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We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

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Re: We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

#181

Post by piloto_ciego »

enraged_camel wrote: post #111
piloto_ciego wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so you don't have to ask anybody for permission. That's it. Right now, 70% of the country is at least skeptical of DCs and at worst absolutely hate them. NIMBY is basically the rallying cry. That's why you go "up" (if they can make starship work). The physics is "hard" but doable, you can keep them cool enough in a sun synchronous orbit. The math pencils out. It's not my field, but back of the envelope math seem…

>> It's so you don't have to ask anybody for permission. That's it. This doesn't make sense because there's one party whose permission you always must ask, and that's the government. They are the ones who get to decide whether you can launch your rockets. A more accurate version of your claim would be: datacenters in space allow you to deal with one party (i.e. the government) instead of many. So long as your relatio…

Fair (at least for now, maybe in a decade we will be manufacturing stuff up there, but for now, yeah).

Totally fair - and with Star Shield and basically SpaceX being the only reasonable launch provider, and a Musk-Friendly government currently in the executive… then I think my thesis holds. The only people who can tell SpaceX no at that point are like 3 nation states with ASAT capabilities?

Regardless, he won’t have to ask the “city” counsel of Asslick Indiana if he can “please build here pretty please!”

Mark my words, they’re going to build “up.l

Re: We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

#182

Post by dilyevsky »

SwellJoe wrote: post #157
dilyevsky wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pinning CAHSR jobs program as hyperloop's fault is pretty funny. Maybe he did intend to upset it but since both turned out to be massive boondoggles doesn't seem like it worked - they managed to delay it themselves just fine.

Sure, California is a failed state on a lot of fronts, but Musk literally said he was pushing hyperloop for that reason. https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/editorials/article26445107... Whether he was the only reason for high speed rail being derailed and delayed isn't really the point. He intentionally worked against mass transit, and lied repeatedly about hyperloop as part of that.

I think you've missed the point - that wasn't the reason at all. In a way he was right too - we'll have fully autonomous buses and private vehicles capable of making the full trip down the I-5 long before they complete even the middle of nowhere section they currently have planned.

Re: We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

#183

Post by hparadiz »

amluto wrote: post #176
hparadiz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The video they posted today outlines their specs. They are gonna be smaller. About 100T. Based on Starlink architecture but with way larger radiators and solar panels. Apparently the design is simpler than existing Starlinks because it has fewer different parts. Specs: https://x.com/SawyerMerritt/status/2064108916611420273?s=20

That cooling system is … aggressive. 110m^2 of radiator to dissipate 120kW average heat. That’s about 1.1kW/m^2, which works out to very close to 100C at the radiator under absolutely perfect conditions (absolute zero ambient temperature, emissivity 1, no adverse geometric effects). Radiating into 300K ambient, it’s 134C. (300K ambient is about what you get if the sun is visible or if a large fraction of what the rad…

I assume the radiators will be in the shadow behind the solar panels and never facing the sun. That's seems like the easiest quick win.

Re: We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

#184

Post by jmyeet »

Hansenq wrote: post #112

You can absolutely level this claim against Tesla too. When deliveries dropped a year ago, the stock price didn't go down. Tesla's stock is disconnected from the fundamentals and every stock investor today knows this. Why would SpaceX be any different? If anything it would be even more disconnected from the fundamentals than Tesla is, given how much more control it gives Elon. SpaceX stock is a bet on Elon, full stop…

I 100% agree SpaceX (and Tesla) is a bet on Elon, completely divorced from the fundamentals. But I don't think people realize just how risky this is.

Tesla is only one administration change away from going bankrupt. Ask yourself what would happen to Tesla if BYD could freely import cars.

This might not even take an administration change. Elon very famously had a public falling out with Donald Trump, going so far as to call the sitting president of the United States a pedophile, basically [1]. Now, as a Tesla investor, what to make of this? Elon is technically risking the entire company on a childish outburst.

SpaceX at least has some competitive advantages. Falcon 9 as a launch system is unmatched. Nobody can currently compete with the track record and cost per launch (factoring in booster reuse). That may change but the next company has to compete with the Falcon 9 and develop a proven track record. Also, SpaceX is American so it has guaranteed business from the US government for national security reasons.

But, space operations are a rounding error in the valuation model for SpaceX. All of the AI stuff is bullshit, basically, particularly space-based data centers. STarlink is interesting but is dependent on Starship and will have to compete with 5G operators.

[1]: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5387380-elon-mus...

Re: We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

#185

Post by queenkjuul »

cryptonector wrote: post #166
colechristensen wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It raises the bar to the courts for shareholder control. The Google founders are, lets say, more reliable than Musk when it comes to making sound business decisions.

> The Google founders are, lets say, more reliable than Musk when it comes to making sound business decisions. I've no idea about that and I won't opine. But every time I see that sort of statement it seems likely motivated by the whole Twitter acquisition. Perhaps that was just a toy or vanity project for him, one he could afford, so even if you think he's running X terribly it might have nothing to do with how he's…

Space GPUs are stupid, so is hyperloop, so is the Vegas Loop; robotaxis don't work, cybertruck sucks, the humanoid robots don't work, the new roadster is nowhere to be seen.

SpaceX blew up an entire launchpad because Musk thought flame diverters are gay, or something.

And, yes, Twitter is now a shithole.

Re: We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

#186

Post by londons_explore »

collinmcnulty wrote: post #135
ralph84 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voting control doesn't change management's fiduciary duty to all shareholders. The founders retaining voting control has worked out fine for Alphabet shareholders.

Yeah but SpaceX says you need 3% of the company to sue, so that fiduciary duty is never going to be enforced.

Getting together a group of owners with 3% ownership by value or 3% by voting rights both seems do-able, and I'm sure would be done of there was a serious case of mismanagement.

Re: We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

#187

Post by SwellJoe »

dilyevsky wrote: post #182
SwellJoe wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, California is a failed state on a lot of fronts, but Musk literally said he was pushing hyperloop for that reason. https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/editorials/article26445107... Whether he was the only reason for high speed rail being derailed and delayed isn't really the point. He intentionally worked against mass transit, and lied repeatedly about hyperloop as part of that.

I think you've missed the point - that wasn't the reason at all. In a way he was right too - we'll have fully autonomous buses and private vehicles capable of making the full trip down the I-5 long before they complete even the middle of nowhere section they currently have planned.

Autonomous buses and private vehicles don't solve any of the problems high speed rail solves.

Re: We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

#188

Post by fc417fc802 »

kldavis4 wrote: post #10
m-hodges wrote: post #2

> Even at $63 per share, we give SpaceX a lot of benefit of the doubt in two of the three scenarios, in which we assume the company can achieve a rapidly reusable Starship rocket enabling multiple launches per week and successfully commercialize data centers in space. > In our downside scenario, orbital data centers won’t work or offer any advantage over terrestrial ones. We surmise that the company, having invested…

The orbital data center thing is really strange. Without some kind of massive technological breakthrough the physics of an orbital data center make no sense. Napkin math for a single data center including solar panels, radiators, compute and structure is somewhere on the order of ~6500 tonnes. Let's say Starship can put 100-150 tonnes into orbit per launch, that is somewhere between 40-65 launches for just one single…

I think that's looking at it the wrong way. Just view it as a fleet of satellites with computers in them that exist for the purpose of selling capacity. I don't see any issues with the physical fundamentals but the economics in terms of dollars either per flop or per bit transferred is where I don't understand how it's supposed to work.

Satellites are really expensive and electricity on the surface is relatively cheap. What hypothetical prospective customers are willing to pay the necessary rates? I understand that bandwidth back to the surface is expensive but are we really expecting so much raw data to be trapped in space that it justifies sending computers into orbit in order to crunch it at the source?

Re: We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

#189

Post by queenkjuul »

jmyeet wrote: post #180
oldfuture wrote: post #15

And the prospectus says it plainly: "Mr. Musk will be able to control the outcome of matters requiring shareholder approval." Musk holds over 85% voting power through Class B super-voting shares (10 votes/share). Public investors combined will have 15%. What Musk Controls: - CEO removal = his consent. You can't fire him even if he destroys the company - Take business for himself. SpaceX gets a rocket deal? Musk can s…

This isn't even a theoretical concern and it goes well beyond unfettered control of a single company. Look at the history: 1. One of Elon's companies (Tesla) bought out another of Elon's companies (Solar City) that was going bankrupt because it owed a lot of money to yet another of Elon's companies (SpaceX) [1]; 2. Elon diverted $500M of NVidia H100 GPUs reserved for Tesla to xAI [2]; 3. Elon made a buyout agreement…

I'd like to point out something i learned the other day:

Alphabet owns some SpaceX shares, which makes Google's sudden 90-day compute contract with xAI seem a little less than coincidental

Re: We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

#190

Post by frm88 »

mayama wrote: post #137
themafia wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 -- Signal jamming exists. 2 -- Space also belongs to the citizens and not the corporations. 3 -- The defense industry is the single worst most corrupt and idiotic industry we still shackle ourselves to.

> 1 -- Signal jamming exists. How easy is jamming starlink? I don't think it is as easy as jamming gps. As I've seen numerous warning from Russia that they providing starlink to Ukraine is bad idea. That they're going to shut it down etc. But, starlink is still being used in Ukraine.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2026/01/13/kill-swit...

Prior to these events, the prevailing consensus in the defense community was that Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellations like Starlink were nearly impossible to jam effectively. Their defense relied on the satellites' constant rapid movement and their ability to "frequency hop" to avoid static interference. The blackout in Iran has shattered this assumption.

https://www.jfeed.com/news/starlink-iran-china-jamming

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