Tony Bancroft

Portfolio Manager Gabelli Commercial Aerospace & Defense ETF (GCAD) @investgabelli,Marine Corps Fighter Pilot @USMC, Proud Dad of 6, @canningandrea @datelineNBC

[Morgan Brennan @MorganLBrennan]

Defense stocks are down since Operation Epic Fury started

[Tony Bancroft @bancroftii]

@naiivememe Yes! And a golf sim.

[Ricardo @Ric_RTP]

Elon Musk just said on camera that America CANNOT beat China with humans alone.

His exact words: "We definitely can't win on the human front."

This is the richest man on the planet. Advisor to the president. And he's saying the US is cooked without robots.

Here's why he's probably right:

China is about to hit 3x the total US electricity output.

Elon says electricity is a direct proxy for industrial capacity. Three times the electricity means roughly three times the manufacturing power.

They have 4x the population.

And Elon said something that'll piss a lot of people off: "The average work ethic in China is higher than in the US."

America's birth rate has been below replacement since 1971. More people retiring every year. Fewer entering the workforce.

No amount of policy, tariffs, or reshoring fixes that math.

His solution: Optimus.

He literally called it "the infinite money glitch."

Because you can use robots to build more robots.

Here's what makes this different from every other robotics play:

3 things are hard about humanoid robots.

1. Real-world AI
2. The hand
3. Scale manufacturing

And the hand is harder than EVERYTHING else combined.

Tesla had to custom design every single actuator, motor, gear, sensor, and control system from physics first principles.

There is no supply chain. Nothing comes from a catalog. Not a single component.

But they've solved it.

Optimus has full human-hand dexterity with all degrees of freedom. No other company has demonstrated this. Not even in demos.

Then you layer on what Elon described as a "recursive multiplicative exponential":

Exponential growth in digital intelligence.

Multiplied by exponential growth in chip capability.

Multiplied by exponential growth in electromechanical dexterity.

And then the robots start building robots.

He's targeting 1 million Optimus units per year at Gen 3. Ten million at Gen 4.

The first use case? Any operation that runs 24/7.

Factories, warehouses, refineries, every continuous operation on the planet. Robots don't sleep, don't overheat, don't quit.

And here's the part that should terrify every other country:

America can't build enough ore refineries because Americans don't want refining jobs.

China does 2x more ore refining than the rest of the world COMBINED.

They dominate rare earths.

The US literally mines rare earth ore, puts it on a train, ships it to CHINA for refining, then ships the finished product back.

Optimus wants to fix that.

Not by convincing Americans to take refining jobs but by making humans optional in the process entirely.

And Elon also said something else that went completely under the radar:

"Pure AI, pure robotics corporations will FAR outperform any corporations that have humans in the loop."

He compared it to spreadsheets replacing human computers. Entire skyscrapers used to be filled with humans doing calculations. A laptop replaced all of them.

Now imagine replacing some cells in your spreadsheet with humans again. It would be WORSE.

That's his prediction for the future of corporations.

Mixed human-AI companies lose to pure AI-robotics companies.

Not by a little. By orders of magnitude.

The race isn't AI models anymore.

It's not chatbots or benchmarks or who scores higher on some test.

The race is physical. Whoever builds the robot army first wins the entire global economy.

China has the workers. The factories. The electricity. The refining. The supply chains.

America has one card left to play...

And it's a 5'11" humanoid robot that Elon calls the infinite money glitch.

This is either the move that saves American manufacturing.

Or the most disastrous science project in history.

[Dwarkesh Patel @dwarkesh_sp]

.@collision and I interviewed @elonmusk.

0:00:00 - Orbital data centers
0:36:46 - Grok and alignment
0:59:56 - xAI’s business plan
1:17:21 - Optimus and humanoid manufacturing
1:30:22 - Does China win by default?
1:44:16 - Lessons from running SpaceX
2:20:08 - DOGE
2:38:28 - TeraFab

[Tony Bancroft @bancroftii]

Talking Defense with @MorganLBrennan on @CNBC @InvestGabelli

[Morgan Brennan @MorganLBrennan]

Wild day for defense

First: President Trump promising to limit shareholder returns, exec comp based on delivery performance and investments

Then: a direct $RTX call out by the President “to step up” and invest

Then: a proposal to boost US defense spending to $1.5Trillion in 2027!

https://t.co/yZ7Pkz9OC4

[Morgan Brennan @MorganLBrennan]

I’m told an executive order regarding defense contractors has been signed. Fact sheet to follow… @CNBC $ITA $XAR

[CNBCOvertime @CNBCOvertime]

'Think President Trump is trying to motivate the defense industry to speed up production which is greatly needed,' says @investgabelli's @bancroftii on the Pres. taking aim at defense companies, adding 'there's a lot of sides to this'
https://t.co/DwC2v2YBAa

[Mario Gabelli @MarioGabelli]

Our team

[Tony Bancroft @bancroftii]

Gabelli Funds' Tony Bancroft on the state of the defense sector, future of warfare https://t.co/mBYLTDDYCJ

[Mario Gabelli @MarioGabelli]

31st Annual Commercial Aerospace &Defense conference…scheduled for sept 4 ..NYC ..

[Mario Gabelli @MarioGabelli]

Ranked: The Largest Sovereign Wealth Funds in the World https://t.co/XJASphrf1S

[Tony Bancroft @bancroftii]

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