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A look into the finances of SpaceX

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Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#171

Post by jwells89 »

mcpackieh wrote: post #144
samr71 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has elements of truth but is a conspiracy theory the way you describe it. If you listen to Musk, or listen to people who work for Musk, or the people who work for those people, they all say that the point of SpaceX is to enable human colonization of Mars. It's not just a marketing strategy to acquire talent (unless you think they're all lying -- hence the conspiracy aspect. Now, to do that, they'll need to scrat…

Yes, it's literally a theory about a conspiracy . That doesn't mean it isn't true. And Elon Musk saying he wants to create Mars colonies doesn't make it true, anymore than Howard Hughes saying he wanted to mine magnesium nodules off the ocean floor made that true. Look at Starship objectively. It's not a Mars rocket. That bellyflop through the atmosphere stunt won't work on Mars, and man-rating it even for operation…

> The habitats which would supposedly be used for Mars colonization don't exist and aren't in development, so if you think Starship is a Mars rocket you should realize that it's a bridge to nowhere.

I'm only an enthusiastic layman on the topic of spacefaring, but isn't the launch vehicle a critical variable when designing habitats for other planets? It doesn't seem practical to take anything much further than paper until the constraints of your launch vehicle are known.

Habitats designed to be launched on Starship+Superheavy are going to be wildly different from those made to launch on practically anything else because of the vast difference in lift capacity and available volume. To add to that, it arguably doesn't make sense to develop habitats at all unless something similar to Starship is flying.

So from that perspective, it would seem to me logical to wait and see if SpaceX can actually make Starship+Superheavy work or not before committing to anything. No point in burning money on something that'll never be practical to launch.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#172

Post by asynchronous »

TheAlchemist wrote: post #169
wddkcs wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market is pricing in future growth. You can say the market is incorrectly evaluating the potential return, but it's hard to argue that Tesla and SpaceX aren't going to cash in on that potential. How else should the market be treating companies with obvious high growth potential?

It is very possible, even probable, that Tesla's glory days are already behind it. Their margin are contracting, and it's actually probable they will loose money in Q3, Q4 this year. They don't have any significant advantage on competition anymore, and China's competition is already well ahead Tesla. Elon himself suggested Tesla is worthless as a 'car making company' and it's value will come from solving autonomy wit…

I don’t understand how people say this with a straight face when Tesla is literally becoming the underlying charging network for the entire continental US. If anything they’re at a higher risk of the feds absorbing them as a public utility then they are of becoming irrelevant.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#173

Post by nabla9 »

htss2013 wrote: post #140

Isn't it amazing that you can become the richest person in the world by building companies that lose money? By lose money I mean all money ever put into the company versus profits made. The idea of creating a profitless company that somehow makes you personally rich used to be thought of as a fluke. Yes it's possible but it shouldn't happen and aside from extreme luck it won't. Something has changed. Losing money and…

He is a socialist hero then?

Wages before profits. His companies has paid worker salaries from day one and continues to pay wages for over 127,000 people every month.

/s

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#174

Post by TheAlchemist »

htss2013 wrote: post #140

Isn't it amazing that you can become the richest person in the world by building companies that lose money? By lose money I mean all money ever put into the company versus profits made. The idea of creating a profitless company that somehow makes you personally rich used to be thought of as a fluke. Yes it's possible but it shouldn't happen and aside from extreme luck it won't. Something has changed. Losing money and…

We are living in 'incredible' times indeed - what used to happen during market bubbles, became the norm recently.

This chart is quite amazing:

https://apolloacademy.com/40-of-companies-in-russell-2000-ha...

In Russell 2000, 40% companies lost money in 2022. It's higher than the peak of dot-com bubble, and almost as high as at the worst of financial crisis in 2008-2009. And it seems to be the norm lately. Eventually though, everything comes back to earth.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#175

Post by philipwhiuk »

penjelly wrote: post #158
resolutebat wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At time of writing, it's the opposite: Falcon is launching humans into space on a regular basis, something SLS has entirely failed to do to date.

my search says falcon has launches humans twice. Am i mistaken? that doesnt qualify as "regular basis"

Crew-1 to Crew-6, DM-2, Inspiration 4, Axiom 1, Axiom 2

10 missions

A crewed mission to the ISS every 6 months plus a handful of commercials.

Your numbers are way off.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#176

Post by ancientworldnow »

misiti3780 wrote: post #150
hallqv wrote: post #98

Incredible to double revenue YoY on that level. Elon and Spacex team are truly extraordinary.

Half of hacker news thinks Elon is some random evil idiot who is got really lucky twice.

You mean the guy that spacex has a created a dedicated handler team for to keep him from interfering with their work?

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#177

Post by TheAlchemist »

asynchronous wrote: post #172
TheAlchemist wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very possible, even probable, that Tesla's glory days are already behind it. Their margin are contracting, and it's actually probable they will loose money in Q3, Q4 this year. They don't have any significant advantage on competition anymore, and China's competition is already well ahead Tesla. Elon himself suggested Tesla is worthless as a 'car making company' and it's value will come from solving autonomy wit…

I don’t understand how people say this with a straight face when Tesla is literally becoming the underlying charging network for the entire continental US. If anything they’re at a higher risk of the feds absorbing them as a public utility then they are of becoming irrelevant.

Not irrelevant - but not making money neither.

Look at the financials of this 'underlying charging network for the entire continental US' - the optimistic ones, project that it will bring ... 10B$ in revenues in 5-10 years (revenues, not profit !).

It's absolutely meaningless in the big picture of this company revenues and valuation.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#178

Post by yedava »

mrguyorama wrote: post #63
Laremere wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go work for them on a position that has equity as part of the compensation. Otherwise, I doubt it. Elon has been pretty vocal about regretting making Tesla public. Additionally SpaceX as a company is oriented around putting humans on mars. Until that happens, I expect a supermajority of ownership would be against the profit seeking motives that an IPO creates. Short of investing in them, you could look for companies…

>Elon has been pretty vocal about regretting making Tesla public That's laughable, because without making Tesla public he wouldn't be able to live the superstar uber rich lifestyle he thinks he deserves. Pretty much everything he has personally is owed to Tesla public valuation.

His wealth is not so much about living a rich lifestyle, but about shaping society to his views. His wealth allowed him to buy a media megaphone (TwitterX) to further his political objectives.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#179

Post by electriclove »

penjelly wrote: post #158
resolutebat wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At time of writing, it's the opposite: Falcon is launching humans into space on a regular basis, something SLS has entirely failed to do to date.

my search says falcon has launches humans twice. Am i mistaken? that doesnt qualify as "regular basis"

It has been the only way for the US to launch humans from the US since 2020.

10 flights with humans so far and more planned: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Dragon_2

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#180

Post by eagleinparadise »

htss2013 wrote: post #140

Isn't it amazing that you can become the richest person in the world by building companies that lose money? By lose money I mean all money ever put into the company versus profits made. The idea of creating a profitless company that somehow makes you personally rich used to be thought of as a fluke. Yes it's possible but it shouldn't happen and aside from extreme luck it won't. Something has changed. Losing money and…

Amazon never made any money... until it did. And boy were a lot of people wrong.

It's plenty easy to lose money and stay poor.

Only a handful of people in the world have "lost money and became kings"

Want to do the same? You live in the same capitalistic society as Elon/Bezos...

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