🧏‍♂️ Hands Over Ears

If I can’t hear you, I must be right.

A Free Lunch newsletter archive of June 5, 2026

Also available:🇫🇷 Édition française


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🇬🇧 United Kingdom
🇺🇸 United States

Good morning!

The 2026 war with Iran began on 28 February with American and Israeli air strikes, no congressional vote, and a justification that came down to the President’s own conviction and his own will. Sixty days in, with the War Powers clock expired, the Trump administration told Congress the clock had simply stopped, citing the April ceasefire. That the US Navy is still running operations against shipping in the Strait of Hormuz is apparently beside the point. The conflict is over because the President says so. Susan Collins broke ranks; the rest of the Senate Republican caucus voted for a sixth time to keep its hands behind its back.

Two weeks into the war, on 14 March, Jürgen Habermas died at 96. He spent six decades arguing that legitimate political power flowed from rational debate among free citizens, what he called the public sphere. The thesis was elegant, German, and almost exactly wrong about what was coming. Two weeks before he died, the President of the United States launched a regional war without speaking to a single member of his own legislature, then justified it by appeal to nothing but himself, in a register that would have struck Louis XIV as arch. The philosopher who came of age in the Hitler Youth lived just long enough to watch an American president articulate, in full sentences, the principle that he answered only to himself.

Outside Washington, a parallel infrastructure for not arguing has been quietly assembled. Meta scrapped its third-party fact-checking programme in January 2025 and replaced it with Community Notes; on the eve of the rollout, Mark Zuckerberg wrote a $1M cheque to the Trump inaugural fund and promoted Joel Kaplan to global policy chief, in case anyone missed the choreography. Of the notes proposed on misleading posts, fewer than one in ten ever clear the bar to appear at all. The mechanism is theatrical: a process so slow and consensus-bound that the lie has booked its return ticket before the fact reaches the gate. Markets, which rather like rational price discovery in theory, now move on Truth Social posts at three in the morning and adjust to deportation videos before inflation prints.

In a late essay, in November 2025, Habermas called the dismantling of American liberal democracy « barely reversible ». It was the sort of judgement an old man earns the right to make. He had been, at 16, a member of the Hitler Youth; his father a Nazi party member; he understood precisely what the absence of public reason looks like once it is allowed to express itself in policy. The era he theorised, in which legitimacy required argument and argument required listening, has yielded to one in which the quiet part is the loud part and the loud part runs the Pentagon. That is hard to find funny.

🧏‍♂️ Hands Over Ears

🗞️ Top Story

  • 🇬🇧 X Marks the Spot. Keir Starmer accuses Elon Musk of stoking division over Henry Nowak’s murder, warning that Britain does not need imported outrage from tech billionaires. (BBC)
  • 🇩🇪 Seat Out. Despite being a top UN funder, Germany was denied its expected Security Council seat as Portugal and Austria took both Western Europe spots. (Le Monde)
  • 🇸🇪 Poll Position. Sweden’s center-left opposition is projected to win September’s election with 55.2% support, leaving the right-wing government trailing by more than 10 points. (Boursier)
  • 🇷🇴 Renew Deal. Romanian President Nicusor Dan appoints pro-EU MEP Eugen Tomac as Prime Minister after parliament collapsed into deadlock, promising a technocratic government to steer the country westward. (France Info)
  • 🇭🇺 Pride and Prejudice. Hungarian prosecutors drop charges against Budapest mayor Gergely Karacsony for defying Orban’s ban and holding the 2025 Pride march, citing EU court rulings on LGBT rights. (Le Monde)
  • 🇷🇺 Power Outage. Open criticism of Vladimir Putin is emerging from within Russia’s own ranks, signaling rare fractures in his authority. (Spiegel)
  • 🇦🇲 Flower Power Play. Russia bans Armenian flower imports and threatens more trade pain, hoping to sway Armenia’s June 7 elections away from EU-friendly Prime Minister Pashinyan. (Le Monde)
  • 🇺🇸 Castro on Ice. The has slapped new sanctions on Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and several Castro family members, freezing assets and escalating tensions with Havana. (France Info)
  • 🇺🇸 Patriot Games. Donald Trump blasts Congress for passing a resolution to end involvement in the Iran war, calling the move « antipatriotic » and a threat to his negotiating leverage. (Le Figaro)
  • 🇺🇸 File and Error. John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, plans to plead guilty to mishandling classified documents and will pay over $2M to avoid jail time. (Die Zeit)
  • 🇮🇱 Drone Alone. Hezbollah’s fiber-optic drones are slipping past Israeli electronic defenses and striking military targets, exposing gaps in Israel’s much-touted security and forcing a scramble for new countermeasures. (New York Times)
  • 🇮🇷 War Bonds. Instead of weakening Iran, the latest US-Israeli offensive has tightened the regime’s grip, rallying elites and silencing dissent just as in the 1980s. (Le Monde)
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
  • 🇬🇧 Burn Notice. Andy Burnham says he will seek to enter any Labour leadership contest if he wins the Makerfield by-election, putting Starmer’s job on the line before the polls even open. (BBC)
  • 🇬🇧 Red Wall, Blue Mood. A Burnham defeat in Makerfield would force Labour to rethink its core voters, dropping the old heartlands for a progressive urban base. (Financial Times)
🇺🇸 United States
  • 🇺🇸 Mail Storm. As California’s mail-in ballots stretch the count, Trump’s unfounded fraud claims return, casting shadows over the state’s pivotal November role. (New York Times)
  • 🇺🇸 Friends With Benefits. GOP senators protected Trump’s plan for a $1.8B fund to pay political allies, defeating a Democratic motion to prohibit it by a single vote. (New York Times)

🏛️ Economy

  • 🇪🇺 Power Struggle. Energy transition funds in Europe lost $17B since 2024, and even Middle East turmoil failed to reverse the investor exodus. (Le Monde)
  • 🇪🇺 Basel Fawlty. The European Commission delays the Basel III market risk rules for banks by three years, preferring to watch the US and UK make the first move. (Boursier)
  • 🇪🇺 Till Chill. Eurostat reports eurozone retail sales slid by 0.4% in April, disappointing analysts who expected a smaller dip and highlighting persistent consumer caution. (Boursier)
  • 🇪🇺 Independence Day. Brussels launches the Tech Sovereignty Package, promising to reduce Europe’s dependence on US tech giants and reclaim control over the region’s digital future. (Sifted)
  • 🇺🇸 Coal War. Donald Trump invokes wartime powers to direct $700M in federal funds to coal plants and mines, promising jobs and lower energy bills as prices soar after the Iran conflict. (BBC)
  • 🇺🇸 Word Control. The flexes its financial muscle at the OECD, demanding banned phrases and policy changes in exchange for continued support. (Les Echos)
  • 🌍 Rate Expectations. Fitch Ratings lowered its global growth forecast to 2.4% for 2024, blaming higher oil prices and supply disruptions from the US-Iran conflict. (Wall Street Journal)
  • 🌍 Rich List Rising. The number of millionaires worldwide jumped 7.9% in 2025, with their combined wealth hitting a record $98.3T according to Capgemini’s latest report. (Boursier)
  • 🌍 Stayin’ Put. Capgemini finds that just 25% of the world’s rich are relocating or planning to move for tax reasons, down from 56% last year. (Financial Times)
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
  • 🇬🇧 Greenlight Red. Lex Greensill has been banned from running UK companies for nine years after the £1.6B collapse of Greensill Capital, but insists there was no dishonesty. (The Guardian)
  • 🇬🇧 Watt’s Up. British car registrations jumped 7% in May, with Chinese brands BYD and Chery and Tesla’s 45% leap leading the electric surge. (The Guardian)
🇺🇸 United States
  • 🇺🇸 Crime Pays. Briefly. The Supreme Court confirmed the S.E.C. can seize unlawful gains from offenders like Ongkaruck Sripetch, even if victims’ losses are unproven. (New York Times)

🏢 Real Estate

  • 🇺🇸 Obamalisque. Barack Obama will inaugurate his $850M presidential center in Chicago on June 18, complete with a 69-meter granite obelisk, an Oval Office replica, and a restaurant serving the Obama Burger. The monument draws mixed reviews, with Trump calling it a « dump » and critics debating whether it inspires hope or just awe at the scale. (Le Temps)
  • 🇺🇸 Home Invasion. Jamshid Ghomi, CEO of Faraz Pardaz Rayaneh, is charged with funding his $35M California villa by illegally exporting tech to Iran in violation of sanctions. (Le Parisien)
  • 🇻🇳 Viet Glam. Hanoi’s Trang-Tien street, home to new Hermès, Dior, and Louis Vuitton boutiques, is transforming itself into Vietnam’s answer to Avenue Montaigne, with luxury brands and influencers flocking to the 400-meter strip. (Le Monde)
  • 🌍 Home Run. Africa’s wealthiest are pouring money into real estate, treating property as their safe haven while other assets look shaky. (Bloomberg)

🔗 On-chain

  • 🇺🇸 Hodl My Beer. Strategy 🇺🇸, famous for never selling bitcoin, offloaded $2.5M worth for the first time in years, sending BTC tumbling 14 percent this week and rattling crypto diehards. (Financial Times)
  • 🇺🇸 Block Shock. Bitcoin treasury firms in the saw $62B wiped out during the latest crypto plunge, leaving balance sheets lighter and nerves frayed. (Bloomberg)
  • 🇺🇸 Block Down. Bitcoin records its longest losing streak since last summer, with $4.4B in ETF outflows and bullish traders feeling the cold. (Boursier)
  • 🇺🇸 Future Proof. Kalshi is testing an advanced prediction market dashboard for elite traders, hoping to make event betting look a lot more like Wall Street. (Cnbc)
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
  • 🇬🇧 Bit Rich. Reform UK pulled in £7M from crypto billionaires Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne before new donation caps kicked in, leaving Labour and the Tories in the fundraising dust. (BBC)

💱 Listed Markets

  • 🇳🇱 Dutch Treat. Thales 🇫🇷 and Australia will supply upgraded Bushmaster vehicles to the Dutch Army, boosting European defense ties and Thales shares by 1.5%. (Boursier)
  • 🇺🇸 Chip Wreck. Nasdaq 100 futures slid after Broadcom 🇺🇸 issued a cautious forecast, sending traders scrambling for cover in a market allergic to surprises. (Bloomberg)
  • 🇺🇸 Royal Flush. Chris Davis warns that even so-called Dividend Aristocrats can face serious risk, reminding investors that blue-chip status is no guarantee of safety. (Bloomberg)
  • 🇺🇸 Guarded Optimism. CrowdStrike 🇺🇸 reported better-than-expected results on AI momentum, yet the market responded with a swift 10% selloff anyway. (Cnbc)
  • 🇺🇸 Network Effects. LinkedIn has embraced viral videos, influencers, and celebrity content, transforming from a digital résumé board into a full-fledged social platform with 1.3B users and $19B in annual revenue. (New York Times)
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
  • 🇬🇧 Prime Time. Amazon 🇺🇸 will roll out 30-minute deliveries in Manchester and Birmingham, adding same-day fruit and veg in London, because patience is so 2023. (The Guardian)
🇺🇸 United States
  • 🇺🇸 Reporting Lite. The SEC’s proposal to drop mandatory quarterly earnings reports for companies sparks investor outrage and a flood of critical comment letters. (Financial Times)
  • 🇺🇸 Window Dressing. Berkshire Hathaway revealed a $55M investment in Macy’s 🇺🇸, giving the struggling retailer a boost and raising eyebrows given Buffett’s past misadventures in the sector. (Wall Street Journal)

🛎️ Big Deals (M&A)

  • UniCredit 🇮🇹 increases its stake in Commerzbank 🇩🇪; holds 27% direct, ~16% via derivatives, reports 7.58% of shares tendered largely linked to UniCredit derivative counterparties, Commerzbank has informed BaFin.
  • EQT 🇸🇪 makes multiple unsolicited bids for Oxford BioMedica 🇬🇧; bids rejected and the target’s CEO says the company may consider private equity offers.
  • Mercuria 🇨🇭 acquires Raizen Argentina fuel assets 🇧🇷 for $1.4B, a deal for downstream fuel assets in Argentina.
  • LS Power 🇺🇸 is in advanced talks to acquire EDF 🇫🇷’s North American renewables business for €4B+, covering about 6.1 GW operational and 19.2 GW in development.
  • Brand Velocity Group 🇺🇸 (Eli Manning’s private equity firm) acquires RCX Sports 🇺🇸, the licensing and youth-sports operator for NFL Flag, Jr. NBA, Jr. WNBA, MLS GO, NHL Street and MLB Pitch Hit & Run.
  • Pershing Square 🇺🇸 seeks to sell ~80.6M shares in Universal Music Group 🇳🇱 via an accelerated overnight placement, offered at €17.66–€18.62/share, raising about €1.5B.
  • Cora Group 🇨🇦 acquires Finastra 🇬🇧’s US mid-market core banking portfolio (Phoenix Core Banking System, Malauzai Digital Banking, Enterprise Content Management and Analyzer IQ (excludes Essence); will operate as a standalone unit under incumbent chief Joe Gomez and serves hundreds of banks and credit unions).
  • Fuji Media 🇯🇵 sells its real estate unit 🇯🇵 amid $6.3B bids.
  • Turkish Airlines 🇹🇷 acquires Air Europa 🇪🇸 (obtient l’accord du gouvernement espagnol pour une participation minoritaire de 25–27%, finalisation prévue en 2026).

🧳 Private Markets & VC

  • 🇨🇭 Cash Out of Order. Partners Group 🇨🇭 will block further withdrawals from its US fund for the rich, after redemptions exceeded the 5% cap in just one quarter.
  • 🇺🇸 IPO Wars. The battle for blockbuster IPOs heats up as Goldman Sachs 🇺🇸 boosts its lobbying arsenal to edge out Morgan Stanley 🇺🇸. (Bloomberg)
  • 🇺🇸 Redemption Arc. Faced with $2.7B in withdrawal requests, Blackstone’s 🇺🇸 BCRED fund is limiting redemptions, reminding investors that exits are not always guaranteed. (Bloomberg)
  • 🇺🇸 Cash Idle. Private equity and debt funds in the are stuck with $632B in unspent capital, discovering that too much money can be just as paralyzing as too little. (Bloomberg)
  • 🇺🇸 Core Belief. Andrew Feldman, CEO of Cerebras Systems, explains his vision for scaling AI inference infrastructure and the business logic that drives it. (Bloomberg)
  • 🇺🇸 Star Power. SpaceX targets a $75B IPO next week, with Musk steering the company toward public markets using a playbook only he could invent. (Wall Street Journal)
  • 🇺🇸 AI in the Sky. SpaceX and Goldman Sachs are betting on a 100-fold revenue leap for SpaceX’s AI arm by 2030, aiming for a $1.78T valuation that would make even Musk blush. (Financial Times)
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
  • 🇬🇧 Artificial Indecency. Jess Asato, Labour MP, has launched a lawsuit against Elon Musk’s xAI after Grok produced non-consensual sexualised photos of her, spotlighting AI’s darker side. (The Guardian)
🇺🇸 United States
  • 🇺🇸 Current Affairs. EnergyX and Wildcat Discovery Technologies plan a Texas cathode plant, aiming to boost battery supply chains and reduce reliance on Chinese imports. (Financial Times)

Fundraising

  • Ramp 🇺🇸 (Fintech): $750M (ICONIQ, GIC, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Goldman Sachs Alternatives, D.E. Shaw & Co., Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Generation Investment Management, Insight Partners, BroadLight Capital, Founders Fund, Lightspeed Venture Partners, D1 Capital Partners, T. Rowe Price, General Catalyst, Alpha Wave Global, 137 Ventures, Thrive Capital, Coatue, Sands Capital, Khosla Ventures, 1789 Capital, Avenir Growth, BoxGroup, 8VC, Pinegrove Venture Partners, Definition Capital, Stripes)
  • Supabase 🇺🇸 (Developer platform): $500M (GIC, Accel, Y Combinator, Craft, Felicis, Peak XV, Coatue, Stripe, Salesforce Ventures)
  • Impulse Space 🇺🇸 (Space): $500M (137 Ventures, Banner VC, Founder’s Fund, Lux Capital, Linse Capital)
  • Helion 🇺🇸 (Fusion): $465M (Thrive Capital, Alta Park Capital, Anti Fund, BoxGroup, Lux Capital, Peak XV Partners, Bill Ford, Capricorn Technology Impact Funds, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mithril Capital, Good Ventures Foundation, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, a university endowment fund)
  • Tishman Speyer 🇺🇸 (Real Estate): $300M (APG Asset Management N.V., Bouwinvest)
  • Tripo AI 🇺🇸 (AI 3D): nearly $200M
  • CereVasc, Inc. 🇺🇸 (Medtech): $85M (Piper Sandler Merchant Banking, Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc., Medtronic, Bain Capital Life Sciences, Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Funds)
  • Forage 🇺🇸 (Fintech): $40M (Mouro Capital, Nyca Partners, PayPal Ventures, Long Journey Ventures, Intuit Ventures, NextLadder Ventures, Pivotal Ventures, FJ Labs)
  • Honeycomb Insurance 🇺🇸 (Insurance): $40M (Zeev Ventures, Ibex Investors, Peakline, Alpha Partners, Meitar Partners, Practical VC, Harris Barton)
  • Lassie 🇺🇸 (AI): $35M (Andreessen Horowitz, Night Capital, Rahul Vohra, Zach Perret, Taavet Hinrikus, Gokul Rajaram, Brian Balfour)
  • Innovorder 🇫🇷 (Foodtech): €20M (UL Invest, Evolem)
  • Scotch 🇺🇸 (Retail): $20M (VMG Partners, First Round Capital, Lerer Hippeau, Toba Capital)
  • Novellia 🇺🇸 (Healthcare): $18M (Spark Capital, Khosla Ventures, Acrew Capital, Bling Capital, TMV)
  • Arpio 🇺🇸 (Cybersecurity): $15M (S3 Ventures, Paladin Capital Group, Draper Associates, Uncorrelated, Valor Ventures, CreativeCo Capital, Lookout Ventures)
  • Aveni 🇬🇧 (Fintech): £12M (PXN Ventures, Puma Growth Partners, Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide, Scottish Enterprise)
  • 701x 🇺🇸 (Agritech): $10M
  • Scispot 🇨🇦 (Life sciences): $8M
  • Willow 🇮🇱 (Cybersecurity): $7M (Hetz Ventures, Avishai Abrahami, Nir Zohar)
  • Kodesage 🇭🇺 (Enterprise software): $6.6M (VentureFriends, Mario Götze, Christian Szegedy)
  • HLRBO 🇺🇸 (Marketplace): $2.5M (Mairs & Power Venture Capital, individual and angel investors)
  • ARTAN Bio 🇺🇸 (Biotech): $200K

🔔IPO

  • Quantinuum 🇺🇸 (Quantum): raised $1.68B in an upsized IPO, valuing the company at about $15.7B.
  • Liftoff 🇺🇸 (Adtech): rose 9.1% after a $437M IPO.
  • Sunshine Silver Mining 🇺🇸 (Mining): priced a IPO at $270M and jumped 11% on its debut.

🧳 Debt

  • Schneider Electric 🇫🇷: plans to sell €800M in debt.
  • Technip Energies 🇫🇷: fixed price on €500M bonds due 2033 at 4%.
  • Scor SE 🇫🇷: accepted €378.1M in a buyback of subordinated bonds.
  • Freepoint Commodities 🇺🇸: closed a $2.3B revolving bank facility, expandable to $3.2B, and extended a $125M subordinated secured facility.
  • SensorUp 🇨🇦: raised growth financing led by Pender Ventures; amount not disclosed.

🎯 For a Few More Minutes…

  • 🇬🇧 Vax Machina. Scientists at the University of Cambridge used AI to create a « super-antigen » vaccine, now tested in humans, that could outpace viral mutations and stop pandemics before they start. (BBC)
  • 🇫🇷 Ink and Absence. Marjane Satrapi, creator of « Persepolis » and icon of the graphic memoir, has died at 56, just over a year after losing her husband. Her legacy is black and white, but her impact was never in grayscale. (Libé)
  • 🇺🇸 Ninja? Please. Despite being nicknamed « Ninja Turtles, » the real identity and purpose of these men descending into NYC’s sewers at night remain a total mystery. (Le Parisien)
  • 🇲🇽 No Boys Allowed. The Amazon molly, a fish species made up entirely of females, has survived 100,000 years by borrowing sperm from other species, then discarding the male DNA as soon as it gets what it needs. (Libé)
  • 🇨🇴 Shirt Happens. Presidential hopeful Abelardo De La Espriella turns Colombia’s beloved yellow soccer jersey into a partisan badge, sparking outrage and debate just as the World Cup approaches. (New York Times)

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