Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The space bit of SpaceX is worth $8 a share, says Morgan Stanley

ft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 121 posts

Re: The space bit of SpaceX is worth $8 a share, says Morgan Stanley

#4

Post by JPLeRouzic »

Havoc wrote: post #2

That feels…low. They’re the only one with significant proven and operational space lift capacity

Citation:

"Morgan Stanley’s sum-of-the-parts analysis tells a more nuanced story. The “Space” segment, which encompasses Falcon rockets, Dragon capsules, and the Starship program, has been bleeding money. Heavy investment in Starship development drove operating losses in that division, even as SpaceX overall reported a profit of around $8 billion on revenues between $15 and $16 billion in 2025"

Re: The space bit of SpaceX is worth $8 a share, says Morgan Stanley

#6

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Havoc wrote: post #2

That feels…low. They’re the only one with significant proven and operational space lift capacity

They're treating lift as a cost centre for the $128/share connectivity segment. (X and Grok being worth $12/share is debatable. Enterprise AI being worth $150+ speaks for itself as nonsense.)

Re: The space bit of SpaceX is worth $8 a share, says Morgan Stanley

#7

Post by ben_w »

My draft blog post about all the things that are up with space data centres keeps getting bigger and bigger.

  "The other half of the MS model is data centres. “Orbital compute deployments” start in 2028, reach cost parity with their earthbound equivalents by 2031, and put 364GW of rigs in space by 2040."
With 25% efficient cells, at 500 km altitude, in a terminator-tracing SSO, this is enough to occupy a *contiguous* ring roughly 25 m tall, all the way around that orbit.

Also, from other statements they're clearly copying Alphabet's study which said cost parity in 2035, if they can actually launch 370,000 tons and maintain their learning rate.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.19468

  "A $668bn funding obligation to 2034 that delivers free cash flow that year of negative $48bn sounds less than ideal, though FCF might flip positive to $138bn in 2035 if everything goes to plan, so that’s nice. The SpaceX CEO presumably has a long history of delivering products on time and to the required specification that can support such confidence."
I love the snark here.

  "Helium-3 is one of the clearest examples of why lunar infrastructure could matter. The isotope is extremely rare on Earth, with current supply largely tied to tritium decay, but the Moon has accumulated helium-3 for billions of years because it lacks Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field. NASA mining concepts often assume concentrations around 20 parts per billion, meaning helium-3 is abundant in total but painfully diffuse, requiring hundreds of tons of regolith to be mined and heated to recover small quantities."
Ugh. This will need a separate blog post for why it's stupid. At 20 ppb, even if we could fuse He3, that makes lunar regolith marginally less energy dense than firewood. Also, anyone with a fusion reactor can make He3, even highschool students with home-made fusors can already do this. I'll have to check sources and maths to make sure I've not missed something important about which would be cheaper, *currently existing* neutron sources like fusors or going to the moon, but regardless, we can't currently use this stuff for fusion and the moment we can we won't need to mine it.

(I have not yet formed an opinion about non-fusion uses for He3).

Re: The space bit of SpaceX is worth $8 a share, says Morgan Stanley

#8

Post by adastra22 »

ben_w wrote: post #7

My draft blog post about all the things that are up with space data centres keeps getting bigger and bigger. "The other half of the MS model is data centres. “Orbital compute deployments” start in 2028, reach cost parity with their earthbound equivalents by 2031, and put 364GW of rigs in space by 2040." With 25% efficient cells, at 500 km altitude, in a terminator-tracing SSO, this is enough to occupy a *contiguous*…

He3 is needed as a cryogenic for quantum systems, not fusion fuel.

Re: The space bit of SpaceX is worth $8 a share, says Morgan Stanley

#9

Post by adastra22 »

verzali wrote: post #3
Havoc wrote: post #2

That feels…low. They’re the only one with significant proven and operational space lift capacity

Space lift is not very profitable. The money comes from whatever you actually put in orbit with that lift capacity.

SpaceX’s launch services have huge margins.
Post reply on HN