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

With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX

paulkrugman.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 99 posts

Re: With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX

#51

Post by bjtitus »

iknowstuff wrote: post #3

[flagged]

> internet available from every place on the globe

I keep hearing this refrain that Starlink is going to connect everyone. LTE already covers 93% of the population globally [1]. There are obviously dead spots but I really don't see the economic case for Starlink coverage. I frequently travel with a mini and I appreciate the near certainty of connection but it seems like a luxury item. The vast majority of the time cell connection is fine. I suppose Starlink could eat all the telcos but it seems like they aren't too far behind and this connectivity will be commoditized.

[1] https://www.itu.int/itu-d/reports/statistics/2025/10/15/ff25...

Re: With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX

#52

Post by galleywest200 »

mrkstu wrote: post #47
BoggleOhYeah wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Hey kids. Morality doesn't exist as long as you make enough people money.” You people are nothing but whores. You can dress it up in some kind of utopian futurism but no one with a brain buys it.

Its hilarious that the left, the home of the Weathermen, masked Antifa terrorists, assassins cheered by their base, studiously ignoring rape by favored groups, and a list I could continue for paragraphs, so weakly grasps for morality as some kind of new Puritans. The only morality of the left is that of Big Brother. Musk must be verboten because of his heresies, not because he shares the libertine tendencies of the l…

> Considering that Climate Change is apparently the greatest challenge of our age, please point me to a single person who has done more to move the world economy to a Green economy than Musk?

The same guy burning portable gas generators at both Colossus data centers?

Re: With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX

#53

Post by mamonster »

maxdo wrote: post #21

He revolutionized car and rocket industry , internet industry , military industry in a very dramatic obvious way. Now grab let’s say Amazon what did they revolutionize? Yeah they do deliver to you goods from China and help you to tend hardware with some decent soft on it . You can twist it both ways. He has a bravery to take on super complex tasks. You might not like him personally but this is so much aspiring vs see…

>internet industry , military industry

This is the part people are missing. You are investing into the most important U.S government/military contractor (SpaceX + Twitter). And if you really look at how Tesla survived (i.e electric vehicle subsidies) you can make an argument Musk is the biggest state capitalist of the 21st century.

I've posted comments previously about how Musk & the Paypal mafia were the first to realise that the US government offers you the bigggest captive TAM in the world, but the SpaceX IPO just cements it.

Re: With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX

#54

Post by bigyabai »

Glyptodon wrote: post #41

Musk is kind of fascinating. On one hand SpaceX and Starlink are businesses that it's practically embarrassing that seemingly nobody else even tried to build. You look into it and look at Bezos and Blue Origin and wonder if the markets can actually build new businesses anymore. Then you set them aside and realize that he basically got away with visa fraud because he was wealthy to begin with and lucked into making to…

"In this world some people born are like keys that move the world and exist having no connection to the social heirarchy established by man." - Kentaro Miura

I think that the average American discounts how important sociopaths are to the economy. The man chanting about developers, the guy who says you're holding it wrong, the human lawnmower who supports genocide, the CEO that introduced his wife to Epstein, the gay executive that launders bigoted politics, the other gay executive that wants to scan your eyeball and build AGI. The scheming Afrikaner now rides in to collect his due, astride two horses and a retinue of unsold EVs.

They all have rabid fanbases, but also the Mandate of Heaven. These sociopaths can exploit whatever they set their eyes on, and dominate it until their judgement fails them. It wouldn't be such a problem if Americans had a healthy skepticism for chronic liars, and didn't worship brand identity to their last breath. That tide is slowly changing, but not fast enough to stop where we're headed.

Re: With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX

#55

Post by iknowstuff »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #44
mrkstu wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is conveniently forgetting that China used Tesla as a template on how to build out its electric car companies, as it is now using SpaceX as a template to get reusable rockets going...

Actually, there's good evidence that it's the other way around. According to Elon, designing a car factory is 1000X harder than designing a car. According to Elon, the initial model 3 production was a big mess that almost bankrupted the company. How did they turn this around? By building a car factory in China using local knowledge, then building an duplicate of that factory in Germany, and then building a factory in…

sorry bud but you're misinformed and reaching for conclusions

model 3 was successful and profitable long before shanghai started churning out model Ys years later

Re: With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX

#56

Post by Flashtoo »

volkk wrote: post #29
throw0101c wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know right! Except for […] You mean like Krugman recognizes in this paragraph: > Granted, Musk has had some real successes. Tesla was ahead of the EV curve, and Starlink is a critically important service as well as a viable business. Krugman's hypothesis is in the very next paragraph: > But these achievements weren’t enough to make Musk the world’s richest man. His wealth has, instead, historically rested mainly…

[flagged]

> It's literally the free market at work--it's really simple, if you don't believe in whatever he says, don't speculate!

This, too, is actually addressed in the article - the whole point is that you're being forced to participate/speculate through this rapid inclusion in indices and mutual funds, because he's had the indices change the rules for him. So no, it's not that simple.

Re: With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX

#57

Post by iknowstuff »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #15
iknowstuff wrote: post #3

[flagged]

China electrified the auto industry [1] [2] [3], not Tesla (mostly BYD). SpaceX is appreciated for proving that reusable vehicles are possible, which other nation states are building [4]. Musk is the management huckster who slaps his name on it, sells it, and reaps the benefits as opposed to the person grinding creating the actual results and innovation. "It is what it is." [1] https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car…

BYD sells fewer BEVs than Tesla globally. Their large numbers stem from hybrids. They also grew long after Tesla established EVs as a viable market. You're misinformed.

Re: With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX

#58

Post by mrkstu »

galleywest200 wrote: post #52
mrkstu wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its hilarious that the left, the home of the Weathermen, masked Antifa terrorists, assassins cheered by their base, studiously ignoring rape by favored groups, and a list I could continue for paragraphs, so weakly grasps for morality as some kind of new Puritans. The only morality of the left is that of Big Brother. Musk must be verboten because of his heresies, not because he shares the libertine tendencies of the l…

> Considering that Climate Change is apparently the greatest challenge of our age, please point me to a single person who has done more to move the world economy to a Green economy than Musk? The same guy burning portable gas generators at both Colossus data centers?

Yep. Also the guy moving countries to battery peaking power instead of gas turbines, the guy who started the revolution that has China moving to mostly battery powered cars. He could run those data centers for decades and not dent his net green credentials.

Re: With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX

#59

Post by readthenotes1 »

bjtitus wrote: post #51
iknowstuff wrote: post #3

[flagged]

> internet available from every place on the globe I keep hearing this refrain that Starlink is going to connect everyone. LTE already covers 93% of the population globally [1]. There are obviously dead spots but I really don't see the economic case for Starlink coverage. I frequently travel with a mini and I appreciate the near certainty of connection but it seems like a luxury item. The vast majority of the time ce…

[flagged]

Re: With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX

#60

Post by toomuchtodo »

iknowstuff wrote: post #57
toomuchtodo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China electrified the auto industry [1] [2] [3], not Tesla (mostly BYD). SpaceX is appreciated for proving that reusable vehicles are possible, which other nation states are building [4]. Musk is the management huckster who slaps his name on it, sells it, and reaps the benefits as opposed to the person grinding creating the actual results and innovation. "It is what it is." [1] https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car…

BYD sells fewer BEVs than Tesla globally. Their large numbers stem from hybrids. They also grew long after Tesla established EVs as a viable market. You're misinformed.

BYD continues to expand faster than Tesla. If you’re focused on anything other than rate of change, you’ve missed the mark. They intend to be the biggest global automaker in five years, and their trajectory to get there is clear.

Tesla isn’t going away, but it isn’t ever going to be a giant in the industry anymore. Their maximum output is ~2M/units/year, which BYD already easily exceeds while continuing to scale. Is Tesla building any more vehicle assembly lines? They are not.

Citations:

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a69905157/tesla-sales-down...

https://www.statista.com/chart/33709/tesla-byd-electric-vehi...

https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/byd-ma...

https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/byd-gl...

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-where-tesla-and-byd-...

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jun/10/china-byd-c...

Post reply on HN