“Mamdani Mart” Exposes The Inefficiency Of Socialism In One Chart
Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z New Media published the most popular charts of the week on financial markets, but the most revealing one came at the end of the note: a comparison suggesting that New York City’s first grocery store, which will soon be run by unhinged socialists, will be structurally less efficient than private-sector supermarkets.
But who cares when it’s not taxpayer monies?
According to the New York Post, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s proposed city-owned grocery store in East Harlem would require roughly $30 million in taxpayer funding.
At just 9,000 square feet, the project implies a construction cost of about $3,000 per square foot – an exceptionally and alarmingly high number by grocery industry standards.
From an economic standpoint, the “Mamdani Mart” underscores a familiar pattern: state-directed supermarkets often fail to achieve the cost discipline, operational efficiency, and scale seen in private-sector chains.
This story has played out time and again in the U.S., as unhinged left-wingers have experimented with socialism:
Socialism is inherently parasitic, abusing productive taxpayers to subsidize left-wing experiments. It always tend to fail. Let’s not forget CNBC’s Sara Eisen blasted the far-left mayor after he filmed a promotional video touting a proposed new tax on luxury properties.
President Donald Trump announced April 17 that he expects his administration to begin releasing documents “very soon” related to extraterrestrial life and unexplained phenomena.
“As you remember, I recently directed the Secretary of War … to begin releasing government files relating to UFOs and unexplained aerial phenomena,” Trump told an audience in Phoenix, Arizona. “I’m pleased to report today … that this process is well underway and we’ve found many very interesting documents, I must say. And, the first releases will begin very, very soon.”
Trump made the remarks at an event with Turning Point Action, an affiliate of Turning Point USA.
The president ordered government agencies to release information about UFOs and related phenomena in a Feb. 19 Truth Social post. Tremendous interest in the files prompted Trump to issue the directive to release files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, he said.
The U.S. government holds thousands of documents related to historical reports about the subjects of unidentified flying objects and alien phenomenon, including more than 12,600 reports from Project Blue Book, which took place from 1947 to 1969. The public can already access some of the public records, photos, and sounds at the National Archives.
The buzz over revealing more evidence comes days after Artemis II made its historic voyage around the moon, stirring the public’s interest in space discovery.
Trump’s announcement, however, fell flat with UFO investigator Donald Schmitt, who said he had “very little hope” the documents would prove anything more than what has already been released to the public.
“They’re just documents,” Schmitt told The Epoch Times. “They don’t prove anything. We need to stop dancing around the idea that we want to see the files or documents. … I want to hold a piece of the hardware. I want to see a tissue sample. Take me to where you’re preserving the bodies after all these years.”
“That’s what this should come down to,” Schmitt said. “Otherwise this is just song and dance.”
Schmitt, a seven-time best-selling author whose first book was made into the made-for-TV movie “Roswell,” serves as lead investigator for the International UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico. He has spent decades researching the alleged crash of a UFO about 75 miles north of the rural southeastern town in 1947.
At the peak of the independent investigations into the Roswell incident, Schmitt said they had 150 eyewitnesses for government officials to interview, but no one was interested in talking with them, he said.
“We have 30 deathbed confessions. They’re not interested,” Schmitt said about the government investigators.
He said he hoped he was wrong about the upcoming release of information, but it seemed to be generating a lot of confusion.
“I’m always cautious of people who speak as though they have any answers or they refer to themselves as experts, especially on this topic,” he added. “I can’t emphasize enough, there is no such thing as an expert on UFOs.
“The mystery continues.”
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told reporters Feb. 23 he was already working on getting the documents in order.
“We’ve got our people working on it right now,” Hegseth said. “We’re digging in. We’re going to be in full compliance to be able to provide that for the president.”
Hegseth didn’t have a time frame for when he would be able to provide the documents. He didn’t say whether he believed aliens existed, but Vice President JD Vance weighed in on his thoughts about the unknown beings in an interview with conservative political commentator Benny Johnson on March 27.
“When I came in, I was obsessed with the UFO files,” Vance said. “I have not been able to spend enough time on this to fully understand it. I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”
Vance elaborated on his beliefs about extraterrestrial beings.
“I don’t think they’re aliens,” Vance said. “I think they’re demons anyway, but that’s a long discussion.”
Senate Bill Wants Commercial Reactors On Federal Land
Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Dave McCormick (R-PA) introduced the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Deployment Act (NEIDA) on April 14th, presenting what could be one of the most significant regulatory shifts for U.S. nuclear power in decades.
The legislation would expand the DOE’s authority to license and regulate commercial reactors and fuel-cycle facilities when sited on federal land or built for federal purposes, including electricity supplied to federal power marketing agencies.
The United States should lead the nuclear energy renaissance, not watch it from the sidelines.
It would also create a permanent Nuclear Energy Launch Pad program to streamline demonstration projects on DOE and National Lab sites, with a built-in path to commercial operations under DOE oversight rather than the traditional NRC bottleneck.
Under current rules, even projects on federal property like Idaho National Laboratory (INL) typically require full NRC licensing if they want to be used for commercial purposes. NEIDA flips that script. Commercial reactors and related fuel facilities on qualifying federal sites could operate under DOE authority, complete with Price-Anderson liability protections.
The bill also repurposessurplus plutonium as reactor fuel through a milestone-driven program, turning a liability into domestic supply while federal power marketing administrations gain explicit authority to purchase and transmit nuclear-generated electricity.
The centerpiece is the Nuclear Energy Launch Pad, which would designate secure federal zones (primarily on DOE and National Lab land) for private companies to test and demonstrate advanced nuclear technologies. Private entities pay the bill, but gain infrastructure support and regulatory certainty. After demonstration, projects could transition seamlessly to commercial operation under DOE licensing.
As we have covered in recent reporting on surging nuclear interest, this framework directly addresses the “valley of death” between pilot and full deployment that has stalled U.S. progress while China and Russia build out capacity at pace.
Take Oklo’s Aurora powerhouse already under construction at INL. The company received DOE approval for its Nuclear Safety Design Agreement (NSDA) in March 2026 under the existing Reactor Pilot Program. If NEIDA made that pathway permanent and explicit, Oklo could complete testing and iteration under DOE oversight, then secure a commercial operations license directly from the agency without restarting with the NRC. The shift would provide exactly the certainty developers have long sought.
The bill could also create a natural bridge to the Genesis Mission, DOE’s flagship AI and energy-dominance initiative. Genesis is already pushing co-location of data centers on federal land with advanced nuclear power to meet exploding AI-driven power demand. Under NEIDA, reactors licensed and operated by DOE on those same sites could enter straightforward commercial offtake agreements to supply Genesis-linked data centers.
The Launch Pad’s streamlined DOE process, combined with existing experience, could compress timelines dramatically. Consider an AP1000 reactor announced for a federal site: from initial filing to full commercial license, the bill’s framework suggests a matter of months rather than the multi-year NRC odyssey that has become standard.
If enacted, NEIDA does not overhaul the entire NRC system. It would simply carve out a fast lane on federal real estate. In an era of record electricity demand from AI and manufacturing, that lane may prove decisive.
The Trump administration confirmed on April 17 that it was working with the FBI to investigate the mysterious deaths and disappearances of ten U.S. scientists and government employees who had access to nuclear or aerospace material.
“In light of the recent and legitimate questions about these troubling cases, and President [Donald] Trump’s commitment to the truth, the White House is actively working with all relevant agencies and the FBI to holistically review all of the cases together and identify any potential commonalities that may exist,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a post on X Friday afternoon.
The scientists and employees who worked on highly classified projects started vanishing or dying in recent years.
“No stone will be unturned in this effort, and the White House will provide updates when we have them,” Leavitt said.
The confirmation from Leavitt happened one day after Trump said the White House would look into whether the cases are connected.
“I hope it’s random, but we’re going to know in the next week and a half,” Trump told reporters on April 16, adding “I just left a meeting on that subject.”
One of the missing people included retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William “Neil” McCasland, who vanished on Feb. 27, according to the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office in New Mexico.
The 68-year-old previously served as the head of research at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which conspiracy theories allege was tied to Roswell’s UFO incident in 1947.
He also worked at the Pentagon as the director, space acquisition in the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force and then as director of special programs, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics.
McCasland’s wife reported that she saw him interacting with a repairman around 10:00 a.m., she went to a medical appointment at 11:10, and he was gone when she returned just after noon.
The Albuquerque-area resident did not take his phone, prescription glasses, and wearable devices, but investigators did discover that the household was missing his hiking boots, wallet, and a .38 caliber revolver with a leather holster.
Another missing person included Monica Reza Jacinto, a rocket scientist who had worked with McCasland.
Jacinto was last seen hiking on June 22, 2025, in the Angeles National Forest.
Another one of the cases that is being questioned was the shooting of California Institute of Technology astrophysicist Carl Grillmair.
The astrophysicist, who worked on missions related to the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, was shot and killed outside of his home on Feb. 16, 2026.
The Trump administration renewed a key sanctions waiver on April 17, allowing countries to purchase Russian oil stranded at sea, responding to urgent pressure from Asian nations battered by skyrocketing energy costs.
The move also reverses a position Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had stated two days earlier.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued General License 134B on Friday, authorizing transactions tied to Russian crude and petroleum products loaded onto vessels as of that date.
The waiver runs through May 16 and replaces a previous license that expired on April 11.
The move comes after Bessent told reporters on Wednesday the administration would not extend the earlier waiver, signaling what appeared to be a firmer stance on Russian energy exports.
“As negotiations [with Iran] accelerate, Treasury wants to ensure oil is available to those who need it,” a Treasury spokesperson said.
The Russia-related license waiver excludes transactions to Iran, Cuba, and North Korea.
Global oil prices tumbled 9 percent on Friday to about $90 a barrel after Iran temporarily reopened the Strait of Hormuz, an oil choke point in the Gulf.
Trump also discussed oil on a call on Tuesday with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a major purchaser of Russian crude.
The ongoing war in Iran has cost New Delhi access to approximately 3 million barrels per day that previously transited the Strait of Hormuz.
The war, which enters its eighth week on Saturday, has damaged more than 80 oil and gas facilities in the Middle East, and Tehran has warned it could close the strait again if the recent U.S. Navy blockade of Iranian ports continues.
Just before Friday’s reversal, the Treasury had declared it was moving aggressively to maintain “maximum pressure” on Iran under its “Economic Fury” campaign, and would not renew a separate waiver on Iranian oil sales.
The juxtaposition of tightening Iranian sanctions while loosening Russian oil relief underscores the competing pressures bearing on the administration’s energy policy.
Friday’s decision follows a series of energy-related policy adjustments Washington has made since U.S.–Israeli military operations against Iran began in late February.
On March 6, Bessent said the United States may consider easing sanctions on more Russian oil after granting India a 30-day waiver to purchase Russian crude.
Days later, on March 9, Trump said Washington would waive oil-related sanctions on some countries.
“We’re looking to keep the oil prices down,” he said during a press conference in Miami, adding that prices had risen artificially due to the conflict.
On March 18, the Treasury eased sanctions on Venezuela’s state-owned oil and gas company, allowing U.S. companies to do business with the firm amid tightening oil supplies during the Iran war. The following day, Bessent said the United States may lift sanctions on Iranian oil currently in transit to bolster supply and stabilize energy prices. An Iranian oil waiver, issued March 20, ultimately allowed some 140 million barrels to reach global markets.
Dramatic Audio: Indian Tanker Was Given Permission Before Being Fired On By IRGC, Delhi Summons Ambassador
India has summoned the Iranian ambassador in New Delhi in a rare moment of inter-BRICS discord after its tanker was attacked earlier Saturday while trying to traverse the Strait of Hormuz, which has been closed once again.
“During the meeting, the Foreign Secretary conveyed India’s deep concern at the shooting incident earlier today involving two Indian-flagged ships in the Strait of Hormuz,” the statement from India said. The full statement, which is still somewhat tame in its rhetoric in light of the fact that what the Indian vessel thought was an “approved” transit came under direct attack:
The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) reports that a tanker was “approached by 2 IRGC gunboats, with no VHF challenge, and then fired upon.”
The official Indian government statement continues: “He noted the importance that India attached to the safety of merchant shipping and mariners and recalled that Iran had earlier facilitated the safe passage of several ships bound for India.”
It adds, “Reiterating his concern at this serious incident of firing on merchant ships, the Foreign Secretary urged the Ambassador to convey India’s views to the authorities in Iran and resume at the earliest the process of facilitating India-bound ships across the Strait.”
The ship has since been identified as the SANMAR HERALD:
It is likely that the tanker in involved is the Indian-flagged VLCC Sanmar Herald (IMO 9330563) which as changed its name to INDIANSHIPINDIANCREW on AIS. In a recording of a purported VHF radio message circulating in the industry a crew member says it is the Sanmar Herald and “you gave me clearance to go, you are firing now, let me turn back”.
An AIS track for the tanker from Pole Star Global also matches the timing and location given in the UKMTO warning.
Clearly the audio, released by TankerTrackers, strongly suggests the captain and crew had prior permission from Tehran/IRGC authorities, which the dramatic exchange demonstrates:
Audio of the Indian oil tanker Sanmar Herald pleading with Iranian forces to stop shooting at it in the Strait of Hormuz this morning. pic.twitter.com/7Y5n7Jb7o0
According to two Channel 16 audio recordings captured today, two Indian vessels were forced back west out of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran’s Sepah (IRGC) Navy. Firing was involved. One of the vessels is an Indian-flagged VLCC supertanker carrying 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil.… pic.twitter.com/c1uOvmKDNO
— TankerTrackers.com, Inc. (@TankerTrackers) April 18, 2026
A second Indian-flagged vessel seems to have been subject to inbound projectiles. More from the first Indian tanker’s audio exchange with the Iranian side:
Captain in dramatic audio: “You gave me clearance to go… you are firing now!”
Meanwhile, President Trump reacted at the White House on Saturday: “We’re talking to them. They wanted to close up the strait again — you know, as they’ve been doing for years — and they can’t blackmail us.”
Subsequently there are reports that the US Navy could begin intercepting and boarding Iran-linked vessels anywhere in the world, as Washington tries to reassert leverage over the dicey Hormuz Strait situation.
American Airlines Shuts Down United Merger Talk As Wells Fargo Signals Another Possible Tie-Up
Certainly this past week saw several key stories in the aviation world.
First came the story that Spirit Airlines could be liquidated at any moment, only to be followed later in the week by reports that the budget carrier had asked the Trump administration for an emergency bailout.
Then, of course, came the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz late in the week, which sent jet fuel prices in New York sharply lower and airline stocks soaring…
It now appears that American Airlines has rejected United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby’s idea to merge the two carriers. Kirby recently pitched President Trump on the tie-up.
American told The New York Times in a statement that it was “not engaged with or interested” in the merger idea pitched by CEO Kirby.
“While changes in the broader airline marketplace may be necessary, a combination with United would be negative for competition and for consumers, and therefore inconsistent with our understanding of the administration’s philosophy toward the industry and principles of antitrust law,” American said, adding, “Our focus will remain on executing on our strategic objectives and positioning American to win for the long term.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters earlier this week that the merger was “not something the president or the White House has an opinion on or is weighing in on at this time.”
Wells Fargo analyst Christian Wetherbee told clients that the American-United merger was unlikely, but on his radar was “an opportunity for United and Delta.”
“This idea furthers our belief that the fuel shock presents an opportunity for United and Delta to emerge better positioned, potentially suggesting upside to out-year estimates,” Wetherbee said.
He noted a potential merger between United and American could be too large, as the combined carrier would control around 40% of domestic capacity without divestitures.
As an alternative, Wetherbee suggested JetBlue could emerge as a smaller, more realistic target if American rejected United, giving United valuable assets in New York and Florida with less regulatory fallout.
Some analysts have already described the airline industry as highly consolidated and a classic oligopoly.
On our radar next week: Spirit’s meeting with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, along with the carrier’s uncertain fate as creditors could pull the plug at any moment. Attention will also shift to United and whether, after being rejected by American, it makes a move toward Delta. Meanwhile, jet fuel prices in New York are plunging, a welcome development for airlines after four weeks of soaring prices that led some carriers to hike bag fees and ticket prices to offset fuel costs.
New ultra-precise measurements have confirmed the cosmos is expanding faster than models based on the early universe predict, while a separate study has dramatically shortened estimates of how long the universe itself will last.
Astronomers have long observed a mismatch in the universe’s expansion rate depending on how it is measured. Local observations of nearby galaxies point to a faster rate, while data from the early universe, such as the cosmic microwave background, suggest a slower pace. This longstanding puzzle is known as the Hubble tension.
A major international collaboration, the H0 Distance Network (H0DN), has now produced one of the most accurate local measurements yet. The team combined decades of independent distance measurements—including observations of red giant stars, Type Ia supernovae, and different galaxy types—into a unified “Local Distance Network.” Their result: the Hubble constant stands at 73.50 ± 0.81 kilometers per second per megaparsec, with precision just over 1 percent.
James Webb just uncovered a serious problem with our understanding of the universe.
New data from the James Webb Space Telescope confirms a major discrepancy in the universe’s expansion rate, suggesting our current understanding of physics may be fundamentally incomplete.
“This isn’t just a new value of the Hubble constant,” the collaboration notes, “it’s a community-built framework that brings decades of independent distance measurements together, transparently and accessibly.”
The findings, published April 10, 2026, in Astronomy & Astrophysics, strengthen the case that the discrepancy is not due to a simple measurement error.
“This work effectively rules out explanations of the Hubble tension that rely on a single overlooked error in local distance measurements,” the authors conclude. “If the tension is real, as the growing body of evidence suggests, it may point to new physics beyond the standard cosmological model.”
Dr Kathy Romer of the Dark Energy Survey commented, “The universe is not only expanding, but it is expanding faster and faster as time goes by.” She added, “What we’d expect is that the expansion would get slower and slower as time goes by, because it has been nearly 14 billion years since the Big Bang.”
Dark Energy May Be Weakening
Separate research using the largest-ever 3D map of the universe from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) has produced hints that dark energy—the force accelerating cosmic expansion—might not be constant but could be weakening over time.
The DESI team mapped nearly 15 million galaxies and quasars. When combined with cosmic microwave background data and supernova observations, the results fit better with an evolving dark energy model than the standard assumption of a fixed force.
Dr Willem Elbers, a researcher from the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University, said: “For decades, we have relied on a standard model of the universe, but our new data suggests that dark energy might be evolving over time. If this is true, it will change everything we thought we knew about the cosmos.”
Professor Will Percival, co-spokesperson for DESI and an astronomer from the University of Waterloo, added: “We’re guided by Occam’s razor, and the simplest explanation for what we see is shifting. It’s looking more and more like we may need to modify our standard model of cosmology to make these different datasets make sense together—and evolving dark energy seems promising.”
Dr Andrei Cuceu, a researcher at Berkeley Lab who worked on the study, noted: “We’re in the business of letting the universe tell us how it works, and maybe the universe is telling us it’s more complicated than we thought it was.”
Paul Steinhardt, Director of the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science, observed that if dark energy becomes weak enough, scientists say the universe could be pulled together into a Big Crunch “remarkably quickly.”
UNIVERSE MAY END IN BIG CRUNCH
New data suggests dark energy is weakening, letting gravity eventually collapse the universe.
Expansion will reverse billions of years from now, ending everything in a single point.
A related theoretical model led by physicist Henry Tye from Cornell University and collaborators from China and Spain explores one possible scenario. Their calculations suggest the universe has a total lifespan of about 33.3 billion years. With 13.8 billion years already passed, roughly 19.5 billion years would remain. In this model, expansion continues for another 11 billion years before slowing, stopping, and reversing into collapse.
New research suggests our universe might not expand forever as we once thought. Instead, it could eventually collapse in on itself in a “reverse Big Bang,” a scenario scientists call the Big Crunch.
For years, astronomers believed the universe would keep growing, driven by a… pic.twitter.com/Fk8wx9Nvbw
These independent lines of inquiry highlight ongoing gaps in our understanding of the universe’s expansion rate and the behavior of dark energy. Future observations from next-generation telescopes are expected to test whether new physics is required to reconcile the data.
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Over $73 million in federal highway funds are being withheld from New York state after an audit found more than half the state’s commercial drivers licenses (CDL) were issued to foreigners illegally.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced yesterday that the state failed to revoke “illegally issued nondomiciled commercial learner’s permits and commercial driver’s licenses.”
According to a December press release from the U.S. Dept. of Transportation, a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) nationwide audit of non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) uncovered a shocking 53 percent failure rate in the records sampled, indicating serious problems in New York’s CDL program.
Among the failures documented were New York DMV systems defaulting to issuing eight-year licenses to foreign drivers for non-REAL ID licenses, regardless of when their legal status expired, and the state issuing commercial licenses to foreign drivers without providing any evidence that it had verified their current lawful presence in the United States.
Just the News reports that Derek Barrs, administrator of the motor carrier administration, stated, “FMCSA’s mission is safety. That means ensuring that every commercial driver on the road is properly vetted and qualified. New York’s continued refusal to fix these failures undermines that mission, and we will not allow federal dollars to support a system that falls short of the law.”
Duffy told Fox News that the Dept. of Transportation has documented licenses and permits being issued to commercial truck drivers who are unskilled, putting American families at risk.
In December, Duffy gave the state of New York 30 days to get in compliance, warning state officials that, “When more than half of the licenses reviewed were issued illegally, it isn’t just a mistake—it is a dereliction of duty by state leadership. Gov. Hochul must immediately revoke these illegally issued licenses.”
Just the News reports that with the forfeiture of nearly $74 million in funding, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration is losing 4 percent of its National Highway Performance Program and Surface Transportation Program Block Grant Funds.
Duffy, in a post on X, posed the question of whether pulling federal funding from non-compliant states worked before responding, “Just ask Gavin Newsom,” referring to how California revoked more than 17,000 licenses issued to undocumented people after the DOT pulled over $160 million in federal funding from the state.
Former AI SPAC Executives Indicted For Fabricating “Virtually All” Revenue And Customers
What looked like a booming AI company was, prosecutors say, an audacious house of cards built on deception.
iLearningEngines (former stock symbol AILE) executives allegedly fabricated virtually every pillar of their business—customers, revenues, and contracts—to cash in on the AI hype and dupe both everyday investors and major institutions.
The scheme involved creating entire fake client ecosystems: shell companies with polished websites, insiders or relatives posing as corporate executives, and bogus multimillion-dollar agreements designed to withstand scrutiny, according to a DOJ press release. As U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella put it, the company’s pitch of AI innovation masked something far more fraudulent: “the truly artificial part of the defendants’ story was iLearning’s customers and revenues.”
The scale of the alleged deception was staggering. The company reported soaring growth—claiming revenues that reached hundreds of millions—while prosecutors say those figures were largely invented. According to the indictment, executives inflated results through an “intricate web of sham contracts,” many supposedly worth tens of millions annually, all designed to convince investors the business was thriving.
In reality, the operation functioned less like a tech company and more like a carefully staged illusion meant to unlock funding and drive up valuation.
Behind the scenes, the mechanics of the fraud were brazen. Prosecutors say executives orchestrated “round-trip” transactions exceeding $144 million, secretly funneling investor and lender funds through fake customer accounts and then back into the company to simulate real revenue.
According to the DOJ press release, associates even opened bank accounts in the names of nonexistent clients to keep the money moving and the illusion alive. This circular flow of cash allowed the company to falsely appear profitable while relying entirely on outside funding.
When scrutiny finally intensified, the alleged response was not to come clean—but to double down. Executives allegedly lied repeatedly to auditors, investors, and lenders, and even coached others to back up the false story. “Our Office is committed to protecting investors and holding accountable corporate executives who undermine the integrity of our financial markets for personal gain,” Nocella said.
The scheme ultimately unraveled after a critical report by Hindenburg Research triggered a stock collapse, erasing massive value and pushing the company into bankruptcy—by which point insiders had already walked away with millions, leaving investors with devastating losses.
Back in 2024, Hindenburg Research alleged that the artificial intelligence company had “artificial partners and artificial revenue”. The firm headed by Nathan Anderson said that iLearningEngines “was borderline insolvent when it merged with a desperate SPAC sponsor that was quickly running out of time to get a deal done.”
The report focuses on an unnamed “Technology Partner” crucial to AILE’s business, stating “nearly all of company’s revenue and expenses (~96% of revenue and ~100% of CoGs in 2022) seem to be run through an undisclosed related party, an unnamed ‘Technology Partner’.”
The company then told the SEC the technology partner was not a related party in a comment letter, Hindenburg says. It alleges that it “unmasked” the partner to be a related party…one which, at one point, shared a listed address with AILE’s CEO’s home residence.
“We believe the majority of iLearningEngines’ revenue doesn’t exist, and that its relationship with the mystery ‘Technology Partner’ is merely a conduit for falsifying its financials. We do not expect it will remain a public company for long,” the short seller wrote.
Hindenburg published the AILE report the same week it wrote on Super Micro Computer, which saw its co-founder arrested last month. It looks like even though the short seller is now defunct, its work is still having an impact.
