies.

Deep Financial Ties: Google invested $900 million in SpaceX in 2015 - a stake now valued at roughly $84 billion - and in Q3 purchased an additional 3.85 million shares for roughly $540 million.

Co-opetition: Despite competing in AI, autonomous driving (Waymo vs. Tesla), and space compute (Google's Project Suncatcher), the two rely on each other. SpaceX houses ground stations at Google data centers, while Google signed a massive cloud deal paying SpaceX $920 million per month (from October 2026 through June 2029) to rent GPUs and compute infrastructure.

Consumer Hardware Disruption: We also speculate that Elon could eventually challenge Apple and Google's smartphone duopoly with a lightweight AI consumer device powered directly by orbital Star Mind compute.

SpaceX's Terrestrial Data Center Expansions

Tombstone, Arizona: Operating through Tombstone Resources, SpaceX is proposing a 747-acre, 4.4-million-square-foot supercomputing campus near Tombstone, Arizona. The project includes a $3.6 billion energy infrastructure investment, closed-loop cooling that uses minimal water, 1,000 permanent jobs, and promises to lower local residential electricity rates by 10% to 40%.

Starbase, Texas: SpaceX wants to build a permanent $24 billion gas-fired power plant on 444 acres in Starbase to replace temporary portable gas turbines, while aggressively acquiring surrounding land parcels to potentially support future data center campuses.

The Rise of the Automated Economy

The Fourth Economic Sector: I break down how the economy has evolved from extraction (primary), transformation/manufacturing (secondary), and services (tertiary - currently 80% of the U.S. economy) into a fourth category: the automated sector, which operates with zero human labor.

Capital vs. Labor: Within a few decades, 70% to 99% of the economy could be automated across both blue-collar and white-collar roles. Because the financial rewards of full automation flow to capital owners rather than wage earners, shrinking wages risk triggering a deflationary spiral unless households gain new income streams.

Portfolio of Solutions for the "Messy Middle": To bridge the transition toward "sustainable abundance," we discuss diversifying household income beyond traditional wages (currently 60% of household income) through sovereign wealth funds (like those in Alaska and Norway) , employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), negative income taxes or UBI, and child equity accounts.

[Cern Basher @CernBasher]

And be sure to check out Phil's NetP app: https://t.co/5krIBzEHoE

[Cern Basher @CernBasher]

@MattGriscom https://t.co/ADH8v72yNc

[Cern Basher @CernBasher]

@MattGriscom Sure, but that will require a tiny amount of labor in the whole scheme of things.

[Cern Basher @CernBasher]

@SpeedAmbassador The deflationary side of this will happen - which is great - but we still have to think about the income side and make sure people have enough sources of income.

[Cern Basher @CernBasher]

I understand the end state: sustainable abundance, with most of it created by robots.

The question is how we actually get there from where we are today - where people work and earn income.

It's fine to say that the robots will make all the stuff we need and then some, but what happens when the factory workers are sent home for the last time and their paychecks stop?

What does the transition period look like?

This is very scary for most.

Yes, we will find a new way, but what is that way? - that's what I'm interested in figuring out.