Google (now under parent company Alphabet) invested roughly $900 million as the majority of a ~$1 billion funding round alongside Fidelity Investments. This gave Google an initial equity stake of about 7–7.5% in SpaceX at a valuation of roughly $10–12 billion.
Remember this was also when SpaceX was actually about space, instead of mostly AI and Twitter. Long-term shareholders that were sold on the space, have to be thinking about how to get out once their lockups expire.
I don't think companies expanding their business should be the only reason to sell. Apple was a desktop and laptop computer company when they released the iPod. Nokia was a company making rubber products when they started making cellular equipment in the 1970s. Amazon was a ecomm company when they released AWS. Etc.
Sure, I'm cherrypicking the success stories but I don't think it's the only signal people should use.
$8.7B in losses over the last 5 quarters sounds bad, but that is also with $20.4B capital expenditure in the period and double digit percent increases per quarter in user metrics.
By traditional business metrics it looks toxic but compared to a typical tech unicorn it's not really outstanding.
Considering it's a tech unicorn with strategic and financial leverage like no other (their own global Internet infrastructure, access to arbitrary billions in capital, ability to build the biggest chip fab in the world), it's certainly fair to call it a gamble, but to call it failing is a stretch imo.
The project was first teased by Musk in early 2026 and officially announced on March 21, 2026 during a special event at the defunct Seaholm Power Plant in Austin, Texas [1][2]
The iPod was a peripheral to use alongside your MacBook, it was meant to drive Apple computer sales initially and it's not like it was Apple's first attempt at a portable device (Newton). Nokia was building telecom equipment (stemming from their telephone cable experience, the insulation being a product of their original rubber business) and military equipment along with a bunch of other consumer electronics before they got into mobile phones. Amazon released AWS because that was their infrastructure they had built for themselves to handle their massive e-commerce business.
Companies generally don't just jump into a totally new market unless they've already got some experience.
The SpaceX acquisitions of xAI and X have absolutely nothing to do with space. While I'm sure SpaceX software engineers benefit greatly from cheap access to Grok, it and X have no relevance to the core business of SpaceX. It's the same level as "huh?" if Boeing decided to buy up an AI company and social media platform. The only reason xAI and X are even part of SpaceX is because Musk fucked himself with being forced to buy Twitter and he decided to bundle them with an actually profitable company.
SpaceX had adult leadership for a long time. I suspect there was a tacit agreement with Musk about a bit of separation.
He broke through that professional firewall when he merged xAI with SpaceX and then pushed it to go public as he did. I also posit that Gwynne Shotwell is weirdly undervalued for what she's accomplished and what she's put up with, and I think that will show up some time in the future.
There was enough technical analysis to show that even Musk's cult feed can't overcome the significant financial hardships he laid on SpaceX. I personally think it was his jump the shark move. He can't really go up again after this. He no longer has any untainted assets for mega-exploits.
>'Gwynne Shotwell is weirdly undervalued for what she's accomplished and what she's put up with, and I think that will show up some time in the future.'
Gwynne is fiercely loyal to Elon. I don't expect to see significant strife between them.
There are a small single digit number of 'new space' company president opportunities in the world and one of them requires dealing with Musk. Makes sense to be loyal when there's so few other equal opportunities. No doubt many companies would love to have her at the helm but very few offer the ability to build reusable rockets.
Not just that, but private investors were sold shares that all had the same voting rights. Since just before the IPO SpaceX now has dual class shares, Elon and a few insiders have class-B shares with 10x the voting power, while everybody else (including private investors) have class-A shares with 1x the voting power
With the serious lapses in governance being made by founders with these special shares, such as Musk and Zuckerberg, I wonder if the shares without these special rights will be substantially discounted. What rights do these other shareholders retain that would keep them valuable? Rights to compensation in the case of bankruptcy?
These have become some of the most valuable companies on Earth. The idea that there are lapses in governance in these companies is insane. Any shareholder is buying in fully aware of the governance structure. Many because of it! Shareholders’ rights are clearly enumerated.
I agree many buy because of the governance structure and founders retaining control, but there is a lot of dumb money out there.
From Claude via stockanalysis.com:
META — institutions 67.51%, insiders 13.49%, float 2.19B of 2.54B shares outstanding. That leaves roughly 19% as retail/other.
SPCX — institutions 5.95%, insiders 46.47%, float only 638.65M of 13.17B shares. Residual is ~47.6%, but that is not retail.
In the case of Spacex that's literally not the case, when private investors bought shares the company was already a decade old and had a single class of shares. It's only since the IPO that the company switched to a dual structure, multiple years after private investors bought in. And class-B shares have only been given to Elon and a few of his friends.
That’s an indictment on them. You should know where you’re putting your money and why. If you delegate this to a professional or influencer, you do not get to blame them. After all, you could just buy something you think you understand better like real estate or keep it in cash.
Exactly. If nothing else, you should know who you're supporting.
Many people wouldn't support SpaceX and Tesla if they knew more about Musk. Conversely, some other people who don't know much about him might want to support his companies.
Generally the 10x shares aren't traded so it's impossible to see if they trade at a premium.
One exception is GOOG / GOOGL which both trade actively, and there's not much difference in price.
The mechanism for a price divergence could be accumulation of the 10x shares to seize control, but even if you could buy the entire float, it wouldn't be enough to take control, so that mechanism never happens.
By voting rights, they have 10x (founder stock), 1x (trading as GOOGL), and 0x (trading as GOOG). The class with 10x voting rights does not trade publicly. The class with 1x voting rights does not have enough voting power to control the direction of the company so there is no real difference in perceived value between GOOG and GOOGL.
Employee stock awards are IIRC all in restricted shares of GOOG (0x voting rights) so they don't dilute the power of the founders.
Interestingly, the 10x shares held by Brin and Page constitute only 11% of the economic value of Alphabet, but 51% of the voting control.
And the 10x shares automatically convert to 1x shares upon transfer or inheritance, so if the founders cash out or die, the 10x supervoting power disappears.
Twitter is the “hype machine”. It’s basically the advertising arm disguised as a social media company.
At SpaceX’s valuation, even a 1-2% increase in share price due to some astroturfing on the platform they themselves own basically pays back the cost of acquiring twitter.
Or $150 billion SpaceX? Internet constellations may be mildly profitable, but beyond that, most things are an endless money pit without clear path towards profit anytime soon. Like, no one is going to spend a trillion on a moon base (or exponentially more for mars) without plans to somehow recover all that money.
SpaceX, like Tesla, has always been about Elon Musk.
Investors are buying Musk, like they were buying Warren Buffett with Berkshire Hathaway. Long-term shareholders are not buying space; they are buying Musk. This has been clear to everyone since the beginning; it has been well communicated (look at SpaceX governance rules in Texas), and there is nothing mystical about it.
It's very likely Musk will roll everything up into a single Musk conglomerate.
Investors are buying into the fallacy that musk can continue to work as a hype man, rather than some visionary or innovator. They like that he can make stock numbers go up, seemingly against all odds and reason.
Whether this trend continues or not indefinitely will largely determine if incestors start looking for the door.
It's a valid point. But the markets are a harsh mistress. If you don't like fallacies, you don't buy. And if you think the number is not going to go up, you can always short the stock.
In defence of Mr Musk, despite his character flaws, Tesla is the only Western electric car company in the top 20, and this includes Korea and Japan. Also, SpaceX is ~90% of the world's commercial rocket launch capacity.
But this does not mean SpaceX would be correctly priced at the moment. It may be expensive, but SpaceX is going to have many years to come to reap the benefits of their hard work building the business.
Unlike Tesla, SpaceX is still a visionary and innovative company. Their current cash problems are precisely because they are so heavily invested in so many innovations that have yet to pan out
Tesla is making two big R&D plays into humanoid robotics and cyber taxi. That’s just as bold and requiring innovation as the SpaceX AI and starship stuff. That plus Tesla/SpaceX/Intel are together putting big money into Terafab to make semiconductors in Texas for those platforms.
It's really sad to see that we just accept that Elon Musk, one of the most influential and maybe-still-the richest person in the world is constantly lying to shareholders for his own benefit. And gets zero punishment for it.
I think Musk's luck is running out, he's been too political this past year and he seems to also have run out of geek "street cred". Remember youtubers visiting (whatever the Tesla trade show was called) were more perplexed than impressed with what has been shown. Similar sentiment seen across trade shows (like CES) where everything was AI and no one seemed to ask themselves "why are we putting AI in this?". The answer, of course, for startups and stock listed companies, to make themselves more valuable on paper.
Investors would probably be aware of that if they run any kind of sentiment analysis on online social media content. And at the same time there's some pull-out from tech stock. So maybe some are starting to realise that things are too shaky for their risk profile?
Some of the richest people the world has ever seen seem to tick all the same boxes as the least likeable and most devoid of love and empathy.
If only some billionaires (trillionaires?) could strike a better balance between successful and human. Especially since most wealth is actually wealth transfer from the poor and from taxpayer coffers to the rich.
If you framed it as 'the biggest criminal' it'd still be impressive but would read mighty different. Acquiring money and power is no way to go through life. Not at that cost.
At the time Starlink was announced as was rocket reusability. Both were widely mocked and considered infeasible.
Since then Starlink has succeeded, reusable rockets are a reality, ISS crewed spaceflight restored to US.
I expect all that had an impact on the valuation. Personally I wouldn't invest in Elon because his stock is a wild ride but space x has achieved a lot.
In fact it was often mentioned as a recommended way to try to invest in SpaceX via proxy, before IPO. I don't think that advice had much merit, but it was there nevertheless.
Google X was building Loon at least a decade ago to solve internet connectivity with laser-networked high-altitude balloons. They clearly benefit structurally from expanding access to the internet to the unconnected population.
So on that front, while I didn’t guess this, it does sound like a good investment.
Furthermore, while I am skeptical about the “DC in space” thing in the short term, and Musk’s timelines are, generously, something like P99.9 outcomes, it seems plausible that in 10 years it might make sense. And at that point Google will want to put their TPUs in orbit, too.
One would presume connectivity and services in space as industry and services spread there. Asteroid mining, on orbit manufacturing, space colonies/tourism, data centers in space, centers for working outside traditional government jurisdiction.
This is a micro/macro mistake. You obviously can't dump a 6% stake at strike price on Robinhood.
"The Market", at this scale, means "You find the buyer(s) yourself and work up the deal with a hundred lawyers and PR staff and hope the contract negotiation stays secret".
Well, yes. They're the ones who actually employ the hundred lawyers and PR staff. But that's what it takes, and it's not about clicking some buttons on a Web 2.0 Day Trading UI.
(1) there's a lock out, they can't legally
(2) Moving that kind of volume at market price is extremely difficult
(3) This disclosure was required by law as part of their earnings. They would rather have said nothing and quietly offloaded it.
One consequence of booking the revenue is that they're going to have to report a loss when they sell it.
It's possible there's some tax shenanigans at play (idk): report the profit, mark it against their massive AI capex, sell later when they can book a loss. (I'm not sure if it works that way, it wouldn't for an individual, but maybe they can find a way to trigger a stepped up basis.)
Retail doesn't really move stocks like Google too much, and institutions might understand Google and it's finances better than Google...i.e. there are no accounting tricks or mysterious losses that can shake institutional analysts much (besides illegally hidden stuff). They will perfectly understand why Google is taking a "loss" on the sale.
Your comment is difficult to parse. Is Alphabet greedy for spending $900M on SpaceX equity many years ago before the business was built and there was a risk it would not be built?
Or is Alphabet greedy for holding onto the equity instead of selling it for cash? Or is throwaw12 greedy for wanting to sell something after a 100x return?
Which corruption exactly? NASDAQ giving them fast entry so the biggest IPO in history is done on NASDAQ and not on NYSE who was also competing for it? Both are fighting for OpenAI and Anthropic listings as well which likely influenced their choice to get in early with SpaceX
I was primarily referring to the acquisition of musk's ai company. But the more general (and unfortunately widely accepted practice of) government contracting culture certainly applies to OpenAI and Anthropic as well.
EDIT: cleaned up my comment; removed a more inflammatory claim about corruption in the private sector.
Yeah, I have put my money where my mouth is, but I think it is. Extraordinarily so, and I think the Musk hate has clouded people’s judgement.
For what it’s worth, I get it. I have found Musk insufferable for the last decade since he attached himself to the right and got into drugs, however I think SpaceX is undervalued right now.
1. They are literally the only company on earth with a reliable partially reusable launch system. There are a few people trying, but everyone else is way behind.
2. When they eventually (hopefully) get Starship right, we will see a price drop in the cost of transportation to orbit we have never seen. When I did the numbers a few years ago, the price for space mining to be comparable to terrestrial mining was around $20-60/kg to orbit. They’d effectively be the ONLY way to access that. That’s one of a gazillion things that becomes possible with cheap access to space. UPS becomes a competitor at those prices… it’s game changing.
3. They are basically dominating the satellite internet world. Nothing compares. Starlink is amazing, especially here in Alaska, I suspect they will eventually have a phone, which will be revolutionary.
4. A gazillion government contracts, Star shield, and arguably point to point QRF shuttle (after starship). The defense implications alone mean that they are going to be around indefinitely.
I don’t know, but I think people are sleeping on this.
5. A gazillion amount of telemetry data and social media data to sell on the data broker market. That alone is enough to attract another billion dollar of potential investment consistently, especially for training data and intelligence...you know, selling to the Mossad or CIA.
In a world of money, every bit you can earn, you have to earn, while I know it is immoral to sell the data for spying purposes, morality alone don't mean shit now, that I never see any capitalists and corpo dogs have any kind of morality anyway, except when massive backslash, congress hearings and boycotts, which is, ahem, Meta/Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. But given the unique position Musk used to have in Trump's government and his right leaning position he is safe to do so. At least for now, he is immune to holding congress hearing for a scandal I suppose.
And not to mention that Grok is literally trained over X/Twitter, and keep in mind Bluesky is federated and strangely, no one seems to be scraping it over ActivityPub. I believe Thread is also built on the same foundation but it's sure that Meta made good measures for antiscraping, I expected as a data oriented company.
Alas, keep in mind SpaceX merged with xAI and nonetheless don't forget their data side
Given how much ai spending Google need to do, and that the are selling equity for the first time in a long time to do it, no doubt spacex shares are going to be dumped out they moment they can.
Not sure why you'd short Google. Their business was doing great pre-AI, and will likely do great regardless of what happens to AI. The rumors of their demise when AI hit the scene were clearly greatly exaggerated.
There is quite a bit of information out there as to how Google is achieving short term growth in their core search business. And boy, it is ugly. It does not signal long term continued growth.
from your list, I think only Google has moat and something I would short least.
Google has hardware, software ecosystem, mobile ecosystem, controls browser, has access to 2B+ users, has talent to come up with ideas - perfect spot for AI
Time will tell but that feels foolish. MSFT is a terrible product company (look at copilot) but what they sell is a safe decision which is one of the most important factors for enterprise software. Nobody is close to replacing that.
I'm content for that be the narrative. Nobody is close, and what's more it's not even possible, and even if it was possible nobody would want it, and even if anyone did want it would only be a few people. ; )
Microsoft bundles enough things at a low enough price that it seems silly not to use Microsoft if you are a corporation, because the alternative is to buy a number of different SAAS products (which are generally superior) at a higher price and have to deal with half a dozen to a dozen vendors.
I will be very concerned for MSFT if small companies start outperforming larger companies. That's when Microsoft's advantage disappears. If AI truly encourages smaller, flatter organizations. IMO large enterprise adoption is their moat.
Installed by default is their moat. Trying to arrange a video conference on other platforms means making sure that everyone has the client installed, which can be a real headache. Teams is the common denominator.
The only strategy that can work against Microsoft is a full broadside. You can't try beat them in just one niche, you have to go after the whole tech stack they offer. That's what I'm willing to try doing.
Microsoft is in the same situation as IBM decades ago. „ nobody ever got fired for buying IBM“ used to be a common saying. If at all you’ll see a slow decline.
Vanguard’s total market fund (VTSAX). Just setup a monthly purchase and forget about it. Turn wealth building into a time problem instead of a skill/luck/cash problem. (Assuming time is on your side)
Google makes money hand over fist and they don’t have enough things to spend it on. AI is a natural fit for them to burn all their profits into. Gemini’s integration is, I think, absolutely awesome - it’s completely changing the way I interact with the concept of googling and finding answers, and is free of sign ups or purposeful interactions with the likes of ChatGPT or Claude where you know you’re AI-ing. So your short could work, but it’s not going to work for google’s involvement in an AI-bubble, it’s predicated on the entire market tanking, which should have been occurring for the past two years already if fundamentals and capex translating into profit were what the market cared about. But it seems like the market isn’t caring right now so you could be holding that short for quite a while before it turns into a major return.
SpaceX I actually bought at the IPO price because I think the company will be around in 30 years time, so as fraudulent and mispriced as it is, having a small holding over that kind of horizon I believe will be profitable. And I want to be that kind of old-timer who can chuckle at buying it at the IPO and holding through the crash and still holding when they are on Mars and beyond and SPCX is worth multiples of what it is today.
> Gemini’s integration is, I think, absolutely awesome - it’s completely changing the way I interact with the concept of googling and finding answers,
Oh, me too. The way it writes things that look like they address my question, and then links references that totally don't makes me dread Googling in a way I hadn't yet. For probably five years, I've been doing DDG first and Google when I DDG doesn't work well and usually Google doesn't either, so I already have dread for Google, but this makes it worse.
> So your short could work, but it’s not going to work for google’s involvement in an AI-bubble, it’s predicated on the entire market tanking
Is indeed a required assumption. Major return is not going to happen with this, Not losing a big chunk of my money is the goal!
> SpaceX I actually bought at the IPO price because I think the company will be around in 30 years time, so as fraudulent and mispriced as it is, having a small holding over that kind of horizon I believe will be profitable. And I want to be that kind of old-timer who can chuckle at buying it at the IPO and holding through the crash and still holding when they are on Mars and beyond and SPCX is worth multiples of what it is today.
I think that's a fine play as well. The short is more of an "This IPO price doesn't make sense; sell within a year after it settle"
That’s brave, and I don’t mean that shittily, but more cautiously. Like, I’m thinking of the Simpsons shirt-tugging meme when I read this.
I’ve always been hesitant to short stocks because of the old adage “the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent” and the market has a REAL vested interest in seeing these companies not explode.
Good luck on this one, genuinely, because you may need it.
(That said, if you DO win big on this one, I think we’re all fucked, so maybe I shouldn’t be wishing you TOO much luck. =) )
Sage advice!. In shorts like these, there's no outcome that "wins big" unfortunately, unless you do it with large amounts of money. (Unlike a long position on an individual stock that 10xs, or options which are much riskier). But... it will ideally make the landing softer after the Fall.
I expect China to eventually develop or sidestep EUV lithography. When that happens it’s over.
It will also crash the price of chips globally. These high prices are kind of artificially buoyed by the fact that China can’t obtain ASML machines. This keeps China’s vast proven ability to scale manufacturing off the playing field.
This is so clearly the Chinese century. Doesn’t mean the US, EU, etc become backwaters. England was a huge influence on the 20th century. It does mean that China will drive tech and the global economy forward.
Accounting goes back thousands of years. It was not made as a tool to show off. Lesson is more that tools can be abused for other purposes than intended.
They don't have to be willing because hiding the losses would be a crime. And it still doesn't matter b/c anyone with a calculator can tell you exactly what the value of their position is on any given day. The $94 billion is 2.4% of Google's market cap, so even if SpaceX goes to zero it will be barely noticeable from the background noise of the stock price movement.
"The company’s marketable equity securities include $80 billion in shares subject to short-term restrictions and $14.1 billion subject to long-term restrictions"
Actually more like $14.1 and whatever value the other $80 is worth when they sell. Which is probably going to be worth well North of whatever is lost on the $14.1 B long-term... All part of the scam to inflate the value of the AI bubble
> “Will be in the BVI/St Bart’s area over the holidays. Is there a good time to visit?” Musk states on 13 December 2013.
> “any day 1st - 8th . play it by ear if you want. always space for you,” Epstein replies.
> Musk then sends several emails relaying his schedule, and the two settle on 2 January as a date for the visit. The email exchange ends with Epstein telling Musk that he would need to remain in New York and sending his regrets that they could not meet.
> “Bad news- Unfortunately , my schedule will keep me in New York . I was really looking forward to finally spending some time together with just fun as the agenda. so i am very disappointed. Hopefully we can schedule another time in the near future,” Epstein wrote.
> In November 2012, Epstein sent Musk an email asking “how many people will you be for the heli to island”.
> “Probably just Talulah and me. What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?” Musk replied, in an apparent reference to his former wife Talulah Riley.
> Musk followed up with an email on 25 December in response to another Epstein message that encouraged him to visit and offered use of his helicopter.
> “Do you have any parties planned? I’ve been working to the edge of sanity this year and so, once my kids head home after Christmas, I really want to hit the party scene in St Barts or elsewhere and let loose. The invitation is much appreciated, but a peaceful island experience is the opposite of what I’m looking for,” Musk wrote.
> “Understood , I will see you on st Barth, the ratio on my island might make Talilah uncomfortable,” Epstein responded.
> “Ratio is not a problem for Talulah,” Musk said.
> On 2 January 2013, Musk sent Epstein an email suggesting that the visit wouldn’t take place saying: “Logistics won’t work this time around.”
Google (now under parent company Alphabet) invested roughly $900 million as the majority of a ~$1 billion funding round alongside Fidelity Investments. This gave Google an initial equity stake of about 7–7.5% in SpaceX at a valuation of roughly $10–12 billion.
Sure, I'm cherrypicking the success stories but I don't think it's the only signal people should use.
By traditional business metrics it looks toxic but compared to a typical tech unicorn it's not really outstanding.
Considering it's a tech unicorn with strategic and financial leverage like no other (their own global Internet infrastructure, access to arbitrary billions in capital, ability to build the biggest chip fab in the world), it's certainly fair to call it a gamble, but to call it failing is a stretch imo.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terafab
[2] https://terafab.ai/
Companies generally don't just jump into a totally new market unless they've already got some experience.
The SpaceX acquisitions of xAI and X have absolutely nothing to do with space. While I'm sure SpaceX software engineers benefit greatly from cheap access to Grok, it and X have no relevance to the core business of SpaceX. It's the same level as "huh?" if Boeing decided to buy up an AI company and social media platform. The only reason xAI and X are even part of SpaceX is because Musk fucked himself with being forced to buy Twitter and he decided to bundle them with an actually profitable company.
He broke through that professional firewall when he merged xAI with SpaceX and then pushed it to go public as he did. I also posit that Gwynne Shotwell is weirdly undervalued for what she's accomplished and what she's put up with, and I think that will show up some time in the future.
There was enough technical analysis to show that even Musk's cult feed can't overcome the significant financial hardships he laid on SpaceX. I personally think it was his jump the shark move. He can't really go up again after this. He no longer has any untainted assets for mega-exploits.
Gwynne is fiercely loyal to Elon. I don't expect to see significant strife between them.
From Claude via stockanalysis.com: META — institutions 67.51%, insiders 13.49%, float 2.19B of 2.54B shares outstanding. That leaves roughly 19% as retail/other.
SPCX — institutions 5.95%, insiders 46.47%, float only 638.65M of 13.17B shares. Residual is ~47.6%, but that is not retail.
There were disputes around SpaceX secondary market/special purpose vehicle shares before the listing, but they were all settled out of court, AFAIK.
This is laughable. Many shareholders don’t even know they own stock in these companies.
Many people wouldn't support SpaceX and Tesla if they knew more about Musk. Conversely, some other people who don't know much about him might want to support his companies.
Your standard SPY or VTI investor doesn't know jack diddly squat about shareholder rights, nor do they ever plan to invoke them.
One exception is GOOG / GOOGL which both trade actively, and there's not much difference in price.
The mechanism for a price divergence could be accumulation of the 10x shares to seize control, but even if you could buy the entire float, it wouldn't be enough to take control, so that mechanism never happens.
By voting rights, they have 10x (founder stock), 1x (trading as GOOGL), and 0x (trading as GOOG). The class with 10x voting rights does not trade publicly. The class with 1x voting rights does not have enough voting power to control the direction of the company so there is no real difference in perceived value between GOOG and GOOGL.
Employee stock awards are IIRC all in restricted shares of GOOG (0x voting rights) so they don't dilute the power of the founders.
Interestingly, the 10x shares held by Brin and Page constitute only 11% of the economic value of Alphabet, but 51% of the voting control.
And the 10x shares automatically convert to 1x shares upon transfer or inheritance, so if the founders cash out or die, the 10x supervoting power disappears.
it should be, but the market might be a bit irrational.
Seems similar to me as when Eric Schmidt resigned from the Apple board many years back because their products started to overlap, especially mobile.
Twitter by itself is lucky to be worth $15B anymore.
The space portion of SpaceX is easily worth 10x that.
xAI is theoretically the hype machine that makes up the remainder of the value.
At SpaceX’s valuation, even a 1-2% increase in share price due to some astroturfing on the platform they themselves own basically pays back the cost of acquiring twitter.
And SpaceX has become their favorite place to put money over the last 5 years.
/s
Investors are buying Musk, like they were buying Warren Buffett with Berkshire Hathaway. Long-term shareholders are not buying space; they are buying Musk. This has been clear to everyone since the beginning; it has been well communicated (look at SpaceX governance rules in Texas), and there is nothing mystical about it.
It's very likely Musk will roll everything up into a single Musk conglomerate.
Whether this trend continues or not indefinitely will largely determine if incestors start looking for the door.
In defence of Mr Musk, despite his character flaws, Tesla is the only Western electric car company in the top 20, and this includes Korea and Japan. Also, SpaceX is ~90% of the world's commercial rocket launch capacity.
But this does not mean SpaceX would be correctly priced at the moment. It may be expensive, but SpaceX is going to have many years to come to reap the benefits of their hard work building the business.
The funniest thing you can write… Can’t believe people still write “Robotaxi” after 12+ years of failed promises… wild wild stuff
I think Musk's luck is running out, he's been too political this past year and he seems to also have run out of geek "street cred". Remember youtubers visiting (whatever the Tesla trade show was called) were more perplexed than impressed with what has been shown. Similar sentiment seen across trade shows (like CES) where everything was AI and no one seemed to ask themselves "why are we putting AI in this?". The answer, of course, for startups and stock listed companies, to make themselves more valuable on paper.
Investors would probably be aware of that if they run any kind of sentiment analysis on online social media content. And at the same time there's some pull-out from tech stock. So maybe some are starting to realise that things are too shaky for their risk profile?
Because I find your words surprising since critique is what I was raised with in the late 90s early 2000s. Offline and in the media.
At the same time your definition of criticizing is very lax, when I'm stating banal opinions and a broad observation.
If only some billionaires (trillionaires?) could strike a better balance between successful and human. Especially since most wealth is actually wealth transfer from the poor and from taxpayer coffers to the rich.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8914956
"It's quite amazing how this values SpaceX at 10bn, less than 50% of WhatsApp."
Somebody was wise a decade ago.
Since then Starlink has succeeded, reusable rockets are a reality, ISS crewed spaceflight restored to US.
I expect all that had an impact on the valuation. Personally I wouldn't invest in Elon because his stock is a wild ride but space x has achieved a lot.
Alphabet’s investment holdings (eg, spacex, anthropic..) are worth in the same order of magnitude of BRK’s (~$300B)
The track record of google’s M&A is pretty good.
Except for search and cloud, many of Google’s important products were from M&A - Maps, Docs, android, doubleclick, youtube , deep mind, etc.
This may be a narrative violation on HN, but the quality of Google's management is exceptional.
So on that front, while I didn’t guess this, it does sound like a good investment.
Furthermore, while I am skeptical about the “DC in space” thing in the short term, and Musk’s timelines are, generously, something like P99.9 outcomes, it seems plausible that in 10 years it might make sense. And at that point Google will want to put their TPUs in orbit, too.
"The Market", at this scale, means "You find the buyer(s) yourself and work up the deal with a hundred lawyers and PR staff and hope the contract negotiation stays secret".
One consequence of booking the revenue is that they're going to have to report a loss when they sell it.
It's possible there's some tax shenanigans at play (idk): report the profit, mark it against their massive AI capex, sell later when they can book a loss. (I'm not sure if it works that way, it wouldn't for an individual, but maybe they can find a way to trigger a stepped up basis.)
Or is Alphabet greedy for holding onto the equity instead of selling it for cash? Or is throwaw12 greedy for wanting to sell something after a 100x return?
100 billion is nothing if that money can put you in better spot at technology landscape
EDIT: cleaned up my comment; removed a more inflammatory claim about corruption in the private sector.
For what it’s worth, I get it. I have found Musk insufferable for the last decade since he attached himself to the right and got into drugs, however I think SpaceX is undervalued right now.
1. They are literally the only company on earth with a reliable partially reusable launch system. There are a few people trying, but everyone else is way behind.
2. When they eventually (hopefully) get Starship right, we will see a price drop in the cost of transportation to orbit we have never seen. When I did the numbers a few years ago, the price for space mining to be comparable to terrestrial mining was around $20-60/kg to orbit. They’d effectively be the ONLY way to access that. That’s one of a gazillion things that becomes possible with cheap access to space. UPS becomes a competitor at those prices… it’s game changing.
3. They are basically dominating the satellite internet world. Nothing compares. Starlink is amazing, especially here in Alaska, I suspect they will eventually have a phone, which will be revolutionary.
4. A gazillion government contracts, Star shield, and arguably point to point QRF shuttle (after starship). The defense implications alone mean that they are going to be around indefinitely.
I don’t know, but I think people are sleeping on this.
In a world of money, every bit you can earn, you have to earn, while I know it is immoral to sell the data for spying purposes, morality alone don't mean shit now, that I never see any capitalists and corpo dogs have any kind of morality anyway, except when massive backslash, congress hearings and boycotts, which is, ahem, Meta/Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. But given the unique position Musk used to have in Trump's government and his right leaning position he is safe to do so. At least for now, he is immune to holding congress hearing for a scandal I suppose.
And not to mention that Grok is literally trained over X/Twitter, and keep in mind Bluesky is federated and strangely, no one seems to be scraping it over ActivityPub. I believe Thread is also built on the same foundation but it's sure that Meta made good measures for antiscraping, I expected as a data oriented company.
Alas, keep in mind SpaceX merged with xAI and nonetheless don't forget their data side
All these come together with orbital data centers…
Its how it declines to that point at another 70% loss from $1.5 trillion that people are worried about
But you don´t get to to that. Would be like "Excluding my business costs, my company profits are the same as my revenue".
You can, and for tax purposes you must. The bean counters hate that you can’t deduct capex.
Google has hardware, software ecosystem, mobile ecosystem, controls browser, has access to 2B+ users, has talent to come up with ideas - perfect spot for AI
Would I bet that other humans would believe that? Nope.
The market hasn't been working on fundamentals for a long time. I have a fair amount of value stocks and a bunch of cash lying around, so I'll be ok.
I really feel for anybody trying to invest to grow right now; there's no obvious safer play.
Vanguard’s total market fund (VTSAX). Just setup a monthly purchase and forget about it. Turn wealth building into a time problem instead of a skill/luck/cash problem. (Assuming time is on your side)
SpaceX I actually bought at the IPO price because I think the company will be around in 30 years time, so as fraudulent and mispriced as it is, having a small holding over that kind of horizon I believe will be profitable. And I want to be that kind of old-timer who can chuckle at buying it at the IPO and holding through the crash and still holding when they are on Mars and beyond and SPCX is worth multiples of what it is today.
Oh, me too. The way it writes things that look like they address my question, and then links references that totally don't makes me dread Googling in a way I hadn't yet. For probably five years, I've been doing DDG first and Google when I DDG doesn't work well and usually Google doesn't either, so I already have dread for Google, but this makes it worse.
> So your short could work, but it’s not going to work for google’s involvement in an AI-bubble, it’s predicated on the entire market tanking
Is indeed a required assumption. Major return is not going to happen with this, Not losing a big chunk of my money is the goal!
> SpaceX I actually bought at the IPO price because I think the company will be around in 30 years time, so as fraudulent and mispriced as it is, having a small holding over that kind of horizon I believe will be profitable. And I want to be that kind of old-timer who can chuckle at buying it at the IPO and holding through the crash and still holding when they are on Mars and beyond and SPCX is worth multiples of what it is today.
I think that's a fine play as well. The short is more of an "This IPO price doesn't make sense; sell within a year after it settle"
I’ve always been hesitant to short stocks because of the old adage “the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent” and the market has a REAL vested interest in seeing these companies not explode.
Good luck on this one, genuinely, because you may need it.
(That said, if you DO win big on this one, I think we’re all fucked, so maybe I shouldn’t be wishing you TOO much luck. =) )
Anthropic and OpenAI though will likely be dead, killed by cheap open weight LLMs and local LLMs.
Even in the last Elon Musk interview by The Economist, he admited that it's likely China will win at the end.
The gap is so close now. Opinions matter not, the Chinese will have their own GPUs, RAM and everything they need.
Giants like google and spacex are the few that can handle it because their business is not only about shipping the best models.
It will also crash the price of chips globally. These high prices are kind of artificially buoyed by the fact that China can’t obtain ASML machines. This keeps China’s vast proven ability to scale manufacturing off the playing field.
This is so clearly the Chinese century. Doesn’t mean the US, EU, etc become backwaters. England was a huge influence on the 20th century. It does mean that China will drive tech and the global economy forward.
But yes the stock could go down much further and I hope they are willing to show the losses if they can show this as gains today.
Imagine the next call being about how their 95$B went to sub 30B$..
Will that be a negative line item. I don't see the point in disclosing this stake as earnings.
But I do get that accounting was made as a tool for companies to show off.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/20/spacex-fundi...
Actually more like $14.1 and whatever value the other $80 is worth when they sell. Which is probably going to be worth well North of whatever is lost on the $14.1 B long-term... All part of the scam to inflate the value of the AI bubble
For example.
> “Will be in the BVI/St Bart’s area over the holidays. Is there a good time to visit?” Musk states on 13 December 2013.
> “any day 1st - 8th . play it by ear if you want. always space for you,” Epstein replies.
> Musk then sends several emails relaying his schedule, and the two settle on 2 January as a date for the visit. The email exchange ends with Epstein telling Musk that he would need to remain in New York and sending his regrets that they could not meet.
> “Bad news- Unfortunately , my schedule will keep me in New York . I was really looking forward to finally spending some time together with just fun as the agenda. so i am very disappointed. Hopefully we can schedule another time in the near future,” Epstein wrote.
> In November 2012, Epstein sent Musk an email asking “how many people will you be for the heli to island”.
> “Probably just Talulah and me. What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?” Musk replied, in an apparent reference to his former wife Talulah Riley.
> Musk followed up with an email on 25 December in response to another Epstein message that encouraged him to visit and offered use of his helicopter.
> “Do you have any parties planned? I’ve been working to the edge of sanity this year and so, once my kids head home after Christmas, I really want to hit the party scene in St Barts or elsewhere and let loose. The invitation is much appreciated, but a peaceful island experience is the opposite of what I’m looking for,” Musk wrote.
> “Understood , I will see you on st Barth, the ratio on my island might make Talilah uncomfortable,” Epstein responded.
> “Ratio is not a problem for Talulah,” Musk said.
> On 2 January 2013, Musk sent Epstein an email suggesting that the visit wouldn’t take place saying: “Logistics won’t work this time around.”
[0] https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01762...