“Bullish for Tech”: Wall Street’s Most Tireless Optimist Isn’t Rattled by Trump, Musk, or Conflict in Iran

Dan Ives never sweated President Trump’s decision about Iran.

Last week, as Trump weighed whether to get the US embroiled in the Middle East war, Ives, who is managing director of the financial services firm Wedbush Securities, predicted the economic fallout would be minimal. “The market has gotten used to chaos and uncertainty,” Ives told Vanity Fair. “On a scale one to 10, I’d say this is like a five.”

By Monday—two days after the US dropped 30,000-pound bombs on two Iranian nuclear facilities and fired cruise missiles at a third, and several hours before Trump announced Israel and Iran had reached a ceasefire, which both sides have apparently already violated—Ives still wasn’t worried. If anything, he wrote in a follow-up to our interview, Trump’s actions could be a boon for the US tech industry, which Ives has spent the last 25 years tracking.

“With a weakened Iran and no nuclear capabilities, there is a growing view from tech investors that the opportunity for the Middle East to embrace the tech and AI boom is now on the doorstep, being led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates,” he wrote. “Bullish for tech when this all settles.”

The only thing brighter than Ives’s wardrobe (the New York Post once dubbed him “Wall Street’s best dressed man” for the pastel and floral fabrics he favors) may be his terminally optimistic outlook on tech. But lately, that optimism has certainly been put to the test. A devout Tesla bull, he spent much of the year explaining why, despite Elon Musk’s dalliance with DOGE and the widespread brand damage it caused, the electric vehicle maker’s best years are in front of it. “As someone who’s a core believer in Tesla from the beginning, we take the good with the bad,” he said. “There’s always going to be noise and sideshows with Musk.”

Tesla is now among the AI stocks included in a new AI-focused ETF Wedbush Securities launched this month, which is named for and based on Ives’s research. In a testament to investors’ faith in Ives’s predictions, the fund surpassed $100 million in assets in just five trading days.

Vanity Fair talked to Ives about what the Israel-Iran conflict means for the markets, Musk’s return to Tesla, and what Trump’s self-dealing means for crypto.

This interview (which took place before the US bombed Iranian nuclear sites) has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Vanity Fair: We’re talking at a very precarious time for geopolitics. I’m looking at the companies in your AI ETF, and there’s Microsoft, Palantir, Alphabet. All of them hold defense contracts. Meta’s now trying to get in on the “warfighting” action. I have to ask whether all of this conflict just winds up benefiting these AI companies?

Dan Ives: It benefits Palantir. The reality is there’s going to be more and more AI spending within the military. You’re seeing a convergence where it’s not just AI being used in the enterprise, it’s being used by the Department of Defense.

The winds have changed. The broader tech ecosystem is well aware that there’s going to be massive spending around AI and next-gen technologies. There’s been a pivot, potentially, within the Trump administration, but it’s one that tech companies are going to be well-positioned to benefit from. They recognize this is an AI arms race, and they don’t want to be on the outside looking in.