Takeover Targets’ “SpaceX’s Secret Rent Check”: Four Dividend “Landlords” Behind the AI Power Story

The Hook

Dylan Jovine is a veteran newsletter editor who runs Behind the Markets and the Takeover Targets letter, which focuses on special situations. His latest pitch borrows a phrase that sounds like a landlord’s daydream: “SpaceX’s Secret Rent Check.” The core idea is that SpaceX does not pay a dividend itself, but the money it hands over every month to the companies that power its operations ends up in the hands of dividend-paying stocks. As the ad puts it, “SpaceX pays no dividend. But the rent check it writes every month goes to companies that pay you 12 times a year, and the next cutoff is October 30th.”

The urgency is manufactured around an ex-dividend date. The “next cutoff” is the deadline to be on the books before the next monthly or quarterly payout, and the ad wants you to act before October 30th. The offer behind it is $1,997 a year with a 30-day refund, plus a “lifetime” option at $2,997. That lifetime price is worth a pause: it costs only 1.5 times a single year. A publisher that prices a lifetime membership so close to the annual rate is quietly signaling that it does not expect most subscribers to renew very many times, and that is a fair thing to factor into what the product is actually worth to you.

The Big Claim

The big claim is that SpaceX’s industrial buildout, the Memphis “Colossus” data center and the enormous appetite for AI power behind it, produces a steady stream of cash flows that land in the pockets of a small group of energy, pipeline, and utility “landlords.” These are not the flashy AI names. They are the boring companies that own the pipes, the wires, and the power plants that make the flashy stuff possible.

The ad sets the scene with a story, told in Jovine’s words: “Back in June of 2024, Elon Musk hit a wall. He was building the biggest AI computer the world had ever seen… He found somebody who would rent it to him instead… Today that computer earns SpaceX $1.25 billion a month from a single customer. And the landlord gets paid first.” For the full backstory, see our What Cabot Won’t Tell You About What Is Wall Street Missi… article.

That “landlord” in the original June 2024 Memphis story is Solaris Energy Infrastructure (SEI), the temporary-power provider that stepped in when the Colossus could not get a permanent grid connection fast enough. Here is the thing to understand before anything else: Jovine is not selling SEI. He borrows the “landlord gets paid first” line as a narrative hook, then pivots to four large, liquid, dividend-paying names that are only loosely connected to SpaceX at all.

The Mechanism

The mechanism is simpler than the marketing, and more defensible. Data centers need electricity, and lots of it. That electricity travels over natural gas pipelines to power plants, then over transmission lines to the racks. The companies that own the pipelines and the utilities that own the wires collect a toll on every unit that moves through, whether the customer is SpaceX, Meta, Microsoft, or the warehouse down the street.

All four of the revealed names are in that toll-collecting business. Entergy (ETR) is a regulated utility serving the Gulf South, one of the most AI-heavy power markets in the country, where data-center load growth is among the fastest anywhere. Williams (WMB) is a natural gas pipeline giant that has lately been building power plants for data centers; the ad leans hard on the claim that it is the one building Meta’s plants. Enterprise Products Partners (EPD) is the self-described “blue chip” of the midstream master limited partnerships. Energy Transfer (ET) is another major gas and NGL midstream operator with a sprawling footprint across the Permian Basin and the Gulf Coast.

Here is the part the ad glides past: SpaceX is one customer among thousands for every one of these four companies. The real driver of their cash flows is not one electric-vehicle-and-rocket company writing a monthly check. It is the broad, long-dated buildout of data-center electricity demand across the entire country, a trend that is real and only weakly connected to any single tenant.

The Real Pick

All four picks are large caps, and all four trade modestly above the “tease” prices the presentation uses to illustrate the idea. Current prices are as of the October 27, 2026 close, from Polygon.

None of these is a secret. They are four of the most widely held, most heavily covered income stocks in the energy sector, and every one of them shows up on any screen for “high-yield utility or midstream stocks.” The yields across the group run from roughly 4% to north of 6%, which is the honest core of the pitch: these are real income payers, and the “rent check” is really just the ordinary power and gas bills these companies collect from every large customer.

Does the Math Check Out

Take the dividend math first, because that part holds up. Four solid dividend payers with yields in the 4% to 7% range is not a stretch, and the underlying thesis, that data-center electricity demand is a long-dated tailwind for utilities and midstream operators, is legitimate. The AI buildout really does need gas, transmission, and generation, and the companies that own those assets really do get paid regardless of which tenant wins the AI race. That is a real and defensible investment case, and it deserves to be credited rather than waved off.

The “SpaceX rent check” framing is where it gets loose. SpaceX is not writing these companies a special check. It is paying for power and gas like every other industrial customer, and its contribution to any of these four businesses is a rounding error relative to their total volumes. Even the eye-catching “$1.25 billion a month” line is about the Colossus’s revenue, not a dividend that flows to Entergy or Williams. The presentation swaps in the most exciting possible customer to make a mundane and sound thesis feel exclusive.

The track record deserves a hard look too. A prior Jovine tease in a similar vein, Powell Industries (POWL), was flagged in May and is now roughly half its price. That is what “almost perfectly top-ticking the market” looks like in reverse, and it is a fair data point to weigh before paying $1,997 for the next set of names.

The Verdict

The income thesis here is legitimate. Utilities and midstream operators are a reasonable way to get paid for the AI power buildout without betting on a single chip or model winner, and all four of these names are quality dividend payers you can hold through a cycle.

But buy them for their fundamentals, not for the SpaceX branding. The SpaceX adjacency is marketing gloss over plain midstream and utility dividend payers, and the real drivers are rates, volumes, and data-center power demand, not one tenant’s checkbook. On the newsletter itself, the value proposition is weak: $1,997 a year for four large-cap dividend stocks that any free stock screener will surface is a poor trade. And the odd fit, four income names sold from a letter called “Takeover Targets” with not a takeover in sight, only underscores how far the hook has drifted from the product.

What They Got Right

• The income thesis is real. Utilities and midstream operators do stand to benefit from data-center electricity demand, and the toll-taker model is genuinely defensive, you get paid on volume whether or not any one customer wins.
• The picks are quality. All four are established dividend payers with meaningful yields in the 4% to 7% range, not microcap lottery tickets, and none requires you to bet on a binary outcome.
• The “landlord gets paid first” instinct is sound. Owning the infrastructure that gets paid regardless of which tenant wins the AI race is a genuinely useful way to frame the data-center power trade.
• The power-demand backdrop is accurate. The AI buildout really is pulling hard on gas, transmission, and generation, and that trend is long-dated and hard to dispute.

What They Got Wrong

• The “SpaceX rent check” is a narrative hook, not an economic one. SpaceX is one customer among thousands, and its contribution to these businesses is trivial relative to their total volumes.
• The branding does not fit. A letter called “Takeover Targets” is pitching four dividend payers, none of which is a takeover play, so the letter’s name does the hook no favors.
• The track record is the weak link. The Powell Industries (POWL) tease from May is now roughly half its price, which undercuts the urgency of the “next cutoff” framing.
• The pricing implies low renewal expectations. A “lifetime” offer at 1.5 times the annual rate is an admission that most subscribers do not stick around, which is worth reading as a signal about the product itself.

Compliance Disclaimer

This is not financial advice. NewsletterVetter has no position in any stock mentioned.

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