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Starlink achieves cash-flow breakeven, says SpaceX CEO Musk

reuters.com

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Re: Starlink achieves cash-flow breakeven, says SpaceX CEO Musk

#11

Post by gruez »

Zetobal wrote: post #7

I am really curious how much Musk extracted from American taxpayers. Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink everything is or was substituted by tax money. Without the Ukraine war and all the terminals and monthly payments from different governments Starlink would have no chance to break even so early.

Although not explicitly stated, there seems to be an underlying implication that "[extracting] money from American taxpayers" is somehow illegitimate or dishonorable. What's wrong with getting money from the government, as long as the goods/services were delivered as promised and there was no corruption involved? The government wanted to promote electric vehicles, and teslas are legitimately good cars. The government needed launch vehicles, and spacex was the best option. The government wanted to provide satellite internet to the Ukrainian military, and starlink was the best service.

Re: Starlink achieves cash-flow breakeven, says SpaceX CEO Musk

#12

Post by tekla »

Zetobal wrote: post #7

I am really curious how much Musk extracted from American taxpayers. Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink everything is or was substituted by tax money. Without the Ukraine war and all the terminals and monthly payments from different governments Starlink would have no chance to break even so early.

How dare a company bid and compete for Govt grants and contracts?

Re: Starlink achieves cash-flow breakeven, says SpaceX CEO Musk

#13

Post by hindsightbias »

Zetobal wrote: post #7

I am really curious how much Musk extracted from American taxpayers. Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink everything is or was substituted by tax money. Without the Ukraine war and all the terminals and monthly payments from different governments Starlink would have no chance to break even so early.

In ratio terms of economic ROI, any of these would be lightyears ahead of Lockheed, Boeing, Blue Origin, Iridium, GM, Ford or a thousand other corps feeding at the trough.

BO has been given billions and hasn’t launched a rat fart.

Re: Starlink achieves cash-flow breakeven, says SpaceX CEO Musk

#15

Post by marcusverus »

gruez wrote: post #11
Zetobal wrote: post #7

I am really curious how much Musk extracted from American taxpayers. Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink everything is or was substituted by tax money. Without the Ukraine war and all the terminals and monthly payments from different governments Starlink would have no chance to break even so early.

Although not explicitly stated, there seems to be an underlying implication that "[extracting] money from American taxpayers" is somehow illegitimate or dishonorable. What's wrong with getting money from the government, as long as the goods/services were delivered as promised and there was no corruption involved? The government wanted to promote electric vehicles, and teslas are legitimately good cars. The government…

The idea that SpaceX (which actively fought against cost-plus accounting in favor of fixed-cost contracts and has greatly reduced the cost of launch services) is ‘extracting money from American taxpayers’ is laughable. SpaceX is the death knell of the old space industry, whose primary function was delivering recycled tech late and over budget. In the fullness of time it will save the government many tens of billions of dollars—-FAR more than it ekes out in profit from government business. Transferring a single launch from SLS to Starship, for example, could save the US taxpayer a billion dollars while giving SpaceX no more than 5% of that amount in profit.

Re: Starlink achieves cash-flow breakeven, says SpaceX CEO Musk

#16

Post by hbarka »

GuB-42 wrote: post #6

I don't trust Elon Musk words, at all. It doesn't mean I think it is wrong, but that it can be right or wrong, and material evidence may point to either direction, but what Elon Musk says is random noise to me. At least when he is talking about his business. He is like a professional poker player, you never know when he is bluffing. In the case of Starlink, on what grounds does it "breakeven"? It is a department of a…

Brings to mind Solar City [1] and then Solar Roof Tile [2]

[1] https://apnews.com/article/ca-state-wire-technology-lawsuits...

[2] https://mansionengineer.com/2018/08/10/elon-musk-tesla-and-t...

Re: Starlink achieves cash-flow breakeven, says SpaceX CEO Musk

#17

Post by 0xy »

Zetobal wrote: post #7

I am really curious how much Musk extracted from American taxpayers. Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink everything is or was substituted by tax money. Without the Ukraine war and all the terminals and monthly payments from different governments Starlink would have no chance to break even so early.

If a small business installs park benches for government, would you say they'd been "extracting money from the American taxpayer" with no evidence they're profiteering?

Not every government vendor is fleecing them, and your outrage is better projected at consultants, weapons manufacturers and intelligence contractors all of whom scam the government out of trillions.

Re: Starlink achieves cash-flow breakeven, says SpaceX CEO Musk

#18

Post by AtlasBarfed »

Zetobal wrote: post #7

I am really curious how much Musk extracted from American taxpayers. Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink everything is or was substituted by tax money. Without the Ukraine war and all the terminals and monthly payments from different governments Starlink would have no chance to break even so early.

The entire US Navy is a massive subsidy for the petroleum industry and has been for a century.

And here we are probably bitching about getting government contracts for space launches when SpaceX is the one that's dropping the fundamental economics of orbital lifting possibly by one to two decimal points.

The United launch alliance gains far more benefits from aggressive government contracts and sponsorship than SpaceX does.

Ask for the other common source about this complaint, the fact that Tesla gets some large amounts of sponsorship money from cafe gas efficiency credits it gets paid for by other companies, well that is regulation that is functioning as designed.

I get that musk is stupid and says mean things, is arrogant, sexual harasses women, and still I would likely put 100 CEOs above him for bad people, and maybe 1000. It's just that you're typical. Horrible CEO has learned to STFU.

Re: Starlink achieves cash-flow breakeven, says SpaceX CEO Musk

#19

Post by shrimpx »

gruez wrote: post #11
Zetobal wrote: post #7

I am really curious how much Musk extracted from American taxpayers. Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink everything is or was substituted by tax money. Without the Ukraine war and all the terminals and monthly payments from different governments Starlink would have no chance to break even so early.

Although not explicitly stated, there seems to be an underlying implication that "[extracting] money from American taxpayers" is somehow illegitimate or dishonorable. What's wrong with getting money from the government, as long as the goods/services were delivered as promised and there was no corruption involved? The government wanted to promote electric vehicles, and teslas are legitimately good cars. The government…

The only way in which it’s an issue is Musk being a libertarian opposed to government spending. He has repeatedly spoken against spending. He strongly opposes the infrastructure bill. I haven’t checked but the infra bill has an EV section and I suspect Tesla will get infra money. Presumably he believes using taxpayer money to build his own companies is the good kind of capital allocation, but it’s facetious to speak against a thing when you can’t get enough of it for yourself.

Re: Starlink achieves cash-flow breakeven, says SpaceX CEO Musk

#20

Post by [deleted] »

shrimpx wrote: post #19
gruez wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although not explicitly stated, there seems to be an underlying implication that "[extracting] money from American taxpayers" is somehow illegitimate or dishonorable. What's wrong with getting money from the government, as long as the goods/services were delivered as promised and there was no corruption involved? The government wanted to promote electric vehicles, and teslas are legitimately good cars. The government…

The only way in which it’s an issue is Musk being a libertarian opposed to government spending. He has repeatedly spoken against spending. He strongly opposes the infrastructure bill. I haven’t checked but the infra bill has an EV section and I suspect Tesla will get infra money. Presumably he believes using taxpayer money to build his own companies is the good kind of capital allocation, but it’s facetious to speak…

[deleted]
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