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SpaceX S-1

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Re: SpaceX S-1

#51

Post by Jabbles »

If any company can put profitable data centers in space, it will be SpaceX. But I doubt that any company can. The difficulties of the physics and engineering of cooling seem like they will always outweigh the advantages of keeping your data center on Earth.

I am annoyed by the insistence that the value of this company comes from something that no one has been able to show is possible yet without multiplying it by the obvious risk factor. And they seem to have got other companies like Alphabet[1] and Anthropic to publicize the idea, to give it more credibility.

I do not want my pension to automatically buy shares at $1T, but it looks like it will have no choice.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/science/google-spacex-talks-explore-...

[2] https://spacenews.com/anthropic-to-consider-using-spacex-orb...

Re: SpaceX S-1

#52

Post by fragmede »

tristanj wrote: post #44
moralestapia wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typo: I'm sure you meant >1T. >ARPU: $99/month in 2023, $81 in 2025, $66 in Q1 2026 Oof, are they already on diminishing returns phase? While I don't think the financials are bad, I agree, this is definitely not a 1T company (but the market can stay irrational ...).

Starlink is giving away the satellite dishes for free to grow customers. These dishes are expensive to manufacture and cost the company hundreds of dollars each. The estimated manufacturing cost of a Starlink standard dish is around $400.

Which is a fine thing to say, but CAC vs LTV (customer acquisition cost vs lifetime value of the customer) is the underlying equation. If it costs them $150 to give away a dish, but they get, say, $300 before the user churns, they still come out ahead.

Re: SpaceX S-1

#53

Post by jsnell »

TheAlchemist wrote: post #33
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$45 billion for a 3 year rental .

What would be interesting to know how much did it cost xAI to build it ? Ai says between $18-$40 billion to just build, without running cost, but no idea how close to reality this is.

The AI row of the capex table in the S-1 should be a pretty close approximation.

Re: SpaceX S-1

#54

Post by kentm »

SpaceX is incredibly exciting, but I was skeptical when XAI and Twitter were rolled into it. The S-1 here makes it even more disappointing.

I did want a piece of SpaceX but the valuation here is pretty eye watering compared to the fundamentals. I don't think I can put my money into this, although I suspect it will still do gangbusters based on hype and momentum.

Its also a real shame that SpaceX's competitors have not been able to get the same level of momentum. I know Starship has been delayed but its still hard to argue with total mass to orbit they're achieving right now.

Re: SpaceX S-1

#55

Post by impulser_ »

neosat wrote: post #43
impulser_ wrote: post #15

"in May 2026, we entered into Cloud Services Agreements with Anthropic PBC (“Anthropic”), an AI research and development public benefit corporation, with respect to access to compute capacity across COLOSSUS and COLOSSUS II. Pursuant to these agreements, the customer has agreed to pay us $1.25 billion per month through May 2029, with capacity ramping in May and June 2026 at a reduced fee" Anthropic is paying them 1.2…

has anyone done the math on: 1. cost to build out and run the data centers 2. cost of compute (hardware and energy) 3. depreciation of legacy GPU and thus value at the end of 3 years. And then compare the $45B revenue from Anthropic to see if it's mostly break even or if one of Anthropic/SpaceX came out ahead on the contract.

Well Colossus 1 has 230k GPUs, including 30k GB200s and Colossus 2 has 550k GB200s & GB300s.

So my guess on costs would be like ~$10B for Colossus 1, and Colossus 2 would be like ~20b.

Re: SpaceX S-1

#56

Post by wmf »

tristanj wrote: post #44
moralestapia wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typo: I'm sure you meant >1T. >ARPU: $99/month in 2023, $81 in 2025, $66 in Q1 2026 Oof, are they already on diminishing returns phase? While I don't think the financials are bad, I agree, this is definitely not a 1T company (but the market can stay irrational ...).

Starlink is giving away the satellite dishes for free to grow customers. These dishes are expensive to manufacture and cost the company hundreds of dollars each. The estimated manufacturing cost of a Starlink standard dish is around $400.

That shouldn't be included in ARPU.

Re: SpaceX S-1

#57

Post by fragmede »

Jabbles wrote: post #51

If any company can put profitable data centers in space, it will be SpaceX. But I doubt that any company can. The difficulties of the physics and engineering of cooling seem like they will always outweigh the advantages of keeping your data center on Earth. I am annoyed by the insistence that the value of this company comes from something that no one has been able to show is possible yet without multiplying it by the…

How do you price regulatory restrictions? The laws governing space are more lax than those governing how much chromium Tesla can dump into their waste water. By building in space, they get to completely sidestep any regulatory issues on Earth, like not being allowed to build what they want, wherever they want, how they want. It's annoying getting permits to do whatever on my house, but for businesses, it's a real problem.

Re: SpaceX S-1

#58

Post by wmf »

einrealist wrote: post #25

"We do not anticipate declaring or paying any cash dividends to holders of our common stock in the foreseeable future." Sounds like 'never' to me.

Because dividends are considered failure for tech companies.

Re: SpaceX S-1

#59

Post by fragmede »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #35
Geeek wrote: post #2

Their stated TAM is bonkers. A total of $28.5 trillion: $370B Space, $1.6T Connectivity, $26.5T in AI. With AI becoming more and more commoditized, the AI number is insane.

With these kind of made up numbers, they might as well have simply used the fucking Kardeshev scale. Just compute the energy output of the Sun and claim they'll build a Dyson sphere around it. Can charge a nice hefty subscription fee for using the Sun, just like Netflix.

Shhh, that's SpaceX's real play. Put a giant sun shade between the Earth and the sun, and make everyone on Earth pay for sunlight. No pay? No crops. No food. Solves global warming.

Re: SpaceX S-1

#60

Post by kentm »

jfengel wrote: post #24
Eldodi wrote: post #3

Crazy this company will IPO for >1B with such bad financials! That said, Starlink seems to be a real cash machine, not as good as ads but enough to support AI bets. 2025: - Revenue: $18.7B, up from $14.0B in 2024 - Operating loss: -$2.6B - Net loss: -$4.9B - Adjusted EBITDA: $6.6B - Operating cash flow: $6.8B - Capex: $20.7B Segment breakdown: - Starlink / Connectivity: $11.4B revenue, $4.4B operating income, $7.2B a…

That's kind of the whole point of a stock market. If you already had a solid revenue stream, you wouldn't need investment. These numbers would be kind of typical for a software play, since the great thing about software is that you write it once and then sell it many times. They're making a similar assertion for hardware: "fund rocket ship design, and sell it many times (i.e. lots of launches)". The weird looking par…

> The weird looking part to he is cramming xAI into it. It's a completely different business with little overlap that I can see, in a crowded market that they are far from leading.

My personal theory is that Musk wants to roll up all his companies into a mega corporation that he fully controls, and this is part of the process. I expect Tesla and SpaceX to merge years down the line.

Of course, the counter to this thesis is that he didn't roll in Neuralink or Boring Company. But its probably that these three companies + Tesla are the ones he's most passionate about.

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