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Go work for them on a position that has equity as part of the compensation. Otherwise, I doubt it. Elon has been pretty vocal about regretting making Tesla pu

Go work for them on a position that has equity as part of the compensation. Otherwise, I doubt it. Elon has been pretty vocal about regretting making Tesla public. Additionally SpaceX as a company is oriented around putting humans on mars. Until that happens, I expect a supermajority of ownership would be against the profit seeking motives that an IPO creates. Short of investing in them, you could look for companies in industries that are likely to benefit from cheaper space access. Might have an easier time there.

mcpackieh 3y ago
Talk of putting people on Mars is how they recruit young idealistic engineers. I think to understand what SpaceX is actually about you need to understand who Michael Griffin is and what he's all about. He went with Musk when he tried to buy an ICBM from Russia; he conceived of NASA's Commercial Resupply Services program and gave the contract to SpaceX, before SpaceX had ever put anything into orbit. Ditto the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services contract. It's not an exaggeration to say that SpaceX would not exist if not for Michael Griffin. Read about the rest of his career and I think you'll figure it out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin#Career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin#Career
- didibus 3y ago
  > During this time, he met entrepreneur Elon Musk and accompanied him on a trip to Russia > In December 2008, with SpaceX again on the verge of bankruptcy, Griffin awarded SpaceX along with his own Orbital Sciences company each contracts with a combined value of $3.5 billion It's crazy how nepotism is still such an important aspect of success today. It's very likely had they never known each other, SpaceX would not exist today, and some other company would have thrived instead. I also don't understand how it's not a conflict of interest to award his own company that contract?
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    It's very likely that if Michael Griffin and Elon Musk had never met, Elon Musk would not be in the space business at all and Michael Griffin would have induced some other person to play the same role. Orbital Sciences and SpaceX both exist to make "proliferated" LEO constellations possible. He founded one and had his fingers all over the founding of the other. He's gone above and beyond to keep both these companies afloat. Considering the nature and role of the LEO constellation Michael Griffin wants to build, remember Elon Musk's talk about "preventing extinction". Ostensibly he's talking about making a 'backup' population of humanity on Mars, but that makes zero sense. Serious customers for Mars colonization don't actually exist and SpaceX hasn't invested in the development of Mars habitat technology themselves. What they're actually doing is developing boosters capable of launching proliferated LEO constellations for feasible amounts of money (a capability SpaceX is now demonstrating with Starlink.)
    - panick21_ 3y ago
      Ok mister smarty pants. How do you create a program for Mars colonialisation without first solving the problem of price to LEO launches. You act as if there was some short cut around that. There isnt. So your argument just fundamentally doesnt work. What would SpaceX invest in refueling if LEO is all they cared about?
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    >I also don't understand how it's not a conflict of interest to award his own company that contract? This kind of inside dealing is just the status quo in american businesses today. Every CEO is on the board of the companies where their board members are CEOs. Really easy to get your board to approve a comp increase when they know you will do the same for them. Big business is a social club and you ain't in it.
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    The contracts were not given out because of SpaceX issues. This program was ungoing and progressing threw the steps. SpaceX and Orbital were the deserving companies to get the contracts. This is one of the most successful contract in history. Griffin didnt invente COTS, that was anouter group that had been wanting to do a program like that and Griffin was just the administrator. To you have actual evidence the Griffin as administrator actually overwrote the technical comities making these choices in order to help SpaceX. If you dont have that evidence then you are just full of shit talking out of your ass.
    - didibus 3y ago
      I'm just quoting the linked Wikipedia article. So if it's inaccurate, my bad. That's all I read of the man.
- samr71 3y ago
  This has elements of truth but is a conspiracy theory the way you describe it. If you listen to Musk, or listen to people who work for Musk, or the people who work for those people, they all say that the point of SpaceX is to enable human colonization of Mars. It's not just a marketing strategy to acquire talent (unless you think they're all lying -- hence the conspiracy aspect. Now, to do that, they'll need to scratch the government's back. Doesn't mean that Mars isn't priority #1.
  - georgeg23 3y ago
    The only person that has to lie is Musk. That's why SpaceX is run as an autocracy. Everyone else drinks the Mars Kool aid. People who have been around a while connect the dots. To be more precise, the company is run by the DoD with significant technical and financial assistance. Elon is the main conduit between those deep resource and the rest of the company. He regularly meets with all teams to ensure they are aligned with "higher purposes". To be even more precise, Elon is a front-man for a right-wing multi-decade program in American hegemony and actualizing it's crowning achievement--the Strategic Defense Initiative.
    - xNeil 3y ago
      can the internet please decide whether SpaceX is an autocracy, or if (as several media outlets put it) Elons companies succeeded in spite of him as opposed to because of him. both of these cannot be true at the same time.
      - dragonwriter 3y ago
        > can the internet please decide whether SpaceX is an autocracy, or if (as several media outlets put it) Elons companies succeeded in spite of him as opposed to because of him. No, the internet isn't a hive mind, and is never going to have simple unitary opinions except as rare coincidence. > both of these cannot be true at the same time. And yet a planet-scale information network can easily include voices that believe each of them simultaneously, because people disagree.
      - 3y ago
- georgeg23 3y ago
  Yep, Griffin even shared the plenary talks with Musk when he gave the famous Mars Society announcement about going to Mars, https://marspedia.org/images/9/99/2001_TMS_Conv_Sched.pdf https://marspedia.org/images/9/99/2001_TMS_Conv_Sched.pdf They were very close. Elon named his first born son Griffin. Mike Griffin is all about putting (eventually) hypersonic weapons in space and resurrecting Brilliant Pebbles. He was the early advocate for reusable launchers https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/may99/rockets11.htm https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/may99/r... and the Falcon name came from his DARPA Falcon Project.
  - oblio 3y ago
    So, basically a Cold War warhawk.
- robotresearcher 3y ago
  Can you state what you mean, instead of the innuendo, please?
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    SDI, obviously. Did you click the link? My innuendo is thinner than rice paper, it's a joke to prod you into clicking that link. Michael Griffin's entire career revolves around kinetic interceptor based SDI, e.g. Brilliant Pebbles. The only way to build such a system is to develop rocket boosters that let you launch tens of thousands of satellites, which is what SpaceX has been working towards the entire time.
bob1029 3y ago
> Short of investing in them, you could look for companies in industries that are likely to benefit from cheaper space access. I've been investing heavily in domestic tooling, manufacturing and construction. Screw chasing only SpaceX, wouldn't you also like to capitalize on things like our gigantic semiconductor mfg build-out? Playing the supply chain is often times better than having direct access to the thing you want exposure to. It's just not as fun for certain elements of the monkey brain to operate one or two degrees removed.
- DennisP 3y ago
  That thought occurred to me but I couldn't find an ETF or an easy way to find the right companies. How do you go about it?
  - bob1029 3y ago
    What I do is browse aimlessly through RH until see a tag like "Industrials". Then, I click this and I can see a list of like 50 companies that do all things yellow-square in sim city. It's like fish in a barrel if you have patience to sort through the information and type fake contact info into investor web forms to get at presentation materials. You definitely don't need a Bloomberg terminal subscription to do this stuff.
    - callalex 3y ago
      Why the need for fake contact info?
      - bob1029 3y ago
        Typing in "a@a.c" is much faster than providing real contact information, especially when you are trying to plow through a lot of material. Do we like being added to arbitrary contact lists?
mrguyorama 3y ago
>Elon has been pretty vocal about regretting making Tesla public That's laughable, because without making Tesla public he wouldn't be able to live the superstar uber rich lifestyle he thinks he deserves. Pretty much everything he has personally is owed to Tesla public valuation.
- wenc 3y ago
  You missed those years when TSLA was being shorted and when it was ok the brink of going under. It’s easy to hate but going public is two edged sword.
- chasd00 3y ago
  > superstar uber rich lifestyle to be fair that lifestyle was enabled for the rest of his life in the paypal days. i don't think anything he does now is driven by getting a new car or eating at a fancier restaurant. He's been able to have as luxurious lifestyle as possible for a long time.
  - georgeg23 3y ago
    I suspect he actually believes his purpose is to save humanity from nuclear war (per Griffin's approach above). This is when Elon stopped buying and crashing sports cars.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    No, the way Elon is, no number is high enough. It must get bigger. THAT'S the superstar uber rich lifestyle I meant, where you are playing the equivalent of an Idle Game with Bezos and Gates.
  - HWR_14 3y ago
    Cars and restaurants aren't "Uber rich" lifestyle. Buying Twitter to make sure he can control how viral his tweets are is an "Uber rich" move. PayPal's money wouldn't even be enough to get him a sports team.
- xNeil 3y ago
  what uber rich lifestyle? he owns no mansions, no yachts, and i’m not sure he has any super cars. this is a man who sleeps at the office on several occasions.
Panzer04 3y ago
Making Tesla public was clearly elons best ever decision lol. The moment it went ballistic in early 2020 made it well worthwhile - Tesla has access to an effectively unlimited pile of cash from public investors (and gave Elon more money than he could possibly hope for to invest in other pursuits)
- inemesitaffia 3y ago
  Shares aren't cash for the company itself. For the owners, yes

mcpackieh 3y ago

Talk of putting people on Mars is how they recruit young idealistic engineers. I think to understand what SpaceX is actually about you need to understand who Michael Griffin is and what he's all about. He went with Musk when he tried to buy an ICBM from Russia; he conceived of NASA's Commercial Resupply Services program and gave the contract to SpaceX, before SpaceX had ever put anything into orbit. Ditto the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services contract. It's not an exaggeration to say that SpaceX would not exist if not for Michael Griffin. Read about the rest of his career and I think you'll figure it out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin#Career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin#Career

didibus 3y ago
> During this time, he met entrepreneur Elon Musk and accompanied him on a trip to Russia > In December 2008, with SpaceX again on the verge of bankruptcy, Griffin awarded SpaceX along with his own Orbital Sciences company each contracts with a combined value of $3.5 billion It's crazy how nepotism is still such an important aspect of success today. It's very likely had they never known each other, SpaceX would not exist today, and some other company would have thrived instead. I also don't understand how it's not a conflict of interest to award his own company that contract?
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  It's very likely that if Michael Griffin and Elon Musk had never met, Elon Musk would not be in the space business at all and Michael Griffin would have induced some other person to play the same role. Orbital Sciences and SpaceX both exist to make "proliferated" LEO constellations possible. He founded one and had his fingers all over the founding of the other. He's gone above and beyond to keep both these companies afloat. Considering the nature and role of the LEO constellation Michael Griffin wants to build, remember Elon Musk's talk about "preventing extinction". Ostensibly he's talking about making a 'backup' population of humanity on Mars, but that makes zero sense. Serious customers for Mars colonization don't actually exist and SpaceX hasn't invested in the development of Mars habitat technology themselves. What they're actually doing is developing boosters capable of launching proliferated LEO constellations for feasible amounts of money (a capability SpaceX is now demonstrating with Starlink.)
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    Ok mister smarty pants. How do you create a program for Mars colonialisation without first solving the problem of price to LEO launches. You act as if there was some short cut around that. There isnt. So your argument just fundamentally doesnt work. What would SpaceX invest in refueling if LEO is all they cared about?
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  >I also don't understand how it's not a conflict of interest to award his own company that contract? This kind of inside dealing is just the status quo in american businesses today. Every CEO is on the board of the companies where their board members are CEOs. Really easy to get your board to approve a comp increase when they know you will do the same for them. Big business is a social club and you ain't in it.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  The contracts were not given out because of SpaceX issues. This program was ungoing and progressing threw the steps. SpaceX and Orbital were the deserving companies to get the contracts. This is one of the most successful contract in history. Griffin didnt invente COTS, that was anouter group that had been wanting to do a program like that and Griffin was just the administrator. To you have actual evidence the Griffin as administrator actually overwrote the technical comities making these choices in order to help SpaceX. If you dont have that evidence then you are just full of shit talking out of your ass.
  - didibus 3y ago
    I'm just quoting the linked Wikipedia article. So if it's inaccurate, my bad. That's all I read of the man.
samr71 3y ago
This has elements of truth but is a conspiracy theory the way you describe it. If you listen to Musk, or listen to people who work for Musk, or the people who work for those people, they all say that the point of SpaceX is to enable human colonization of Mars. It's not just a marketing strategy to acquire talent (unless you think they're all lying -- hence the conspiracy aspect. Now, to do that, they'll need to scratch the government's back. Doesn't mean that Mars isn't priority #1.
- georgeg23 3y ago
  The only person that has to lie is Musk. That's why SpaceX is run as an autocracy. Everyone else drinks the Mars Kool aid. People who have been around a while connect the dots. To be more precise, the company is run by the DoD with significant technical and financial assistance. Elon is the main conduit between those deep resource and the rest of the company. He regularly meets with all teams to ensure they are aligned with "higher purposes". To be even more precise, Elon is a front-man for a right-wing multi-decade program in American hegemony and actualizing it's crowning achievement--the Strategic Defense Initiative.
  - xNeil 3y ago
    can the internet please decide whether SpaceX is an autocracy, or if (as several media outlets put it) Elons companies succeeded in spite of him as opposed to because of him. both of these cannot be true at the same time.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      > can the internet please decide whether SpaceX is an autocracy, or if (as several media outlets put it) Elons companies succeeded in spite of him as opposed to because of him. No, the internet isn't a hive mind, and is never going to have simple unitary opinions except as rare coincidence. > both of these cannot be true at the same time. And yet a planet-scale information network can easily include voices that believe each of them simultaneously, because people disagree.
    - 3y ago
georgeg23 3y ago
Yep, Griffin even shared the plenary talks with Musk when he gave the famous Mars Society announcement about going to Mars, https://marspedia.org/images/9/99/2001_TMS_Conv_Sched.pdf https://marspedia.org/images/9/99/2001_TMS_Conv_Sched.pdf They were very close. Elon named his first born son Griffin. Mike Griffin is all about putting (eventually) hypersonic weapons in space and resurrecting Brilliant Pebbles. He was the early advocate for reusable launchers https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/may99/rockets11.htm https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/may99/r... and the Falcon name came from his DARPA Falcon Project.
- oblio 3y ago
  So, basically a Cold War warhawk.
robotresearcher 3y ago
Can you state what you mean, instead of the innuendo, please?
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  SDI, obviously. Did you click the link? My innuendo is thinner than rice paper, it's a joke to prod you into clicking that link. Michael Griffin's entire career revolves around kinetic interceptor based SDI, e.g. Brilliant Pebbles. The only way to build such a system is to develop rocket boosters that let you launch tens of thousands of satellites, which is what SpaceX has been working towards the entire time.

bob1029 3y ago

> Short of investing in them, you could look for companies in industries that are likely to benefit from cheaper space access. I've been investing heavily in domestic tooling, manufacturing and construction. Screw chasing only SpaceX, wouldn't you also like to capitalize on things like our gigantic semiconductor mfg build-out? Playing the supply chain is often times better than having direct access to the thing you want exposure to. It's just not as fun for certain elements of the monkey brain to operate one or two degrees removed.

DennisP 3y ago
That thought occurred to me but I couldn't find an ETF or an easy way to find the right companies. How do you go about it?
- bob1029 3y ago
  What I do is browse aimlessly through RH until see a tag like "Industrials". Then, I click this and I can see a list of like 50 companies that do all things yellow-square in sim city. It's like fish in a barrel if you have patience to sort through the information and type fake contact info into investor web forms to get at presentation materials. You definitely don't need a Bloomberg terminal subscription to do this stuff.
  - callalex 3y ago
    Why the need for fake contact info?
    - bob1029 3y ago
      Typing in "a@a.c" is much faster than providing real contact information, especially when you are trying to plow through a lot of material. Do we like being added to arbitrary contact lists?

mrguyorama 3y ago

>Elon has been pretty vocal about regretting making Tesla public That's laughable, because without making Tesla public he wouldn't be able to live the superstar uber rich lifestyle he thinks he deserves. Pretty much everything he has personally is owed to Tesla public valuation.

wenc 3y ago
You missed those years when TSLA was being shorted and when it was ok the brink of going under. It’s easy to hate but going public is two edged sword.
chasd00 3y ago
> superstar uber rich lifestyle to be fair that lifestyle was enabled for the rest of his life in the paypal days. i don't think anything he does now is driven by getting a new car or eating at a fancier restaurant. He's been able to have as luxurious lifestyle as possible for a long time.
- georgeg23 3y ago
  I suspect he actually believes his purpose is to save humanity from nuclear war (per Griffin's approach above). This is when Elon stopped buying and crashing sports cars.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  No, the way Elon is, no number is high enough. It must get bigger. THAT'S the superstar uber rich lifestyle I meant, where you are playing the equivalent of an Idle Game with Bezos and Gates.
- HWR_14 3y ago
  Cars and restaurants aren't "Uber rich" lifestyle. Buying Twitter to make sure he can control how viral his tweets are is an "Uber rich" move. PayPal's money wouldn't even be enough to get him a sports team.
xNeil 3y ago
what uber rich lifestyle? he owns no mansions, no yachts, and i’m not sure he has any super cars. this is a man who sleeps at the office on several occasions.

Panzer04 3y ago

Making Tesla public was clearly elons best ever decision lol. The moment it went ballistic in early 2020 made it well worthwhile - Tesla has access to an effectively unlimited pile of cash from public investors (and gave Elon more money than he could possibly hope for to invest in other pursuits)

inemesitaffia 3y ago
Shares aren't cash for the company itself. For the owners, yes