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Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

businessinsider.com

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Re: Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

#31

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Zigurd wrote: post #30
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Despite claims of profitability, SpaceX still needs huge investments This is false. SpaceX is cash flow positive.

SpaceX is in fact not profitable. Depending on how you price internal transactions for manufacturing and launching Starlink satellites you can fudge the hell out of the term "cash flow positive." In fact, SpaceX continued to take outside investments in 2025.

> SpaceX is in fact not profitable

This is false.

> Depending on how you price internal transactions for manufacturing and launching Starlink satellites you can fudge the hell out of the term "cash flow positive.”

This is nonsense. In accrual accounting, yes, there is room for fuckery. In cash accounting, you can shift cash around within the system, but the system is cash constrained.

SpaceX is cash-flow positive.

> SpaceX continued to take outside investments in 2025

Sure. It raised in its Series J. It has bought back more than that total round, secondary included, in stock.

It will probably raise massive amounts in 2026. It’s making large capital investments.

But for a few years, it didn’t. It was largely coasting. And in those years, up to now, it’s been cash-flow positive. It could have paid a dividend if it wanted.

Re: Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

#32

Post by moogly »

mocana wrote: post #9

Elon built up Tesla, to his great credit. He also has gone out of his way to undermine the car business. He enthusiastically endorsed getting rid of the EV car credit, publicly stating that it would help Tesla. And his DOGE antics have turned the Tesla brand toxic in the eyes of so many people in the US and around the world. (I own a Tesla and had many people advice me to sell it or to put a sticker on it to avoid va…

Lots of high-profile execs have left Tesla of late, fwiw.

Re: Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

#33

Post by Zigurd »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #31
Zigurd wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX is in fact not profitable. Depending on how you price internal transactions for manufacturing and launching Starlink satellites you can fudge the hell out of the term "cash flow positive." In fact, SpaceX continued to take outside investments in 2025.

> SpaceX is in fact not profitable This is false. > Depending on how you price internal transactions for manufacturing and launching Starlink satellites you can fudge the hell out of the term "cash flow positive.” This is nonsense. In accrual accounting, yes, there is room for fuckery. In cash accounting, you can shift cash around within the system, but the system is cash constrained. SpaceX is cash-flow positive. >…

Relatively recently Aerojet Rocketdyne valued ULA at about $2 billion. Do you think SpaceX is worth 10 times as much? That seems reasonable. How about 50 times as much? That's stretching it but, hey, it's Elon. 100 times as much? How about 700 times as much as ULA?

Re: Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

#34

Post by stackghost »

taylodl wrote: post #5

Given that Robotaxis are currently crashing at a much higher rate than human-driven vehicles, it seems risky to put a large majority of your company's future earnings and growth in that basket. On the Optimus front, I spent years in manufacturing. This industry is conservative and deeply relationship driven. Plants prioritize uptime and proven reliability, and they're slow to adopt newcomers. ABB is the 800-pound gor…

>If these bets don't pay off, Tesla needs a fallback

Good news! No matter what Tesla does, Musk's orbiters will tell you that Tesla isn't a company, it's actually a bet on .

Re: Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

#35

Post by [deleted] »

TylerLives wrote: post #10
mocana wrote: post #9

Elon built up Tesla, to his great credit. He also has gone out of his way to undermine the car business. He enthusiastically endorsed getting rid of the EV car credit, publicly stating that it would help Tesla. And his DOGE antics have turned the Tesla brand toxic in the eyes of so many people in the US and around the world. (I own a Tesla and had many people advice me to sell it or to put a sticker on it to avoid va…

Who is vandalizing the cars? Why doesn't police arrest them?

[deleted]

Re: Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

#36

Post by ben_w »

Zigurd wrote: post #33
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SpaceX is in fact not profitable This is false. > Depending on how you price internal transactions for manufacturing and launching Starlink satellites you can fudge the hell out of the term "cash flow positive.” This is nonsense. In accrual accounting, yes, there is room for fuckery. In cash accounting, you can shift cash around within the system, but the system is cash constrained. SpaceX is cash-flow positive. >…

Relatively recently Aerojet Rocketdyne valued ULA at about $2 billion. Do you think SpaceX is worth 10 times as much? That seems reasonable. How about 50 times as much? That's stretching it but, hey, it's Elon. 100 times as much? How about 700 times as much as ULA?

Didn't ULA launch something like 75-90 tons to orbit last year, vs. 2400 tons for SpaceX?

So SpaceX would be worth 27x just from payload even if the profit margin was the same, even if they weren't the cheapest launch vehicle and therefore a natural provider for all the mega-constellations that want to compete with Starlink in coming years, and even if they didn't have this plausible (allbeit definitely work-in-progress) vision for their even better margin space truck that is Starship + Superheavy?

Re: Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

#37

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Zigurd wrote: post #33
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SpaceX is in fact not profitable This is false. > Depending on how you price internal transactions for manufacturing and launching Starlink satellites you can fudge the hell out of the term "cash flow positive.” This is nonsense. In accrual accounting, yes, there is room for fuckery. In cash accounting, you can shift cash around within the system, but the system is cash constrained. SpaceX is cash-flow positive. >…

Relatively recently Aerojet Rocketdyne valued ULA at about $2 billion. Do you think SpaceX is worth 10 times as much? That seems reasonable. How about 50 times as much? That's stretching it but, hey, it's Elon. 100 times as much? How about 700 times as much as ULA?

ULA has zero growth prospects and no high-margin telecom business. I’m doubtful it would sell for even $2bn if auctioned off tomorrow.

More to the point: valuation is relatively independent of whether a business is cash-flow positive. (Totally independent in the case of practically-unlevered companies like SpaceX.)

Re: Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

#38

Post by Zigurd »

ben_w wrote: post #36
Zigurd wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relatively recently Aerojet Rocketdyne valued ULA at about $2 billion. Do you think SpaceX is worth 10 times as much? That seems reasonable. How about 50 times as much? That's stretching it but, hey, it's Elon. 100 times as much? How about 700 times as much as ULA?

Didn't ULA launch something like 75-90 tons to orbit last year, vs. 2400 tons for SpaceX? So SpaceX would be worth 27x just from payload even if the profit margin was the same, even if they weren't the cheapest launch vehicle and therefore a natural provider for all the mega-constellations that want to compete with Starlink in coming years, and even if they didn't have this plausible (allbeit definitely work-in-progr…

Somewhat to your chagrin, I think, I agree that 27X is a reasonable multiple. But I'm a generous guy I'd give them 50X. Do the math.

Re: Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

#39

Post by mrwrong »

TylerLives wrote: post #10
mocana wrote: post #9

Elon built up Tesla, to his great credit. He also has gone out of his way to undermine the car business. He enthusiastically endorsed getting rid of the EV car credit, publicly stating that it would help Tesla. And his DOGE antics have turned the Tesla brand toxic in the eyes of so many people in the US and around the world. (I own a Tesla and had many people advice me to sell it or to put a sticker on it to avoid va…

Who is vandalizing the cars? Why doesn't police arrest them?

because that's not their job?

Re: Tesla sales fall for the second year in a row

#40

Post by valianteffort »

stackghost wrote: post #34
taylodl wrote: post #5

Given that Robotaxis are currently crashing at a much higher rate than human-driven vehicles, it seems risky to put a large majority of your company's future earnings and growth in that basket. On the Optimus front, I spent years in manufacturing. This industry is conservative and deeply relationship driven. Plants prioritize uptime and proven reliability, and they're slow to adopt newcomers. ABB is the 800-pound gor…

>If these bets don't pay off, Tesla needs a fallback Good news! No matter what Tesla does, Musk's orbiters will tell you that Tesla isn't a company, it's actually a bet on .

Well it kind of is. Tesla are not coy about their plans of moving away from selling consumers personal vehicles. If you think cybercab can eat any significant percentage of Uber/Lyfts lunch there is value.

It takes a lot of hubris to throw away ostensibly worldwide EV dominance. And selling Americans on giving up car/independence culture when compared with Europe or Asia will be tough.

They will undoubtedly crush in the robot and energy space though.

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