Trump Entered Before Muse AI's Surge! Accurate Meta and SpaceX Rebound Trades in August, Bought SpaceX Bonds Ahead of New Aerospace Policies

According to Zhitong Finance APP, as debates around the "AI bubble bursting" intensify, the latest disclosure of stock investment transaction details in U.S. President Trump’s financial disclosure documents has brought market attention to the increasingly complex relationship between policy support, AI-related asset allocation, and financing costs. Financial documents published on the U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) official website on October 8 show that Trump’s account carried out 517 securities transactions in August, with total trade amounts ranging from about $74.3 million to $273.3 million. This includes the purchase of Meta stock valued between $5 million and $25 million, and the purchase of SpaceX bonds worth between $1 million and $5 million two days before the signing of the U.S. National Space Transportation Policy. Trump perfectly timed the bottom rebound in both SpaceX stock and bond prices since the end of August, driven by massive AI computing power orders and space policy tailwinds.

It is understood that President Trump's financial disclosure file was made public by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) on October 8, 2026. This type of government document falls under the "Periodic Transaction Report" (OGE Form 278-T). The latest financial disclosure is 18 pages long and covers 517 securities asset transactions in Trump’s account for August, mainly listing the security name, transaction type (buy, sell, or exchange), transaction date, and value range for each transaction, along with declaration and review information. It is worth noting that what is disclosed are transaction records, not a complete, real-time change of holdings or investment profit and loss statements.

In addition, public financial disclosures by U.S. officials use a "value band" system that only requires declaring the range of transaction value, not the precise executed amount. For example, the Meta stock purchase operation in Trump’s latest disclosure falls into the "$5,000,001 to $25,000,000" range; $25 million is the upper limit of the band and does not mean exactly $25 million worth was purchased. Therefore, Trump’s latest list reflects cross-sector and cross-asset portfolio adjustments and cannot be directly interpreted as Trump having gone "all-in" on AI, nor should it be seen as a timely "market stabilization" move during this week’s tech stock pullback.

Trump precisely picked Meta ahead of the Muse AI agent explosion and bought up to $5 million in SpaceX bonds two days before the U.S. space policy’s signing

A financial disclosure document released on Thursday shows that U.S. President Donald Trump bought $1 million to $5 million in SpaceX (SPCX.US) corporate bonds on August 18. Two days later, his administration signed a policy aimed at expanding U.S. commercial space transportation.

It is understood that these bonds are senior unsecured notes, carrying a coupon rate of 5.35% and maturing in July 2031.

The "National Space Transportation Policy" released on August 20 aims to support over 1,000 launches and reentries annually in the U.S. by 2030, by accelerating approvals and expanding commercial access to federal launch facilities.

SpaceX (SPCX.US), founded by U.S. richest man and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, is NASA’s main launch service provider and a major contractor for the U.S. government.

However, analysts say the timing of this purchase alone cannot prove whether Trump had advance knowledge of the policy. Trump’s August financial disclosure covers as many as 517 frantic securities transactions, including the purchase of Meta Platforms (META.US), Facebook’s parent company, stock valued between $5 million and $25 million on August 21.

Trump’s account purchased Meta on August 21, while the Muse AI agent—igniting a worldwide AI agent storm in both B2B and B2C segments—was subsequently unveiled by Meta on September 8. From the purchase date through October 7, Meta’s share price surged about 31%.

Weeks after these trades, Trump hosted Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and other top AI tech industry leaders at a White House summit on September 29. During the meeting, Trump resisted calls for tightening AI security regulations and leaned towards adopting a more relaxed regulatory stance.

Richard Painter, who served as White House ethics counsel under President George W. Bush, told the media: "There is a conflict of interest. I’m not saying he did anything illegal, but it certainly gives an appearance of corruption."

In an exclusive statement sent to the media, White House spokesperson Davis Engel said: "President Trump’s stock and bond portfolio is independently managed by a third-party financial institution. All holdings are held in a fully discretionary account and invested through portfolio models that replicate market-recognized indexes like the Schwab 1000, using computer models and AI algorithms."

517 transactions reveal Trump’s latest asset allocation map—can it become an important support for the AI bull market?

August’s transaction disclosure showed at least $44.2 million in buys and at least $30.1 million in sells, with fewer trades than over 1,000 each in June and July. In August, technology, energy, healthcare, telecommunications, and fixed-income assets appeared simultaneously. The largest single transaction was the purchase of Meta on August 21; that day also saw purchases of AT&T, ConocoPhillips, Abbott Labs, Netflix, and Chevron stock, each at $1 million to $5 million. Meanwhile, Trump sold $1 million to $5 million of AMD and Church & Dwight and smaller positions in Boeing, Home Depot, T-Mobile, Datadog, Dell, Palo Alto Networks, and Nvidia stock.

For the much-watched “AI chip superpower” Nvidia (NVDA.US), media calculations verified that Trump's account disclosed a maximum August Nvidia stock purchase of around $1.6 million and a maximum sale of about $1 million, indicating two-way trading. The upper limits are not enough to determine Trump’s actual net buy or sell of Nvidia in August.

The investment implication of the SpaceX transaction firstly lies in the asset type: the account bought senior unsecured bonds with a 5.35% coupon maturing July 2031. Returns mainly come from the contractual interest and credit changes, differing from profit-sharing of stocks. However, the account also benefited substantially from SpaceX’s nearly 50% share price rally since bottoming post-IPO at the start of August, fueled by massive "AI+space exploration" momentum under Musk.

It’s understood that the key space policy signed August 20 aims to support over 1,000 launches and reentries annually by 2030 by expediting licensing, expanding commercial use of federal launch facilities, and encouraging private investment and public-private partnerships. This comprehensive policy is expected to reduce administrative and infrastructure barriers for commercial space expansion, improving conditions for companies like SpaceX to deliver on space business.

Buying bonds two days before the policy signing is enough to trigger questions around conflicts of interest and trading transparency, but current public materials provide no evidence that Trump personally issued transaction instructions or that account managers traded on material non-public information.

It should be noted that Trump’s completed August trades do not equate to renewed buying power during the October semiconductor pullback. For the AI computing power industry chain, substantial forward momentum hinges on customer orders and financing results: for instance, SpaceX is negotiating $40 billion in financing aimed at buying Nvidia chips, and if successful, this could support core AI infrastructure hardware demand. However, such large-scale borrowing will also raise concerns over funding supply and debt sustainability. Policy support can improve growth conditions to some degree, but actual cash flow and financing capacity ultimately determine how long growth can last.

Oil price surges, long-term bond yields stay elevated—and "AI bubble bursting" pessimism returns

Recently, with U.S. 10-year and longer-term Treasury yields repeatedly hitting the highest levels since 2002 and yields on long-term government bonds in the UK, Japan, and others reaching two-decade highs, market concerns are mounting. Skyrocketing U.S. Treasury yields are pushing up long-term financing costs for mega-cap cloud computing firms, casting doubt on their ability to cover ever-rising AI computing capital expenditures through AI-generated revenue. Furthermore, the core "AI compute" storage chip sector has pulled back due to expectations for Toshiba HDD capacity expansion, fueling louder bearish commentary around an imminent "AI bubble" bust.

Global institutions and retail investors are increasingly debating whether the "AI bubble" is about to burst—not only around the high valuations of AI compute sector leaders like Nvidia and AMD, but also on a more fatal, fundamental level: As long-term capital acquisition and financing costs increase, can the industries surrounding AI applications—from NeoCloud, to big model developers, to legacy cloud giants—sustain their rapidly expanding investments in AI compute with real, ongoing cash returns?

On Thursday, October 8, U.S. stocks showed notable divergence: the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.25%, S&P 500 fell 0.47%, and the Dow was up slightly by 0.10%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 3.39%, with AI computing leaders broadly slumping, as Nvidia, Broadcom, and Micron fell 2.94%, 4.35%, and 4.79% respectively. In addition to persistently high oil prices and interest rates, news about OpenAI’s revenue also dampened expectations: media reported annualized revenue as of late September at nearly $5 billion, short of the previously rumored $7 billion—differences mainly relating to whether partner revenue was included and investor extrapolations. While this doesn’t mean OpenAI’s revenue suddenly dropped by $2 billion, it prompted investors to reevaluate just how much of the AI revenue already priced into capital markets can actually turn into sustainable, disposable cash flows.

Energy market-driven pressure on tech stock valuations remains due to ongoing transportation risks. Attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz combined with U.S. Gulf hurricane outages drove Brent crude futures up 4.1% on Thursday to $104.28/barrel, while WTI rose 3.6% to $91.49/barrel. Compared with last trading day before war broke out, February 27, when Brent closed at $72.48 and WTI at $67.02, near-term crude futures have since gained about 43.9% and 36.5%, respectively. Shortly after, Trump sought to "cool down" oil prices, stressing that there would be no attack on Iran before the November 3 midterm elections. Meanwhile, Iran is reviewing the U.S. response on reopening the strait, with no finalized navigational agreements yet. These calming statements led to a partial pullback in oil prices; as of 12:50 pm Beijing time on October 9, Brent and WTI traded at $102.91 and $90.40, respectively.

The market for long-dated government bonds (10-years and above) has already significantly raised the threshold for corporate access to long-term capital. On October 7, the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield hit an intraday high of 5.364%, the loftiest since 2002, while the 30-year reached a 24-year high. The UK 10-year yield reached 5.527% on October 8, the highest since 2007, and the 30-year reached 6.05%, a peak not seen since 1998. However, a strong U.S. 30-year auction Thursday brought the 10-year and 30-year yields down in New York afternoon trading to 5.227% and 5.602%, respectively.