Since founding Fanatics in 2011, Michael Rubin has built the company from a small online retailer of sports merchandise and apparel into a massive global sports platform.

Not only is Fanatics by far the largest player in sports apparel, with deals with nearly every major league on the planet, but it also now has a substantial footprint in collectibles, sports betting, and prediction markets. The company is even launching its own branded credit card this year.

Fanatics’ wide net across sports and sports fandom came to life this week at the annual Fanatics Fest, the company’s effort to create a Comic Con-style event for sports fans that is now in its third year.

Rubin, speaking with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin at the CNBC Sport x Boardroom Game Plan Summit on Thursday, held alongside Fanatics Fest in New York City, said that the company expected more than 200,000 people to attend the event over its four-day run.

That is on top of the more than 150 million fans that are now customers of Fanatics somewhere across its various sports-focused businesses, whether that’s from buying a jersey, trading cards, or placing a bet.

Rubin, in an appearance on CNBC in May, said that the company will approach $14 billion in revenue this year. By comparison, the company had about $8 billion in total revenue in 2024, according to previous CNBC reporting.

“We believe we have probably the biggest opportunity in sports because it’s not like we’re in one specific business,” Rubin told Sorkin at Game Plan. “I think of us really as a platform that gives a digital sports fan everything they want.”

Fanatics, with its three revenue focuses of merchandise, collectibles, and betting and gaming, “should create the most important company in sports,” Rubin said. “We think that could be the most valuable company in sports.”

The company’s last public funding round was in December 2022, when it raised $700 million, valuing it at $31 billion. The company, which has made the CNBC Disruptor 50 list three times, has been rumored to be interested in going public in recent years, but Rubin said on CNBC last year that “There’s no rush to be a public company.”

But even with all of that success, Rubin told Sorkin at Game Plan that, “We think there are several opportunities to create new businesses that we’re not in, leveraging the relationships we have with customers, with sports properties, with the athletes.”

“We think there’s a lot of growth for us,” Rubin said. “I’d say a decade from now, I bet you we have a few businesses that are equally as important to the three that we have today.”

Rubin declined…

Michael Dell bought into President Donald Trump‘s second term early. Now his hardware company Dell Technologies is closing out its best month on Wall Street since its return to the public market in 2018.

Since Trump returned to the White House last year, Michael Dell attended the president’s Invest America Roundtable event in June 2025. In December, Trump introduced the computer executive and his wife, Susan Dell, as they announced a $6.25 billion gift for 25 million U.S. children’s Trump Accounts. This month, Trump advised Americans to “go out and buy a Dell.”

On Wednesday, the company was awarded a $9.7 billion contract by the Pentagon to provide a suite of software to the U.S. military. The award came after what the Pentagon said was a competitive process, though the deal is being questioned by some experts in government.

The Pentagon contract, given to Dell Federal Systems, a part of the company that focuses on government, has raised eyebrows as a potential payback for the Trump Accounts donation.

“It looks terrible is the short answer,” said Greg Williams, director of the Center for Defense Information, part of the Project on Government Oversight. “Very publicly courting contributions to all sorts of projects of the president’s has created the very strong interest that they are in the business of soliciting contributions of various kinds in exchange either for access to the president or for outcomes that he may be able to influence.”

The dynamic is emblematic of how business is seeking to sow favor with the president in his second term, and has departed from the norms of big business philanthropy and business entreaties to the White House.

“What’s new here is they’re not giving through an intermediary or through a nonprofit or some type of a mediating durable institution, which is typically how philanthropy works,” said Megan Tompkins-Stange, an associate professor at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy. “Instead, they are giving directly to this branded initiative with Trump’s name.”

Even before the Pentagon deal, Dell Technologies has soared in value, with its stock nearly tripling in the past year. The company is now worth over $200 billion.

Michael Dell, its chairman and CEO, was among the business leaders Trump turned to in 2017 at the start of his first term in office. In 2018, Dell Technologies debuted on the New York Stock Exchange through a reverse merger, five years after Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake took Dell Inc. private. Dell expanded in 2016 with the acquisition of data center equipment company EMC.

Trump bought $1 million to $5 million in Dell shares on Feb. 10, according to a government ethics filing. On that day, the stock closed at $126.01. He…

Michael Burry of “Big Short” fame is warning that the stock market’s fixation on artificial intelligence is beginning to resemble the final stages of the dot-com bubble.

“Absolutely non-stop AI. Nobody is talking about anything else all day,” Burry wrote Friday in a Substack post after listening to financial television and radio coverage during a long drive.

The investor, best known for predicting the U.S. housing crash, said stocks are no longer reacting meaningfully to economic data such as jobs reports or consumer sentiment in a logical way. The S&P 500 rose to a fresh record high Friday as traders focused on a slightly better-than-expected April’s jobs report rather than a record low reading in consumer sentiment.

“Stocks are not up or down because of jobs or consumer sentiment,” Burry wrote. “They are going straight up because they have been going straight up. On a two letter thesis that everyone thinks they understand. … Feeling like the last months of the 1999-2000 bubble.”

Burry compared the recent trajectory of the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) with the run-up that preceded the collapse of technology stocks in March 2000. The index is up more than 10% this week, pushing its 2026 gains to 65%.

The comments come as investors have poured into AI-linked shares over the past two years, helping propel major U.S. equity indexes to repeated record highs. Semiconductor companies and mega-cap technology firms tied to AI infrastructure and software have led the rally, with enthusiasm around generative AI fueling sharp gains in valuations.

Paul Tudor Jones has also drawn parallels between today’s AI-fueled rally and the period leading up to the dot-com bust, though he believes the bull market may still have further to run. Jones told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” this week the current environment feels similar to 1999 — roughly a year before technology shares peaked in early 2000 — and estimated the rally could continue for another year or two.

At the same time, Jones cautioned that the eventual correction could be dramatic if valuations continue to expand.

“Just imagine the stock market went up another 40%,” Jones said. “The stock market GDP is going to probably be good lord 300%, 350%. You just know that there’ll be some … breathtaking kind of corrections.”

Michael Burry is sticking with his bearish wager against Palantir Technologies, even after a public endorsement from President Donald Trump helped lift the stock.

The investor of the “Big Short” fame said in a Substack post Friday that he continues to hold long-dated put options on the artificial intelligence software firm. Burry said he started betting against the company in the fall of 2025 and has repeatedly rolled the position.

“I now own the June 17 2027 Strike Price 50 Puts and the Decembers 19, 2026 Strike Price 100 Puts. I am not selling these today,” Burry wrote.

Burry’s comments came after Trump praised Palantir in a Truth Social post on Friday, boosting the stock off its intraday lows. Still, the shares were on track for a roughly 13% weekly drop, bringing their 2026 losses to about 28%.

“Palantir Technologies (PLTR) has proven to have great warfighting capabilities and equipment,” Trump wrote. “Just ask our enemies!!!”

The famed investor said the stock has weakened since reaching a peak near $200 last year and remains “wildly overvalued.” While acknowledging the possibility of a near-term rally, Burry contended that the company’s fundamental value is less than half of what it’s worth now.

“Trump’s post rallied the stock after the stock had fallen 18% the last three days. The stock may catch a wind here. It has been selling off with software stocks. As mentioned, I continue to hold the puts, as I believe the fundamental value of this company is well under $50/share,” he said. Palantir traded around $127 per share on Friday.

Some view Palantir as a beneficiary of the Iran war due to the amount of business the software and services vendor has with the U.S. military and intelligence agencies.

During Trump’s second administration, the company has been securing new government contracts and deepening its work with the Pentagon, while CEO Alex Karp has maintained regular engagement with the administration despite earlier tensions.

Last year, Burry’s former hedge fund, Scion Asset Management, disclosed bearish positions against Palantir and AI darling Nvidia, which prompted a sharp reaction from Karp, who called Burry’s wagers “super weird” and “bats— crazy.”

Burry also revealed on Friday that he increased his bearish position on Nvidia.

“I added to my NVDA puts, this time buying the January 27 Strike 115 puts at 3.30. Implied Volatility is high, so I thought about shorting it outright,” he said. “Still, I like the maximum loss being limited, and time decay – also known as theta decay – won’t be significant until 2 months out. I would consider rolling before that if necessary.”

MINNEAPOLIS — Target customers will soon see changes on the retailer’s shelves, as the company tries to woo back shoppers during a turnaround effort that has started to catch Wall Street’s eye.

Among those shifts, Target will add more fresh and trendy groceries, a dedicated display for higher-end makeup and a larger array of merchandise for sports fans.

At the big-box retailer’s Minneapolis headquarters on Tuesday, Target’s merchandising leaders previewed the company’s ambitious plans to overhaul key categories, including home and apparel, which have posted year-over-year sales declines. The company held an investor meeting to share its holiday-quarter results and its turnaround strategy for this year, which hinges in part on regaining its reputation for stylish and unique items.

CEO Michael Fiddelke, a Target veteran who stepped into the top role on Feb. 1, told investors on Tuesday that the company is making changes that “don’t happen overnight.” But, he added, they include many tweaks that customers “will see and feel right away.”

“If I were to step back and draw a heat map of the entire store highlighting where we’re making changes this year, you’d see more change to what we sell and how we sell it than you’ve seen in a decade,” he said.

The success of Target’s merchandise makeover will help determine whether the company meets its sales and earnings outlook for the current year and whether it can reverse four consecutive quarters of declining customer traffic. The company’s revenue fell slightly in fiscal 2025 and has been stagnant for four years.

Target said Tuesday that it expects net sales for the current fiscal year to rise about 2% compared with the previous year and anticipates that sales will grow in every quarter of the year.

Wall Street had a positive early read on Target’s turnaround progress: The company’s stock climbed more than 6% on Tuesday, and was trading higher on Wednesday.

Here’s a closer look at Target’s merchandising changes:

Strategy CEO Michael Saylor brushed off concerns about the company’s credit risk if bitcoin continues to tumble.

In fact, Saylor said he plans to keep accumulating the cryptocurrency for the company every quarter.

“If bitcoin falls 90% for the next four years, we’ll refinance the debt,” the executive said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “We’ll just roll it forward.”

Asked whether he believed banks would continue to lend to the digital asset treasury firm if bitcoin collapses, Saylor said, “Yeah, because the volatility of bitcoin is such that it’s always going to be a value.”

Bitcoin was last trading at $68,970.45, down 9% over the past five days. It has retreated as investors broadly reassess its utility, with the token tumbling 15% to $60,062.00 on Thursday — its lowest level in roughly 16 months. At its trough, the crypto was down more than 50% from its record.

Strategy has more than $8 billion in total debt on its balance sheet, in part due to its issuance of convertible notes used to buy bitcoin.  

The executive also dismissed suggestions that Strategy would sell any of its digital asset holdings: “I expect we’ll be buying bitcoin every quarter forever,” Saylor said.

Strategy holds 714,644 bitcoins worth about $49 billion as of writing time, per its website. That makes it the largest corporate owner of the digital asset.

Saylor noted his firm has two-and-a-half years worth of cash on its balance sheet to cover dividends.

Strategy shed about 2% on Tuesday as bitcoin broke below $70,000 again. The stock has tumbled more than 40% over the past three months. 

Michael Burry, the investor made famous by his bet against the U.S. housing market ahead of the financial crisis, disclosed that he has been buying shares of one-time meme darling GameStop.

“I own GME. I have been buying recently. I expect I am buying at what may soon be 1x tangible book value / 1x net asset value,” Burry said in a Substack post published Monday. “And getting a young Ryan Cohen investing and deploying the company’s capital and cash flows. Perhaps for the next 50 years.”

Shares of GameStop surged more than 8% Monday following the news.

Burry, who recently closed his hedge fund Scion Asset Management, said his investment is a long-term value play rather than a wager on renewed meme-stock speculation. GameStop was in the center of a meme-stock frenzy that erupted roughly five years ago, when retail traders coordinating on online forums drove the shares to extraordinary heights and forced massive short-covering by hedge funds.

“I am not counting on a short squeeze to realize long-term value,” he wrote. “I believe in Ryan, I like the setup, the governance, the strategy as I see it. I am willing to hold long-term, and I am excited to see where this goes. I am fifteen years his senior, but not too old to be patient.”

The stock has since given back most of those gains as trading activity normalized and speculative interest waned. It last traded around $25 apiece.

Still, GameStop has taken advantage of periods of elevated investor interest to raise billions of dollars through equity offerings, leaving it with a substantial cash pile.

“Ryan is making lemonade out of lemons. He has a crappy business, and he is milking it best he can while taking advantage of the meme stock phenomenon to raise cash and wait for an opportunity to make a big buy of a real growing cash cow business.”

The video game retailer began buying bitcoin last year in a similar move made famous by MicroStrategy. Cohen said at the time that the decision to buy bitcoin is driven by macro concerns as the digital coin, with its fixed supply and decentralized nature, could serve as protection against certain risks.

“I do not know about this Bitcoin thing, but I cannot argue with what has been done so far,” Burry said.

Michael Burry’s quiet bet on Venezuelan oil is coming back into focus.

The investor best known for “The Big Short” said he has owned Valero Energy since 2020, a position he views as increasingly attractive as the U.S. moves toward a deeper role in reviving Venezuela’s oil industry.

“Realize that many Gulf Coast refineries were purpose-built for Venezuelan heavy crude,” Burry wrote in a Monday blog post on Substack. “So they have been running with suboptimal feedstock for years. This will, in time, produce better margins across jet fuel, asphalt, and diesel … I have owned Valero since 2020, and I am more resolved to holding it even longer after this weekend.”

His comments came after President Donald Trump called on U.S. oil companies to invest in Venezuela after the overthrow of President Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela, a founding member of OPEC, sits on the largest proven crude oil reserves in the world. The country’s oil is among the heaviest and most sulfur-laden in the world, and only a limited number of refineries are equipped to process it efficiently.

Valero stands out because of its ability to process heavy crude, but Burry said smaller refiners such as PBF Energy and HF Sinclair could also benefit, even if Venezuelan oil arrives only gradually. Any meaningful recovery in exports is likely to take years.

Multiple analysts on Wall Street are also highlighting Valero as the biggest beneficiary, should Venezuelan supply increase. Shares of the refiner jumped about 10% Monday.

The opportunity may extend beyond refining. Venezuela’s oil infrastructure has deteriorated after decades of underinvestment, creating potential demand for U.S. oilfield services companies if large-scale rehabilitation begins, Burry said.

Burry said he owns Halliburton, and sees possible upside as well for Schlumberger and Baker Hughes, which could be tapped to help rebuild pipelines and refineries.

“Venezuelan pipelines and refineries are old and in disrepair. This work will go to U.S. contractors,” he said. “Chevron is already there. Exxon and others have been litigating claims for decades and may see some justice relatively soon, if the US literally begins to run Venezuela as some have suggested. I own Halliburton, and may buy more shares or LEAPs.”

LEAPs, or long-term equity anticipation securities, are options with lengthy expiration dates that could go beyond one year.

Renowned investor Michael Burry on Wednesday denied shorting Tesla‘s shares after calling the EV maker “ridiculously overvalued.”

In a social media post on X, the Scion Asset Management founder responded to a user asking if he would bet against Tesla, saying: “I am not short.”

Burry, who earned his reputation by successfully predicting the collapse of the U.S. housing market that led to the 2008 global financial crisis, clarified his position after describing Tesla as “ridiculously overvalued” in a separate post.

“The Big Short” investor made the same assessment of Tesla’s stock valuation to subscribers of his new paid Substack newsletter earlier in the month.

Burry recently made headlines with a tech short bet. He said some of America’s largest companies were using aggressive accounting to inflate their supposed profits from the AI boom.

Burry’s latest comments on Tesla come shortly after the company took the unusual step of publishing sales estimates that appear to indicate a lower-than-expected outlook for its vehicle deliveries.

Tesla on Monday compiled an average estimate for 1.6 million vehicle deliveries in 2025, down roughly 8% from 2024 and putting the company on track for its second straight drop in annual vehicle sales.

Tesla has endured a rollercoaster ride this year. The company, whose stock recently notched an all-time closing high of $489.88, saw shares collapse in the first quarter amid stiff competition, particularly from Chinese EV manufacturers, and reputational fallout from Musk’s incendiary political rhetoric.

Shares of Tesla were seen little changed in premarket trade on Wednesday. The company’s stock has gained more than 12.5% in 2025.

— CNBC’s Yun Li contributed to this report.