Chamath Palihapitiya has already drafted the next chapter in his charmed-life story.
The immigrant kid who bootstrapped his way into riches at Facebook Inc., made billions as a risk-hungry investor and became the pied piper of the current blank-check craze now envisions himself as nothing less than the Warren Buffett of the Reddit era.
“Nobody’s going to listen to Buffett,” Palihapitiya, the founder of Social Capital, said in a Bloomberg “Front Row” interview. “But there has to be other folks that take that mantle, take the baton and do it as well to this younger generation in the language they understand.”
The language, of course, is social media. That’s where the 44-year-old billionaire talks up his deals, trolls the establishment and hypes “all things Chamath.” Recently, he stoked speculation he might run for governor of California. Occasionally, he tweets out shirtless selfies to his 1.3 million followers. His feed is a digital stream of consciousness.
With Twitter as his bullhorn, Palihapitiya has become the undisputed king of special-purpose acquisition companies, the hottest thing on Wall Street. Together with Ian Osborne, a public-relations soothsayer turned financier, he has sponsored six SPACs, raised a total of $4.34 billion and acquired businesses in space travel, health insurance, financial services and real estate.
Lightning Rod
Along the way, Palihapitiya has made a fortune for himself and his investors, and helped whip up a frenzy that has everyone from Colin Kaepernick to former House Speaker Paul Ryan racing to market their own SPACs. He’s also a lightning rod for skeptics who pooh-pooh his success as the product of relentless self-promotion and see blank-check companies as proof of a bubble inflated by massive government money-printing.
If SPACs are emblematic of a speculative mania, then Palihapitiya is the face of that moment.
Palihapitiya said anything that popular will lure its share of copycats and wannabes, and inevitably many will fail. He’s confident his brand and investing acumen will not only make people rich, but help democratize finance and level the playing field for ordinary investors.
Plus, there’s that whole Buffett thing. He fancies growing his empire into a Berkshire Hathaway-esque conglomerate for the 21st century, complete with investor conference calls, an analyst day and its own must-attend annual meeting. All of which, in his vision, will generate enough wealth to shrink the inequality gap in America.
It’s pretty grandiose stuff.
“I do want to have a Berkshire-like instrument that is all things, you know, not to sound egotistical, but all things Chamath, all things Social Capital,” he said.
It was also Palihapitiya who took a leading role in the frenzy around so-called meme stocks, tweeting on Jan. 26 that he’d bought GameStop Corp. call options and helping fuel its short-lived surge. He exited the trade before GameStop crashed, making a $500,000 profit he donated to charity.
Palihapitiya then joined Reddit’s WallStreetBets crowd in bashing short-sellers and denounced Robinhood Markets, which temporarily limited purchases of meme stocks, as a “bunch of corporatist scumbags.”
He acknowledges such rhetoric isn’t exactly Buffett-like. But then again, perhaps that’s the point.
“Who I am is a byproduct of my generation and my media culture, which is faceted — not always great facets, but multifaceted,” he said. “You have to speak in the language of the times in order to get your point across.”
SPAC Boom
Palihapitiya’s bro-ish manner — cocksure and full of swagger — isn’t for everyone. It’s arguably what caused his venture-capital firm to implode in 2018. But his SPACs have delivered results, at least so far.
The first SPAC he raised with Osborne merged with Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic in 2019 and now trades at $59, up from the standard offering price of $10. His five others also are well above $10, including the two that haven’t announced acquisitions yet — a testament to investors’ confidence and also to the central-bank largess that has inflated risk assets globally.
Tell me what to buy tomorrow and if you convince me I’ll throw a few 100 k’s at it to start.
Ride or die.
— Chamath Palihapitiya (@chamath) January 26, 2021
