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How can that be seen at Tesla and SpaceX, two companies that he started (more or less), an neither of which is in a "solidly profitable state"?
by KarlKemp 4y ago
How can that be seen at Tesla and SpaceX, two companies that he started (more or less), an neither of which is in a "solidly profitable state"?
- aglavine 4y agoBoth make profits.
- croes 4y agoIs making profit the same as being in a solidly profitable state?
- bryanlarsen 4y agoSource for the SpaceX profitability? They raised a lot of money last year, which wouldn't be necessary for a profitable company. Falcon is probably profitable, but it only grosses a couple billion a year. OTOH, Starlink and Starship are both $10B+ projects that aren't generating significant revenue yet.
- nightski 4y agoI have no idea where you'd get the notion that profitable companies don't need to borrow money for large capital investments.
- bryanlarsen 4y agoHe didn't borrow money. They issued stock. Significantly, this reduced Elon's share below 50% which I doubt he would have done lightly.
- HWR_14 4y agoDid he retain 51% of voting rights? A lot of people (e.g. Brin, Zuckerberg) own way less than 50% of their companies but still maintain control.
- 4khilles 4y agoCash flow != profitability. You can be profitable but have negative cash flow. If you have negative cash flow, you need to borrow capital to keep growing.
- VirusNewbie 4y agoTesla made 5B in profit last year and is on track to double that number this year.
- burlesona 4y agoTesla is profitable: https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/20/23031976/tesla-q1-earnings-profit-elon-musk https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/20/23031976/tesla-q1-earning... As SpaceX is privately held we don’t really know.
- the_duke 4y agoSpaceX is investing heavily in two projects (Starlink and Starship), both of which swallow huge amounts of money. They are definitely not profitable now, but by choice.
- dotnet00 4y agoTesla is profitable and SpaceX is currently pouring all their resources into two futuristic megaprojects with high upfront costs, so it's understandable that they aren't "solidly profitable" at the moment.