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Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

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Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#312

This is a masterful piece of financial engineering by Google and SpaceX. Google purchased 10% of SpaceX over a decade ago. After dilution they probably own around 5%. SpaceX is valued at a whopping 94x revenue. This deal increases SpaceX's revenue by $11 billion per year. If SpaceX maintains this revenue multiplier, then this single deal boosts SpaceX's valuation by 94 x 11 billion = $1 trillion dollars. Google owns…

why revenue that barely cover the estimated revenue (and depending on assets yet to be acquired) boost valuation? is everyone an idiot?

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX has recently started pitching itself as an orbital datacenter company. If you buy into that business model (or pretend to), it makes sense for SpaceX to start selling compute early. Their "earthside compute" clients of today are "skyside compute" clients of tomorrow. A part of Musk's old pitch for Starlink was: space-based solar makes perfect sense for powering space assets, and no sense whatsoever for powerin…

> if anyone at all can make space-based datacenters economical, it's SpaceX Let's hope burning ten thousand tons of toxic e-waste annually in upper atmoshphere never becomes economical. Or mankind gets to senses and bans externalizing your e-waste problem by burning in atmosphere...

> ...burning ten thousand tons of toxic e-waste annually...

Expressing water usage in gallons makes it seem really large, too. NASA says[0]:

  Scientists estimate that about 48.5 tons (44 tonnes or 44,000 kilograms) of meteoritic material falls on Earth each day.
If we assume that they're all the heavier v2 units, the total mass of the orbital portion of Starlink is ten point four tons. [1] If we assumed that they lasted one year (instead of the five that they're reported to last[1]), then over the course of a year, Starlink would dump six hours worth of asteroid collisions into the atmosphere.

I think we'll be fine. Pour all that frustrated energy you have into substantially reducing the amount of incredibly hazardous d-waste [3] big commercial operators burn up into our atmosphere, instead.

[0] https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/meteors-meteorites/#h-...>

[1] According to [2] there are currently 10,413 satellites. At an assumed 1760 lbs each, this works out to roughly 10.4 tons.

[2] https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites.html>

[3] "dino"-waste, AKA CO2

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#314
post #281

Since the S-1 filing, xAI has taken over and is likely the largest share of revenue. I would estimate that ~95%+ of xAI revenue, and 100% of its profit, is from renting their datacenters. This is a datacenter REIT bolted onto a social media company bolted onto launch business bolted onto a niche ISP. The expected price to sales is ~100x. The best datacenter REITs trade at ~10x and pay a dividend, which SpaceX does no…

Do companies like Uber, Tesla, etc ever intend to pay dividends? If a stock never intends to pay dividends, the value of the stock is simply the price the next shumck is willing to pay.

Excellent question. They may not intend, today, to pay dividends. However, the same question could have been asked about the successful tech companies of the '00s. Companies don't like to start paying dividends until they are fairly certain of their future profit stream and therefore ability to continue paying (and increasing) the dividends in the future.

Apple, Oracle, Nvidia, Cisco, Alphabet, Meta, Salesforce, and Qualcomm all pay dividends now. It's not unreasonable to expect Uber and Tesla to pay in the future. However, the median time after IPO for similar companies to pay a dividend is close to 20 years. So we could expect Uber to perhaps wfstart paying sometime around 2039. Tesla...is Tesla so who knows?

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Truly a brilliant deal for everyone involved. Except for people who have pensions/investments in whole market class investments who become exposed to an over valued company with a propped up value.

The key there is "whole market." This is still a tiny sliver of the whole market and most people's exposure to it is minimal. Still a wealth extraction move ultimately, but like many other such moves, the few pull just a little from each of the many. Nobody individually goes broke, but the whole class gets slightly poorer. It takes a village to raise a billionaire!

Trillionaire

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Launch isn't profitable simply because ongoing Starship R&D is eating into it. A lot of opex, capex, and pre-revenue. If they start running Starship anywhere near the way they do Falcon 9, it'll flip into profits. A lot of big bets SpaceX made ride on Starship coming online. I'm honestly surprised Starlink is already so profitable without it. One of their big named bets includes: orbital datacenters. Which puts this…

Orbital datacenters sound like a dangerous bet. I couldn't think of a worse place for a lot of delecate electronics.

Have you considered Magma Chamber datacenters?

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#317

You guys don't understand. Banks like JPMC will make billions on this IPO. Doing everything to prop it

Maybe that was the handshake deal from twitter financing, twitter exit and so on. "I will make you whole".

I do not know, but I wonder if someone can tally the bankers from twitter buy, twitter merge into xAI and the new spaceX launch.

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#318

This is a masterful piece of financial engineering by Google and SpaceX. Google purchased 10% of SpaceX over a decade ago. After dilution they probably own around 5%. SpaceX is valued at a whopping 94x revenue. This deal increases SpaceX's revenue by $11 billion per year. If SpaceX maintains this revenue multiplier, then this single deal boosts SpaceX's valuation by 94 x 11 billion = $1 trillion dollars. Google owns…

> Truly a brilliant deal for everyone involved. Except for people who have pensions/investments in whole market class investments who become exposed to an over valued company with a propped up value.

If you want to play “active investor” and pick and choose what companies you invest in, don’t be surprised when you underperform the whole market.

SpaceX could rise to be a major winner that makes people a lot of money. And then what? You missed out and underperform the whole market.

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grok has plenty of "non-woke AI" cred which will make it a preferred choice for lots of government-side and politically sensitive workloads.

What do you think the term woke actually means?

Something which is inconvenient to trumptys

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think the term woke actually means?

I think their point is less that it really means something and more that enough customers think it means something to provide economic opportunity

The only frontier lab to be selling the compute rather than inference seems to say more about this economic opportunity.
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