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Google Discloses $94.1B in SpaceX Stock, Marking 6% Stake

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Re: Google Discloses $94.1B in SpaceX Stock, Marking 6% Stake

#191

Post by conartist6 »

infecto wrote: post #166
conartist6 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now Microsoft, them I'd short. In a way I have by starting my own company to undermine their various competitive advantages comprehensively

Time will tell but that feels foolish. MSFT is a terrible product company (look at copilot) but what they sell is a safe decision which is one of the most important factors for enterprise software. Nobody is close to replacing that.

I'm content for that be the narrative. Nobody is close, and what's more it's not even possible, and even if it was possible nobody would want it, and even if anyone did want it would only be a few people. ; )

Re: Google Discloses $94.1B in SpaceX Stock, Marking 6% Stake

#192

Post by panarky »

Polizeiposaune wrote: post #99
panarky wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally the 10x shares aren't traded so it's impossible to see if they trade at a premium. One exception is GOOG / GOOGL which both trade actively, and there's not much difference in price. The mechanism for a price divergence could be accumulation of the 10x shares to seize control, but even if you could buy the entire float, it wouldn't be enough to take control, so that mechanism never happens.

There are three classes of Google stock. By voting rights, they have 10x (founder stock), 1x (trading as GOOGL), and 0x (trading as GOOG). The class with 10x voting rights does not trade publicly. The class with 1x voting rights does not have enough voting power to control the direction of the company so there is no real difference in perceived value between GOOG and GOOGL. Employee stock awards are IIRC all in restr…

You are correct.

Interestingly, the 10x shares held by Brin and Page constitute only 11% of the economic value of Alphabet, but 51% of the voting control.

And the 10x shares automatically convert to 1x shares upon transfer or inheritance, so if the founders cash out or die, the 10x supervoting power disappears.

Re: Google Discloses $94.1B in SpaceX Stock, Marking 6% Stake

#193

Post by bpodgursky »

matwood wrote: post #49
miohtama wrote: post #41

This investment has never been secret. Google (now under parent company Alphabet) invested roughly $900 million as the majority of a ~$1 billion funding round alongside Fidelity Investments. This gave Google an initial equity stake of about 7–7.5% in SpaceX at a valuation of roughly $10–12 billion.

Remember this was also when SpaceX was actually about space, instead of mostly AI and Twitter. Long-term shareholders that were sold on the space, have to be thinking about how to get out once their lockups expire.

Yes I'm sure they are just desperate to get out of their 100x investment.

A huge mistake, I'm sure the relevant parties have been punished appropriately.

Re: Google Discloses $94.1B in SpaceX Stock, Marking 6% Stake

#194

Post by yieldcrv »

dmix wrote: post #151
throwaway27448 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone is arguing SpaceX is actually valuable, just overvalued and the repeated recipient of obvious corruption.

Which corruption exactly? NASDAQ giving them fast entry so the biggest IPO in history is done on NASDAQ and not on NYSE who was also competing for it? Both are fighting for OpenAI and Anthropic listings as well which likely influenced their choice to get in early with SpaceX

fortunately the passive investor bagholding didn’t work, the price sliced straight through their forced buying pressure and only created more shortable shares, as people without share lending sold to passive funds that do

Corruption that stands out to me would be regarding starlink, Elon got the FCC to change power emission rules to hamper competitors with better satellites, but the competitors were able to comply and offer a better service still, while starlink’s existing fleet cannot. meaning elon still would actually have to compete and make a new starlink fleet, which he is doing now. (Basically competitors dont need a base station, and future starlink wont meed a base station either, direct to device ubiquity high speed service is coming) but before that path, he then tried to get an exception from the fcc regulation he promulgated, which was extremely grimy. The fcc didn’t go along.

Re: Google Discloses $94.1B in SpaceX Stock, Marking 6% Stake

#195

Post by TJSomething »

glimshe wrote: post #111
wenbin wrote: post #110

Alphabet is the modern day berkshire hathaway. Alphabet’s investment holdings (eg, spacex, anthropic..) are worth in the same order of magnitude of BRK’s (~$300B) The track record of google’s M&A is pretty good. Except for search and cloud, many of Google’s important products were from M&A - Maps, Docs, android, doubleclick, youtube , deep mind, etc.

The companies you listed have great synergy with Google's core business. What's Google's play with SpaceX? Data centers in space?

It's telecom infrastructure to increase the number of people who have internet in order to increase the number of people using Google. They might have been considering having satellite internet in Android phones.

Re: Google Discloses $94.1B in SpaceX Stock, Marking 6% Stake

#196

Post by jsnell »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #46
hahahaa wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short Google? Early is wrong you know?

That’s a pretty weird take considering they’re down 21% in the last 2 months. How, exactly, is this early?

Early in terms of there being no sign of actual signs of decay of their business. It's less than a week since Google reported literally the highest quarterly profits by any public company ever[0]. This is while growing at 25% YoY, which is just insanely fast for a company that size.

[0] By net income. By operating income, still like top 5 to top 10 depending on how you interpret the numbers.

Re: Google Discloses $94.1B in SpaceX Stock, Marking 6% Stake

#197

Post by gritspants »

SecretDreams wrote: post #183
mrits wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s so weird to see people actively try to criticize arguably the most successful person in the history of Earth.

Some of the richest people the world has ever seen seem to tick all the same boxes as the least likeable and most devoid of love and empathy. If only some billionaires (trillionaires?) could strike a better balance between successful and human. Especially since most wealth is actually wealth transfer from the poor and from taxpayer coffers to the rich.

It is only a single counterpoint in a sea of depressing examples but you may enjoy the story of Yvon Chouinard, owner of Patagonia, who gave it all away to trusts for protecting the environment.

Re: Google Discloses $94.1B in SpaceX Stock, Marking 6% Stake

#198

Post by nairboon »

matwood wrote: post #49
miohtama wrote: post #41

This investment has never been secret. Google (now under parent company Alphabet) invested roughly $900 million as the majority of a ~$1 billion funding round alongside Fidelity Investments. This gave Google an initial equity stake of about 7–7.5% in SpaceX at a valuation of roughly $10–12 billion.

Remember this was also when SpaceX was actually about space, instead of mostly AI and Twitter. Long-term shareholders that were sold on the space, have to be thinking about how to get out once their lockups expire.

I think those long-term holders who 10x their investment are quite happy with that investment so far.

Re: Google Discloses $94.1B in SpaceX Stock, Marking 6% Stake

#199

Post by 230581abv »

rf15 wrote: post #19
throwaw12 wrote: post #14

100x return, I would sell immediately after this kind of gain, maybe that's why I am not a Google

I'm sure at an $80 valuation they will tell everyone how it's time to buy as it slides down further

Pichai will talk about data centers in space again, like he did before the IPO. Then he'll sell SPCX.

Re: Google Discloses $94.1B in SpaceX Stock, Marking 6% Stake

#200

Post by wasfgwp »

mrits wrote: post #97
mhitza wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love the typo. I think Musk's luck is running out, he's been too political this past year and he seems to also have run out of geek "street cred". Remember youtubers visiting (whatever the Tesla trade show was called) were more perplexed than impressed with what has been shown. Similar sentiment seen across trade shows (like CES) where everything was AI and no one seemed to ask themselves "why are we putting AI in th…

It’s so weird to see people actively try to criticize arguably the most successful person in the history of Earth.

That’s some weirdly perverse attitude to have. Regardless if it’s Musk or anyone else, in general the actions of highly successful people have a disproportionally high impact on the society. So they need to be criticized as harshly as is reasonable for any misstep they take.
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