NIO ES9 17-Week Queue, Can It Beat The ES8? SpaceX IPO & Florida Sues Sam Altman | June 2

**Obi** (0:04)
If you want to be a part of the conversation before it happens here on YouTube, click that link in the description to join the free Courtside Financial Discord. Before we get into today's stories, I want to share something that I've been working on for quite some time now. I've been talking about it in my latest videos, but I wrote a book. It's a full-length novel. It's called Dial Tone, A Modern Salesman's Story. It's a novel for anyone who's quietly wondering if there's more. So guys, the ebook is available for pre-order on Amazon right now. It will deliver to your Kindle on June 12th. The hard copy is scheduled to release on June 12th as well alongside of it. Links in the description. And now before we get into today's news, I need to address something from yesterday's video. I mentioned that William Li was preparing for an eighth IPO connected to NIO's battery swapping business. That story came from a Chinese article headline that I was not able to fully verify.
I presented it as a fact and I should not have, but I don't know exactly which company that that article was referring to. I made some assumptions, so I want to go back and correct that. And until I can confirm the details, like I said, guys, I'm just going to be pulling that back. My credibility with this community is everything, and I'd rather correct the error than just kind of let things ride.
Unverified information should never be left to just stand, I guess. So thank you to everyone in the comments who pushed back. I think it was only a couple of people, but still it's important to me to address that type of thing. That's exactly what this community is for. Now, the NIO ES9, it just hit a 17-week delivery queue days after launching. The S&P 500 crossed 7,600 for the first time. Alphabet, Google's parent company, announced plans to raise $80 billion for AI. SpaceX IPO Roadshow is happening this week, and Florida just sued OpenAI trying to hold Sam Altman personally liable. Today is Tuesday, June 2nd. Let's get into it. I'm Obi. This is Courtside Financial. Let me start where your portfolio lives. The ES9 just launched on May 27th. Within days, it built delivery queues of up to 17 weeks.
Order one today, you're waiting until September. For a vehicle starting at 498,000 yuan, that's roughly $73,000.
The demand is real. NIO surged 6.79% on June 1st and is trading around $6.18 this morning. But here's the honest question the Chinese Internet is asking about right now. And this channel needs to address it directly because we don't ever let anything slide, really. The ES8 sold 110,000 units in its first eight months. Number one above 400,000 yuan for five consecutive months. The question is, can the ES9 do it again? So let's talk about what the underlying concern is. What analysts are calling shortening product half-life in Chinese EVs. The time between what they say is a hot launch and the next competitive product, that has compressed dramatically. Three years ago, a strong launch sustained momentum for 18 months. Today, it's closer to six. The market literally just moves that fast. So the honest bull case, the ES9 is positioned above the ES8 at 498,000 UN versus 406,800 UN. That's a different buyer, the executive experience buyer, the person who previously considered a premium MPV.
So if NIO has genuinely opened a new segment rather than cannibalizing an existing one, the ES9, it has its own ceiling to find. The honest bear case, the 17 week queue reflects initial pent up demand from pre-orders. The real test is August and September when that normalizes. Huawei's M9, Aito, Zeekr and Yangwang are all competing for the same buyer above 400,000 UN. Competition is not standing still.
My take, the ES9 could sustain strong numbers but the queue, that's going to normalize. The durable question is whether NIO can keep refreshing the lineup fast enough to stay ahead of the half-life problem that I just talked about. Four product launches in Q2 suggest William Li already understands the urgency. The market keeps making new history, the S&P 500 crossed 7,600 for the first time today. HPE Hewlett Packard Enterprises surged 30% on its biggest earnings since 2018
The AI infrastructure trade is now spilling into every hardware and server vendor that touches the build out. And Alphabet just announced plans to raise 80 billion dollars from dedicated stock sales entirely to AI infrastructure. Here's one way to contextualize that number.
80 billion dollars, guys, is roughly twice the annual GDP of Costa Rica being directed at one technology company in one year. The scale of AI investment happening right now is almost impossible to process. But the direction is clear. Every company that supplies the hardware, the chips, the power and the software for this build out just keeps on benefiting. That's why the AI infrastructure trade keeps running even as macro headwinds persist. The most anticipated IPO in the history of financial markets is happening right now. SpaceX Roadshow kicked off this week. The company is targeting a valuation of $1.8 trillion.