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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

#491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no NIMBYs in space. No government permitting on land use. And solar power is plentiful. It's like having a dollar store Dyson sphere. Making use of that is predicated entirely on being able to put a lot of hardware into space cheaply. SpaceX is the undisputed best at that, no one comes close. The question is whether their "best" is good enough to make space datacenters economical.

There are many Not In My Orbit people on this very page. Many current national politicians would be happy to vote AI out of orbit today. Space is not an escape from earthly politics.

> Space is not an escape from earthly politics.

Well, Earth orbit isn't.

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

#492
the GPU builds are very high stakes games of depreciation: if the mission life is e.g. 4 years you win, if a disrupting ASIC for the transformer comes in you lose.

As of today the gamblers seem to win, demand even for A100s, H100s is high prices are even rising.

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

#493
post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is what S&P Dow Jones Indices themselves say, so the burden of proof to prove otherwise must fall on you. And anyway, the rule change is truly the only reasonable way they can react to the current situation. It will absolutely be untenable to keep Anthropic , OpenAI and SpaceX off the S&P 500 with them also being the highest valued companies on the market.

Quatsch. The indices will say whatever benefits their power the most, regardless of truth. The fact that they are bending now to pressure is proof enough for me. We live in an age proving that valuation is just a manipulation. This whole story is just like the BaM situation: the people with more money feel emboldened to pull every dastardly trick they can to tilt the table towards their pockets, away from the honest…

So you don't actually have any evidence to support your claim? This just seems like a matter of faith at this point, that's fine.

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

#494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone explain how the thermals will work? One of the biggest challenges on Earth is cooling the data center, and it's at least as challenging in space.

The earthbound equivalent would be strapping each chassis to the back of a dedicated solar panel and having the panel double as a giant heat sink. The problem is that doesn't work on the surface due to (at least) rain, the day/night cycle, and the cost of real estate.

That's not right. This works a couple orders of magnitude better on the ground than on space (unless your computers run at several hundred °C).

The reason people don't do it here is because it's too expensive.

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

#496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this logic. Does whole market mean scamming companies too?

Fun fact, both Enron and Lehman Brothers were in the S&P 500 when they went bankrupt. So yes, the whole market or even the market of the largest companies, includes some that may not be great companies. The beauty of the index is you don't have to know or care, since it'll take care of itself over time.

>The beauty of the index is you don't have to know or care, since it'll take care of itself over time

As long as there are active investors in the market conducting price discovery. Which there always will be, just pointing out that someone has to care, even if you don’t

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

#497

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.

Dimon himself is inserting himself https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/jpmorgans-dimon-...

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

#498
post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been covered extensively. The change of nasdaq rules has been covered by Bloomberg, WSJ, NYT, and most others who have reporters on the Wall Street beat. Columnists at all three of those publications have called it out as a possible play on institutional indexing money. I don’t need to tell you who like it’s some big secret either. It was Elon Musk on behalf of spacex. The changes were openly part of the ipo.…

Here's Matt Levine from Bloomberg saying something along the lines of "lol, obviously the indices have to do this, they'll look like fools if they don't because these will be the biggest companies on the market". He famously spends much of his time making fun of Musk, but seems to reject the idea of his influence here. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/newsletters/2026-05-26/ind... Perhaps you can provide a single co…

That is one of the columns. The headline makes my point succinctly. Your paraphrase of the column misses the crucial point. A Nasdaq index fund doesn’t buy a company unless it is in the Nasdaq. Under the old rules SPCEX was ineligible for listing. Now Nasdaq index funds all have to buy. Index funds by nature do not selectively buy stocks, if the stock is in the index, they buy, that’s their mandate. That’s the game, to be included in as many indexes as possible that force institutional investors to buy. That’s hundreds of billions worth of funds that now have to buy in, that previously wouldn’t have had to if it wasn’t listed on the Nasdaq.

The SP500 did not waive the rules, and that made above the fold news this week, because it is a major blow to the big IPOs happening this month since they are valued so high. It will be harder for them to move stock if the massive index funds aren’t buying automatically. The big IPOs this month are asking for prices that demand hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars of liquidity. Index funds are automatic liquidity, but only if you are on the index.

They didn’t ask them to change long standing rules for shits and giggles.

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

#499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are overthinking this. The whole purpose of the SpaceX / xAI merger is for Musk to launder his failing companies to make them more palatable to the public. Not unlike the complex Mortgage Backed Securities of the GFC era which had a ton of low quality debt but yet were somehow assigned spotless credit ratings. Twitter is also being rolled up into SpaceX for the same reason.

I sure wish my company were failing the same way Musk’s allegedly are.

Yeah, there are too many people happy to sacrifice principles for a buck...

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

#500
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If whole market means whole market, then such investments are exposed to companies who are fairly valued, companies who are massively overvalued, and companies who are massively undervalued, and the whole range in between. If you want to start picking and choosing which companies are overvalued and which are undervalued, don’t invest in whole market funds. But most people are not good at that!

Are there really 10-100x undervalued companies listed on indexes that haven’t been noticed?

Yes. There are probably a dozen or more across the SP500 and Russel 2000 that will 10-100x in the next 5-10 years. The trick is to be able to identify them!
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