So-called “SPAC King” Chamath Palihapitiya (who famously compared himself to Warren Buffett) created 12 SPACs through his investment firm, Social Capital.
Today, most of those companies are down 80% from their IPO price. Nearly none of the SPACs hit the revenue targets promoted in Social Capital’s deal decks. If you put a hundred dollars into all of Social Capital’s SPACs, it would be worth just $15 today.
In total, these stocks erased over $25 billion in market cap since going public. Chamath and Social Capital were paid hefty promote fees totalling over $750M to take the stocks public.
Recently, Chamath tweeted “I have stated many times…retail investors should stay away from my investments.” But in 2020, when he appeared to promote his “next 10x idea” (Opendoor, down 60% from IPO) on Squawk Box CNBC, Chamath ended thesegment by saying “I want to remind folks, the times I’ve come on, I’ve tried to find asymettric upside opportunities and present them to you.”
Despite backlash, Chamath launched another SPAC (American Exceptionalism Acquisition Corp, ticker $AEXA) in September 2025, which raised over $300M at IPO.
In a June 2026 interview with Axios, Chamath would admit that his history with SPACs is “a blemish on my track record,” saying that, “My incentives were grossly misaligned…I was too insecure to admit it.”
Read more about Chamath’s SPAC performance here.