3 ms·

Part of that is refusing to IPO, and still wanting to grow into new areas that revenue doesn’t yet support

• pclmulqdq 4y ago
  There's a big story floating around that Musk didn't run a SpaceX IPO by choice. I think the reality is probably pretty different: SpaceX doesn't look like it's in any shape to support being a public company from the financial breadcrumbs we have been given. The IPO would be huge, but the company needs more than just an IPO, it will need to continue doing secondary offerings to raise money (in contrast to Tesla, which doesn't at all). For those secondary offerings, you put downward pressure on your stock price, and markets start to eventually pick up expectations that you will make enough money to support a given valuation if you want to keep it. SpaceX's valuation is too high for just the Falcon 9 launch business to be worth continual secondary offerings. So they need something amazing - which is supposed to be Starlink today, but could have been "mars" or "asteroid mining" or whatever else. Without this rocket, Starlink doesn't look like it has massively positive unit economics either. Hence you get a company that is eternally raising money from private and venture markets on future promise and hype, paired with the perfect CEO to do those raises.