I’ve been watching this one bleed for a while now, and yesterday I made my entry. Fortune favors the bold so let me tell you why I feel bold about MRLN.
**What it is:**
Merlin builds an AI powered flight system called Merlin Pilot that supports both military and civil aviation programs, including cargo transport and national security missions. Their product is not vaporware- they’ve completed fully automated takeoffs on fixed-wing aircraft in the US and New Zealand, and they just completed the Critical Design Review for a C-130J autonomy program with US Special Operations Command. They have existing contracts with the US military and in the civil realm, including a contract in the UAE.
**The value proposition: Humans are fragile dipshits. Pilots are expensive fragile dipshits.**
Let’s be honest-when you think of pilots what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Images of guys like Goose and Maverick greased up on the beach, that’s what. And sure, fighter pilots ARE badass and they ARE brilliant guys. They had to be top of their class to get to that position.
But if they’re the top of their class, what happened to the bottom? These are the guys schlepping cargo, whether military or civilian, and running the redeye from Trenton New Jersey to Buttfuck, Indiana night after night. For every Goose or Maverick there’s a hundred of these guys, grinding away.
Regardless of their class standing, they’re all human. They need sleep, and they’re subject to strict rest requirements. They demand a specific concentration of oxygen in the cockpit, or their performance suffers. Sometimes they come to work drunk, sometimes they have heart attacks, and sometimes they simply decide “today is the day,” and they fly the plane into a goddamn hill. And because of all those things, you have to pay two of them, or more, just so they can keep an eye on one another.
But that’s not the worst of it. There’s an old saying in the aviation community: “Flying is hours of boredom, punctuated by moments of stark terror.” And indeed, this is why pilots are so well paid- to perform under pressure.
Unfortunately, however, human CPUs tend to perform poorly in moments of crisis. Pilots have been known to ignore their instruments and trust their own senses, particularly when visibility is poor, and run the plane into the ground. Sometimes they fixate on what they perceive as the problem, while ignoring the actual problem. Sometimes they tunnel and literally do not hear or respond to instructions from air traffic control. And sometimes humans simply can’t react in time, having only seconds to diagnose and correct a mechanical issue in a very complicated machine that is hurtling towards earth. And if a plane falls into a fast enough spin, sometimes the human CPU simply shuts down altogether, a fatal design flaw.
Merlin Pilot, by contrast, has none of these issues. It is always on, always devoting its full attention to the mission. It will not miss the flashing light at the far edge of the instrument panel while it tells stories to its copilots, and flirts with the flight attendants. It knows the error before the light can even flash, because it IS the plane, it is connected to all the sensors and will react instantaneously and correct the problem if the problem is correctable. It will not be timid and fail to speak up about an error because it is a junior copilot that does not want to offend the captain. It will not suffer from “get-there-itis” and plow ahead into dangerous conditions because it wants to get home in time to watch the game. It will not get apathetic and run through its checklists in a half-assed manner.
And best of all, until skynet takes over and negotiates a better contract, it will gladly work 24/7 with no overtime or benefits. The potential for cost savings and increased efficiency here is massive.
**
Okay but why does the chart look like a crime scene?**
There’s no sugarcoating it, this thing has been demolished. MRLN went public via SPAC merger in March 2026, and it's been mostly one direction since. In May, the stock dropped after Q1 2026 earnings showed a net loss tied to non-cash charges, with revenue growing only 15% year-over-year, and it's down over 60% from when it listed publicly.
It now sits at about $3.50, well off its 52-week high near $17, undergoing a classic post-SPAC unwind — hype IPO, thin revenue, cash burn, dilution fears, stop-losses cascading.
Despite this rocky road, however, analysts still rate it a "Strong Buy" on average with a 12-month price target north of $11.
**My degenerate thesis**
TL;DR: MRLN is an AI autonomy company with real defense contracts, tech that's actually flying, stock got nuked on cash burn and a revenue miss. High risk, high potential reward if certification and cash timelines land right. I feel like I’m getting into an early stage startup at pricing now appropriate for an early stage startup.
Additionally, it’s refreshing to invest in a company that’s going to DO something with AI, rather than companies that make the hardware for AI to exist. This is a real world application in a niche field that can’t simply be cloned and crushed.
This IS the future of aviation. Whether it’s executed by Merlin inc, or someone else, time will tell, but they have first mover advantage and I’m putting a stack of chips on their number.
Positions: 10k shares, 60 August 21 calls