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How can it be a good idea to have such an important company to national security public? Last thing you want is funds having their say on how to run the compan

How can it be a good idea to have such an important company to national security public? Last thing you want is funds having their say on how to run the company. Didn't work well with Boeing either.

daniel_iversen 3y ago
Isn't the privatised version called NASA? And they stopped doing a few things deliberately because they couldn't compete. And we don't know what the voting structure will be so it might not be "funds having their say" in a big way, right?
- badcppdev 3y ago
  Can you enlighten me about when NASA stopped doing things? I got the impression that NASA has 'always' used companies to build things for them. I'm quite cynical so I assume it's always been an tax->government->industry funding process.
  - daniel_iversen 3y ago
    I'm not American but it was my impression they stopped the space shuttle program for so long because it wasn't cost effective and they instead partnered with private enterprises for those use cases?
    - inemesitaffia 3y ago
      NASA has always paid someone for launch. In the past they owned the IP. Now they don't. They have their own rocket and it costs only 2 billion dollars to launch
ben_w 3y ago
The alternative is to leave it all in the hands of the existing private shareholders, which… well, regardless of your opinion on literally anything else he does, how much do you trust Musk on matters of national security?
- philwelch 3y ago
  There’s no way anybody even nearly as problematic as Elon Musk would have been in charge of important rocket development projects during the Cold War /s
  - jowea 3y ago
    Cheeky but I don't think Von Braun working in a public agency had the sort of discretionary power a part owner-CEO like Musk has.
    - philwelch 3y ago
      What, no, I meant the other guy, the one who was really into Aleister Crowley and did sex magick with L. Ron Hubbard! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons But seriously, while I’m sure a lot of people in the government are mad at Elon’s hot takes, the government has just as much leverage over SpaceX as they did over Von Braun. In either case they could have turned the screws; the only leverage Elon has is that SpaceX delivers what nobody else can. Which was also true of Von Braun. (Jack Parsons, it turned out, wasn’t worth the headache in the long run; his story has a sad ending.)
Gare 3y ago
> How can it be a good idea to have such an important company to national security public? Well, it is not going public.
reisse 3y ago
> Last thing you want is funds having their say on how to run the company. And who exactly do you think owns 58% of SpaceX that Mr. Musk does not own? [1] It's not like being private means the company is not owned by funds or they have no say on how to run it. What does mean they have no say on how to run it, though, is that although Mr. Musk owns only 42% of SpaceX, he controls 78% of voting rights [again, 1]. Given that he already has a complex scheme to have full control over public Tesla [2], I doubt if SpaceX goes public, Mr. Musk will lose his control over the company. > How can it be a good idea to have such an important company to national security public? It doesn't really matter who "owns" the company, it matters more who is on the board and who have most voting rights. Anyway, if national security is of any concern, better ask why Lockheed Martin or Raytheon are public. 1. https://archive.is/7jbAd https://archive.is/7jbAd 2. https://www.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/how-elon-musk-controls-tesla-with-only-a-minority-stake-14564491 https://www.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/how-elon-musk-con...
mlindner 3y ago
> How can it be a good idea to have such an important company to national security public? They've made themselves important by working very hard... It's interesting how the narrative switches immediately from mocking someone for trying something impossible to being worried about them being a danger to national security. It's very bad for the country that some people seem to think there is nothing in between. You're either irrelevant or you're too important. > Last thing you want is funds having their say on how to run the company. Didn't work well with Boeing either. We're a couple decades at least away from SpaceX reaching a Boeing-like position.

How can it be a good idea to have such an important company to national security public? Last thing you want is funds having their say on how to run the company. Didn't work well with Boeing either.

daniel_iversen 3y ago

Isn't the privatised version called NASA? And they stopped doing a few things deliberately because they couldn't compete. And we don't know what the voting structure will be so it might not be "funds having their say" in a big way, right?

badcppdev 3y ago
Can you enlighten me about when NASA stopped doing things? I got the impression that NASA has 'always' used companies to build things for them. I'm quite cynical so I assume it's always been an tax->government->industry funding process.
- daniel_iversen 3y ago
  I'm not American but it was my impression they stopped the space shuttle program for so long because it wasn't cost effective and they instead partnered with private enterprises for those use cases?
  - inemesitaffia 3y ago
    NASA has always paid someone for launch. In the past they owned the IP. Now they don't. They have their own rocket and it costs only 2 billion dollars to launch

ben_w 3y ago

The alternative is to leave it all in the hands of the existing private shareholders, which… well, regardless of your opinion on literally anything else he does, how much do you trust Musk on matters of national security?

philwelch 3y ago
There’s no way anybody even nearly as problematic as Elon Musk would have been in charge of important rocket development projects during the Cold War /s
- jowea 3y ago
  Cheeky but I don't think Von Braun working in a public agency had the sort of discretionary power a part owner-CEO like Musk has.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    What, no, I meant the other guy, the one who was really into Aleister Crowley and did sex magick with L. Ron Hubbard! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons But seriously, while I’m sure a lot of people in the government are mad at Elon’s hot takes, the government has just as much leverage over SpaceX as they did over Von Braun. In either case they could have turned the screws; the only leverage Elon has is that SpaceX delivers what nobody else can. Which was also true of Von Braun. (Jack Parsons, it turned out, wasn’t worth the headache in the long run; his story has a sad ending.)

Gare 3y ago

> How can it be a good idea to have such an important company to national security public? Well, it is not going public.

reisse 3y ago

> Last thing you want is funds having their say on how to run the company. And who exactly do you think owns 58% of SpaceX that Mr. Musk does not own? [1] It's not like being private means the company is not owned by funds or they have no say on how to run it. What does mean they have no say on how to run it, though, is that although Mr. Musk owns only 42% of SpaceX, he controls 78% of voting rights [again, 1]. Given that he already has a complex scheme to have full control over public Tesla [2], I doubt if SpaceX goes public, Mr. Musk will lose his control over the company. > How can it be a good idea to have such an important company to national security public? It doesn't really matter who "owns" the company, it matters more who is on the board and who have most voting rights. Anyway, if national security is of any concern, better ask why Lockheed Martin or Raytheon are public. 1. https://archive.is/7jbAd https://archive.is/7jbAd 2. https://www.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/how-elon-musk-controls-tesla-with-only-a-minority-stake-14564491 https://www.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/how-elon-musk-con...

mlindner 3y ago

> How can it be a good idea to have such an important company to national security public? They've made themselves important by working very hard... It's interesting how the narrative switches immediately from mocking someone for trying something impossible to being worried about them being a danger to national security. It's very bad for the country that some people seem to think there is nothing in between. You're either irrelevant or you're too important. > Last thing you want is funds having their say on how to run the company. Didn't work well with Boeing either. We're a couple decades at least away from SpaceX reaching a Boeing-like position.