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

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311–320 of 344 posts

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

#311
post #291

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.

No one made any claim that it was a secret. The linked article is literally about public disclosures from Google themselves.

disclose /dɪˈskləʊz/ verb verb: disclose; 3rd person present: discloses; past tense: disclosed; past participle: disclosed; gerund or present participle: disclosing

make (secret or new information) known.

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

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or $150 billion SpaceX? Internet constellations may be mildly profitable, but beyond that, most things are an endless money pit without clear path towards profit anytime soon. Like, no one is going to spend a trillion on a moon base (or exponentially more for mars) without plans to somehow recover all that money.

Moon is taxfree zone?

Free Luna!

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

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't really say SpaceX expanded its business. It was merged with a social network and AI firm to juice its IPO valuation. The SpaceX part of the business is interesting, but the value is generously only about 20% of the value of the company. Anyone who wants to invest in AI isn't going to want a near last place model company. And who wants to put money into Twitter?

I don't think what place you're in matters anymore when a small lab like Moonshot can come in and take the top spot out of nowhere.

Sure, but that's more of an indictment of SpaceXAI. All those resources, and they get upstaged by a bunch of much more compute constrained Chinese startups.

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

#314
post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehh, more like Starlink was a thing they said they'd do to justify the investment at the time. Just like they said they'd build an assembly line mass producing Falcon 1's for small launch market, or send a Starship full of artists around the Moon. The first prototypes were three years later.

What are you people arguing about here? This is exactly what is argued here, i.e. that Alphabet is like an investment fund? They had a hunch and it paid off, didn't they? I.e. you're making the point for the argument made?

That 2015 Alphabet was the tail end of the Google X era where the founders were making crazy conviction bets that weee only thinly related to their core area, very different from current Alphabet that really only does make considered strategic investments.

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

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of Spacex that's literally not the case, when private investors bought shares the company was already a decade old and had a single class of shares. It's only since the IPO that the company switched to a dual structure, multiple years after private investors bought in. And class-B shares have only been given to Elon and a few of his friends.

SpaceX has had multiple share classes the entire time, what are you talking about? pre-IPO there was a third Class C with no voting rights at all, these got converted to Class A

Do you have any source on this? That doesn’t match what I can find

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

#316
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the serious lapses in governance being made by founders with these special shares, such as Musk and Zuckerberg, I wonder if the shares without these special rights will be substantially discounted. What rights do these other shareholders retain that would keep them valuable? Rights to compensation in the case of bankruptcy?

zuck for all his fault - he ain't a scammer or wannabe scammer. he might have a large miss with the metaverse, & maybe current a.i effort. but in terms of being ruthless with competition & acquiring competition he did his job well as CEO. musky on the other hand - overpromising and underdelivering.

At this point it’s not over promising, he’s knowingly lying to investors

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

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He absolutely can, but would expect to be sued in court. In Texas, where we don’t know what shareholder protections exist because the case law is so immature compared to Delaware. But Texas is making a push very specifically around giving less shareholder protections.

Well, okay, he can do lots of illegal stuff that's going to get punished in the courts. There's no way something like that would survive SEC scrutiny, I don't care what state you're in.

The SEC his buddy trump gutted?

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

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Space in NYC isn't cheap. Space in space is free. ... what? Say what you want about starship etc etc, but space in space is far from free and will be for a long time.

Who do you pay rent to in space? Space is free; you don't even pay property taxes. Transportation costs are not but that's the whole reason you invest into (at the time) a space transportation company.

You can't just get something to space and then leave it there for free. Any maintenance is way more expensive than a data center on the ground (be it via extra trips or extra R&D for autonomous operating).

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

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think what place you're in matters anymore when a small lab like Moonshot can come in and take the top spot out of nowhere.

Sure, but that's more of an indictment of SpaceXAI. All those resources, and they get upstaged by a bunch of much more compute constrained Chinese startups.

I disagree. They're renting out GPUs to other providers because they realize it's a long game that they're in a better position to win because they control infrastructure as well as hardware.

We'll have to wait and see I guess.

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

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but that's more of an indictment of SpaceXAI. All those resources, and they get upstaged by a bunch of much more compute constrained Chinese startups.

I disagree. They're renting out GPUs to other providers because they realize it's a long game that they're in a better position to win because they control infrastructure as well as hardware. We'll have to wait and see I guess.

Long game - lol. xAI lost/never gained traction. The talent all left, so Musk is trying to recoup some of the enormous investment in hardware.
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