Thursday, 4 June 2026
Thursday 4 June 2026
[1] Everyone knows Elon Musk is rich, but beyond roughly your monthly salary, numbers become difficult to comprehend. Let’s break it down.
In the 31 years since he started his first US tech company, Musk has earned:
$60,000 a minute
$3.6 million an hour
$86 million a day
$602 million a week
$2.6 billion a month
$31.3 billion a year
American households earn (on average) roughly $84,000 a year, which means that they will have to work for 11 million years to catch up to Musk.
With his NAV, Musk could buy 2.4 million average American homes, all the NBA and NFL teams (and still have $500 billion left) or 10,000 Gulfstream G700 private jets while paying 5 years of operating costs.
His net worth is more than the annual economic activity of over 125 countries, including South Africa, where Musk was born. He is worth roughly 3% of the US GDP, which makes him richer than Rockefeller was on the same basis.
Stunningly, he started with nothing and built it all himself. While we disagree with a lot of Musk’s antics, the guy is the most prolific entrepreneur the world has ever seen.
[2] South Africa and China strengthened their military ties during “high-level talks”. The government invited Chinese Defense Minister Admiral Dong Jun to South Africa to exchange views on their militaries.
China holds the world’s largest standing armed forces, with nuclear capabilities and a $246 billion annual defense budget.
South Africa’s military is best known for losing 71 vehicles a few years ago (including a Mamba mine protected vehicle, which sounds like something you should keep an eye on, and a field kitchen (?)) and for their training camp videos during Covid.
This leaves us questioning what exactly the Chinese military is looking for in South Africa in the first place.
[3] The JSE continued sliding, down 0.95% overall. Brent climbed to $97.53, Gold dropped 0.67% and the ZAR/USD weakened to R16.29.
Sasol is now up more than 100% YTD on the back of the global energy crisis.
[4] Sotheby’s, an auction house, sold $908.6 million of art. La Chaise lorraine, a painting of a chair by French master Henri Matisse, sold for $48.4 million. Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown), which looks like a 5 year old was let loose on a canvas with colored markers while having a meltdown, sold for $52.7 million. Finally, Picasso’s “Arlequin” sold for $42.6 million.
Modern art continues to both intrigue and confuse DNF.
Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown) - Jean-Michel Basquiat
Source: Sotheby’s
[5] Trump said that Iran had “already agreed” it will not have a nuclear weapon, but “they can change their mind” in an interview with the New York Post, which sums up his approach to diplomacy. We remind readers that Obama successfully brokered a deal with Iran which limited their uranium enrichment to the point at which it would be fit for energy generation. Trump backed out of this deal and is now brokering the same deal unsuccessfully.
Uranium enrichment is a fascinating process, you turn the uranium into a gas, spin it around a centrifuge to separate the heavy stuff from the light stuff (a centrifuge is a spinning machine, think about what happens to you when a car takes a sharp corner, now think about what happens to a tissue around the same corner) and let the heavy stuff fly off to collect the lighter stuff, which is what you can actually split to release energy.
Spin a bit and you can generate electricity, spin a lot and you can end the world. Obama allowed Iran to spin a bit, Trump’s head is spinning and DNF is now dizzy.
[6] Bad news for cannabis lovers on Stellenbosch University’s campus: SU said that getting stoned at res is not an option for students. The institution has included a new section on weed in their residence rules, which came into effect on 1 April. DNF believes that all students will immediately read the new section and strictly adhere to the rules, making this another brilliant decision by the leadership of SU.
The South African constitutional court ruled that weed consumption is legal in 2018, SU took 8 years to adapt the rules (maybe they were celebrating the legalization?).
The definition of smoking was expanded to include THC, the active compound in weed/marijuana/ganja/grass/herb/bud/flower/Mary Jane/reefer/kush/hemp/dope (potheads are a creative bunch). Smoking of tobacco products near a university building has always been banned - and based on the enforcement of this rule, DNF believes that stoners have little to worry about (not that they worry about much anyway).
[7] For all its worries and troubles, South Africa continues to produce unbelievable rugby talent, both on the field and in the coaching box. While the legendary Rassie Erasmus is already a national treasure, SA’s coaching pool has as much depth as its world-class-70kg-winger-with-a-scrum-cap pool. All four teams that made it to the semi-finals of the URC are coached by South Africans.
Glasgow Warriors by Franco Smit from Lichtenburg, Bulls by Johan Ackermann from Benoni, Stormers by John Dobson from Welkom and Leinster by Jacques Nienaber from Kimberley (who is technically a senior coach with some Irishmen as head coach, but we all know who’s calling the shots).
As Rassie posted on X, “Franco, Dobbo, Nienas en Ackers !! Lekka”.
[8] Ninety One recorded a 31% increase in assets under management (AUM) for the year ended 31 March 2026, reaching R3.9 trillion. To put this into perspective, if Elon Musk was their only client, they would manage roughly four times the amount (!). The market reacted negatively to their results, with the share losing 4.31% on the day.
[9] Private markets are the opposite of public markets (are you following?). The difference between the two classifications fundamentally comes down to who is allowed to buy into the market. For example, public companies trade on stock exchanges and anyone with enough capital can buy a share in the company. Private companies only allow certain individuals or entities to buy their shares.
There has been an incredible rise in the amount of capital allocated to the private markets, but investors in public markets have one significant advantage over investors in private markets: liquidity (a fancy word for cash, or the ability to sell your investment easily because there is a large pool of buyers).
Private markets have suffered under this liquidity constraint, most recently Partners Group, a Swiss private equity fund. The liquidity crunch was first felt in private credit markets, but is now spilling over into private equity. Partners Group limited the withdrawals investors are allowed to make to 5%, a sign that investors are getting worried about their ability to extract cash from their holdings. The private credit liquidity crunch was caused in large part by rising interest rates, as funds struggled to refinance, trapping capital. Private funds use significant leverage (debt) to juice gains, so when debt becomes more expensive (due to rising interest rates) trouble sets in.
[10] The SP500 snapped a 9-day winning run after the US and Iran clashed again, this time Kuwait and Bahrain was caught in the crossfire. It was one of the most serious acts of aggression since the “ceasefire” started in early April. As the US continues to mismanage a very delicate and tense situation, DNF sees more trouble on the horizon. Even if Trump manages to exit the war (he will certainly obfuscate the truth, probably claiming victory after achieving nothing good and a lot of bad), he will leave an Iranian population with a renewed animosity towards the West.
Homework: go look at the share price of Firstcash Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: FCFS). Firstcash is the leading international operator of pawn stores focused on serving cash and credit-constrained consumers. What does a dramatic increase in the stock price of a company that provides credit-constrained customers in the US with short-term loans tell us about the state of the American middle-class? What does this tell us about the state of the US economy? How does this compare to the economic data that the Trump administration releases? Trouble, ladies and gentleman, trouble.
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