Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance' • Hacker News Board

Re: Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'

#71

Post by hparadiz » Fri, May 29, 2026, 4:53 PM UTC

MBCook wrote: post #59

parliament32 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they're doing the fancy equivalent of selling $20 bills for $15 and chirping about how high their revenue is. You, me, and everyone else could generate $inf revenue with that strategy, but that doesn't make it a viable business model.

Right. At this point burying money in jars in the back yard and forgetting where some are has a much higher rate of return.

Using Google’s own IPO S-1 / SEC filings:

Year Revenue Net income / loss

1998 Not reported

1999 $220k -$6.076M

2000 $19.108M -$14.690M

Do you guys not know what a loss lead is?

Re: Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'

#72

Post by rchaud » Fri, May 29, 2026, 4:53 PM UTC

fluidcruft wrote: post #14

It's really concerning given how the indexes are changing rules to fast-track SpaceX being forced into index funds. S&P is also working on updates to S&P 500 to force it down everyone's throats quickly and algorithmically.

Waiving profitability requirements to join the S&P 500 and trigger auto-buys from index funds is DEI for corporations.

Re: Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'

#73

Post by parliament32 » Fri, May 29, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

hparadiz wrote: post #71

MBCook wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. At this point burying money in jars in the back yard and forgetting where some are has a much higher rate of return.

Using Google’s own IPO S-1 / SEC filings: Year Revenue Net income / loss 1998 Not reported 1999 $220k -$6.076M 2000 $19.108M -$14.690M Do you guys not know what a loss lead is?

I have no doubt there are a handful of positive examples when we ignore the tens of thousands of failed companies along these lines.

I have no problem with money-furnaces trading publicly. If people want to invest in those, fantastic, power to them. But they absolutely should not be included in vehicles like pensions and indexes.

Re: Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'

#74

Post by root_axis » Fri, May 29, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

fluidcruft wrote: post #14

It's really concerning given how the indexes are changing rules to fast-track SpaceX being forced into index funds. S&P is also working on updates to S&P 500 to force it down everyone's throats quickly and algorithmically.

And accelerating the schedules for insiders to dump shares.

Re: Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'

#75

Post by marcosdumay » Fri, May 29, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

hparadiz wrote: post #71

MBCook wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. At this point burying money in jars in the back yard and forgetting where some are has a much higher rate of return.

Using Google’s own IPO S-1 / SEC filings: Year Revenue Net income / loss 1998 Not reported 1999 $220k -$6.076M 2000 $19.108M -$14.690M Do you guys not know what a loss lead is?

You seem to be ignoring that a loss lead is supposed to lead people into doing something profitable.

Re: Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'

#76

Post by jmyeet » Fri, May 29, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

The part that gets me is that changing of the rules by exchanges and financial regulators to essentially force mass purchases on a small float. That's disgusting and in a just world, those people would go to jail.

The funny part of all this is that SpaceX has achieved a lot but what might break them, or at least weigh them down heavily, is the impulsive and forced purchase of Twitter. Before anyone claims it was some kind of master plan, Elon went to court to get out of it but was forced into it [1].

What happened? Mass firings, pushing his own tweets because his fragile ego couldn't handle Joe Biden getting more likes [2] and Twitter opened the floodgates for hate speech [3] and worse [4]. Advertisers fled. Fidelity (who foolishly was part of the acquisition) massively wrote down the value [5]. Elon had used Tesla shares as collateral and was possibly facing a margin call.

How did he get out of it? Well, in 2023 Elon founded xAI to challenge OpenAI. People invested in this for some reason. And by 2025, Elon merged Twitter with xAI, overvaluing Twitter at $33 billion (which is still down 25% from the purchase) [6].

Now, I imagine the xAI investors were unhappy with Elon using xAI to bail out himself so what did he do? Easy. Make SpaceX acquire xAI of course [7].

Thing is, xAI and Twitter/Grok are a massive drain on SpaceX's finances, losing more than $10 billion annually allegedly [8].

Twitter did not have to end up as part of SpaceX. SpaceX would've been a better company without it. SpaceX already faces headwinds from the incredibly expensive and behind-schedule Starship program. Part of all of this regulatory fixing is to make sure the insiders (and Elon himself) get bailed out.

It's also not the first time [9].

[1]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/elon-musk-offers-to-end...

[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/15/elon-musk...

[3]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/02/technology/twitter-hate-s...

[4]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/27/twitter...

[5]: https://www.axios.com/2023/10/29/fidelity-twitter-x-value-el...

[6]: https://www.fintechweekly.com/magazine/articles/xai-acquires...

[7]: https://www.reuters.com/business/musks-spacex-merge-with-xai...

[8]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-17/musk-s-xa...

[9]: https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/21/13698314/tesla-completes...

Re: Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'

#77

Post by rlkf » Fri, May 29, 2026, 5:00 PM UTC

mohsen1 wrote: post #22

fluidcruft wrote: post #14

It's really concerning given how the indexes are changing rules to fast-track SpaceX being forced into index funds. S&P is also working on updates to S&P 500 to force it down everyone's throats quickly and algorithmically.

There is a market for an S&P 500 ETF without those companies. I'll immediately switch over

You probably want an ETF that follows something like the MSCI USA Ex Mega Cap index then: https://www.msci.com/indexes/index/758086>

Re: Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'

#78

Post by rchaud » Fri, May 29, 2026, 5:03 PM UTC

hparadiz wrote: post #38

alpha_squared wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because from where I'm sitting it seems like you're just operating on hopes and feels. I hate these flippant comments. Similarly, from where I'm sitting it seems you're struggling to disentangle revenue from profit.

I buy 50 billion of hardware. Make 45 billion back in year 1. My losses are 5 billion. I Pay of all my creditors by year two. Then spend another 55 billion on hardware in the second half of year two. My profit is at this point zero. By year three I am printing money. It's not a flippant comment. It's basic math.

It's not basic math when the numbers are this big. There's not going to be $50 billion coming in Year 3 if there's a market correction and lenders scale back financing. Borrowed money is how companies are paying for AI, and that's the first thing that disappears in a recession.

Re: Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'

#79

Post by zdragnar » Fri, May 29, 2026, 5:05 PM UTC

hparadiz wrote: post #38

alpha_squared wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because from where I'm sitting it seems like you're just operating on hopes and feels. I hate these flippant comments. Similarly, from where I'm sitting it seems you're struggling to disentangle revenue from profit.

I buy 50 billion of hardware. Make 45 billion back in year 1. My losses are 5 billion. I Pay of all my creditors by year two. Then spend another 55 billion on hardware in the second half of year two. My profit is at this point zero. By year three I am printing money. It's not a flippant comment. It's basic math.

In year three your competitors invest in making a better model and crush your business because you have no moat at all.

The entire business requires massive ongoing investment because getting massive investments is the only thing resembling a competitive advantage that you can get.

The equivalent to anything you can do will be available as an open weight set in six months to a year. Sink or swim.

Re: Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'

#80

Post by rayiner » Fri, May 29, 2026, 5:07 PM UTC

malcolmgreaves wrote: post #57

rayiner wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

With their balanced budget and no social services cut?

What "balanced budget?" Mamdani got a massive bailout from the state of New York, and deferred pension payments.

It's classic third worldism, made possible by a low-information electorate that not only can't do the math, but lacks instinctual skepticism of the idea of a free lunch. Chicago went down the same path, and found that these gimmicks work until they don't.