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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The U.S. will allow Iran to immediately start selling oil as part of the deal to end the war. Plus, why SpaceX is spending $60 billion on the AI coding agent Cursor.
SpaceX thought it was a rocket company, thought it was a satellite company, and it's going to keep doing both of those things, but its new future is in AI.
And is Qualcomm actually a bargain among AI chip makers? It's Tuesday, June 16th. I'm Alex Oselev for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. The Trump administration says the agreement to end the war between the U.S.
Chapter 2: What recent deal did SpaceX announce regarding AI technology?
and Iran was signed electronically on Sunday. No text has been released. Though, speaking today from the G7 meeting in France, President Trump said that could soon change.
But I will actually, I'll not only release it, I'll probably have a press conference and read it to you word by word so that the press covers it accurately. Some of what the document contains has already begun trickling out.
The journal is exclusively reporting that the U.S. would allow Iran to immediately begin selling oil and fuel. A senior U.S. official says that sustained sanctions relief would depend on how Iran complies with core U.S. demands, like opening the Strait of Hormuz and the dismantling of Iran's nuclear program. Tehran would also still not get immediate access to billions of dollars in frozen funds.
WSJ national security correspondent Alex Ward is reporting from Geneva and says this will be a financial benefit to Iran, a sensitive topic for the Trump administration.
It feels like it's basically a payment to Iran to get them to sign the deal, right? You'll hear the Trump administration say, well, there are billions of dollars in frozen assets that the U.S. is not going to unfreeze to Iran. But in effect, by letting them sell oil, Iran will be getting revenue.
Alex says some of Trump's supporters are skeptical of the deal.
There are a lot of MAGA folks who are supportive of the president but did want to see regime change in Iran or did want to see Iran pay a heavier price for ending the war. What we have right now is an interim agreement to continue nuclear talks. And if the U.S.
were to get massive concessions from the Iranians on the nuclear front, then OK, then you could make the case that this down payment was worth it. You'll have the critics say, well, Iran's already getting money up front from these oil sales. What incentive do they really have? to engage in pretty strict restrictions of its nuclear work.
SpaceX said today that it would buy the parent company of AI coding agent Cursor for $60 billion in stock. Cursor is a favorite tool of Silicon Valley, and it already brings in billions of dollars in annual revenue. The deal comes just a few days after SpaceX's historic IPO, and on the same day that SpaceX surpassed Amazon in market cap.
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Chapter 3: How does the U.S.-Iran agreement impact oil sales?
Yeah, that's really the thing to understand about this. SpaceX thought it was a rocket company, thought it was a satellite company, and it's going to keep doing both of those things, but its new future is in AI. The acquisition of XAI in February created this whole new future product lineup and this whole new vision for the company and really helps justify its big price on the stock market.
Well, speaking of prices, I mean, Cursor, yes, was known as a Silicon Valley darling. It kicked off this vibe coding trend. But can you tell us a little bit about what it does and why it's worth $60 billion?
Software development has been a very lucrative career for all of these people in Silicon Valley for decades. And AI is about to replace it. So Cursor is part of that. And a lot of that valuation, it's aspirational. It's SpaceX wanting to make sure they get the best products that they can. And in this moment in Silicon Valley, that means paying an absolute premium. They do have good
Financial models, subscription revenue, it's recurring revenue, so it's really reliable. It looks good on a financial balance sheet.
Today, SpaceX's stock rose almost 5%, and it's now about 50% higher than its IPO price. What is driving this investor enthusiasm?
Hopes and dreams and excitement about the future that Elon Musk is promising. And some of that is Mars. Some of that is AI data centers. But the total addressable market that SpaceX outlined in its IPO prospectus is mostly AI applications. And that's where Cursor fits in.
That was WSJ reporter Becky Peterson. Thanks, Becky. Thank you. In other deals news, growth in the U.S. pizza industry has stalled, and Yum! Brands said today that it will sell its Pizza Hut chain to two separate buyers. It's selling the operations outside mainland China to private equity firm Long Rage Capital for about $1.5 billion. And Yum!
China Holdings will buy the China business for about $1.2 billion. The deal allows Yum! to focus on its better-performing brands, such as Taco Bell and KFC. And the journal has learned that General Motors is in talks with Lockheed Martin about making parts for its weapons. They're still talking about which parts GM would make.
GM and Lockheed executives announced their agreement to work together to increase munitions production at a conference today in Detroit. The vice president of strategy for the GM defense unit, Bruce Brown, explained how the company would approach this.
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