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SpaceX in Talks for Share Sale That Would Boost Valuation to $800B
- mikkupikku 11mo agoIf SpaceX doesn't get Starship operational soon, they're going to lose their advantage to Blue Origin and probably at least one of the several Chinese rocket companies.
- modeless 11mo agoEven without Starship Falcon Heavy is still competitive with New Glenn, and nobody is anywhere close to competing with Starlink (Amazon is still far behind, as is ASTS). And if Starship works SpaceX will still be in the lead for a long, long time. IMO the only remaining unanswered question for the Starship program is the reusability of the heat shield. There's no reason to believe any other part of it can't work.
- MichaelNolan 11mo agoI always had the impression that the propellant transfer was the harder question than the heat shield. They have done a transfer demo from one internal tank to another, but they still need to test from one ship to another ship. I only casually follow the news from r/spacex, but prop transfer is what I see generate the most discussion. It’s a hard requirement for all deep space missions. Where the heat shield could be refurbished between launches.
- delichon 11mo agoThe heat shield may be a "we don't know how to do the physics" problem, where propellant transfer is a "complex integration of well understood components" problem. If the heat shield requires per launch refurbishment it cripples the colonization dream.
- idontwantthis 11mo agoPropellant transfer isn’t necessary for starlink launches.
- ACCount37 11mo agoDeep space missions yes. But Starlink isn't deep space - and neither is the vast majority of commercial payloads. Propellant transfer is relevant because it's vital for sending entire Starships to Moon and Mars - which are the exciting Starship missions. This includes Artemis. But commercially? Artemis contract isn't even a large part of SpaceX's revenue.
- mikkupikku 11mo agoPropellant transfer, with cryogenic propellants, can be done using cryocoolers. It's not too hard of a problem. Besides, Starship only needs prop transfer for Moon and Mars missions, but the later are fantasy and the former probably isn't going to happen either, and actually just regular LEO launches with a fully reusable rocket is where most of the money is anyway. The heat shield is a huge problem though. Without the heat shield, there's simply no way SpaceX can use Starship to make money.
- modeless 11mo agoHeat shield reuse is a big deal for orbital refueling too, because it requires 12+ launches in a short time frame. If you don't have heat shield reuse then you need 12+ Starships and 12+ refurbishments per mission.
- panick21_ 11mo agoWhy do you think transfer of propellant is so difficult? We do propellant transfer all the time in space. The only real different is that the liquid is colder and Starship is just plane bigger. But we pipe around cold stuff in space internal to space ships already quite often. What is the fundamental limitation that you worried about? I would say the head-shield is far harder an an unsolved problem, specially with re-use. Refurbish is not economically viable, specially not after 1 launch. That would be against every design goal of Starship. It has never been demonstrated in a practical fashion.
- eitau_1 11mo agoNew Glenn has an edge over Falcon Heavy and possibly over Starship when it comes to payload volume.
- standardUser 11mo agoChina is currently building TWO competing starlink-type systems. Given the trajectory of China in recent years, I no longer say "nobody is anywhere close to competing with..." about pretty much anything.
- modeless 11mo agoChina's constellations are roughly where Starlink was in early 2020, except that their launch costs remain much higher. Yes, they move fast, but SpaceX is one of the few US companies I'd bet on to compete with them. Also, I wonder how receptive the world will be to Chinese ISPs given their history of internet censorship at home.
- maxglute 11mo agoSpaceX is ultimately still an American company operating at American scale vs PRC. Last year spaceX had fleet of 18 F9s doing more than 50% of global launches, 80% including starlink. SpaceX stans fixate over 50% and 80%, but ignore that 18 rocket cores is rookie numbers. 7/145 US space launches in 2024 was Non SpaceX. That means US in aggregate build ~25 rockets (i think less since some SpaceX are older cores). Versus PRC 68, about ~80 tyhis year (missing keep missing goal of 100). So we can already see there's a 4-5x difference in total launch vehicles production. When/if PRC sorts out reusables, they get both cadence x volume, and no telling how far they can extend the gap, if anything like auto, fast enough that they can overtake SpaceX in historic payload within a few years. Assuming payload enough demand, which I doubt... outside space weaponization arms race. I think the world, well mainly govs, many of whom who are already running Huawei network gear would appreciate PRC willingness to accomodate local filtering (censorship) rules with how world is trending towards cyber soveignty. That said, I can see SpaceX being elevated to Boeing tier strategic asset to compete, assuming Musk badblood doesn't interfere.
- modeless 11mo agoSpaceX is absolutely capable of building 80 rockets, if they needed to. Don't forget that they built 132 F9 second stages last year, plus thousands of satellites and millions of user terminals. But they don't need to build 80 first stages because their first stages are getting reused 30 times. Why would they waste time building first stages they don't need? China needs to build 80 full rockets because theirs explode after each use. Meanwhile the Starship factory is looking like it will be quite productive once the design is locked down.
- wat10000 11mo agoIs that different from, say, a year ago? The Starship concept seems technically sound, and the doubt is about whether SpaceX can actually get there, given the rather slow (visible) pace of progress.
- mikkupikku 11mo agoI really want SpaceX to succeed, but the Starship heat shield situation seems quite fucked. I heard they're even reconsidering active cooling now. Maybe they'll figure something out but I don't consider that a foregone conclusion.
- htrp 11mo ago> IMO the only remaining unanswered question for the Starship program is the reusability of the heat shield. There's no reason to believe any other part of it can't work. Is there a tldr someone put together here ?
- firesteelrain 11mo agoI don’t see how. SpaceX is still very agile and has the most reliable launch platform
- minetest2048 11mo ago> several Chinese rocket companies As much as I want to fly with Chinese rocket to encourage launcher competition and redundancy, export controls prevent me from doing that.
- zihotki 11mo agoThat's for you, but that won't stop the rest of the world
- bell-cot 11mo agoPerhaps. But history suggests that "soon" will still be 6+ years. Scaling up from the first few successful launches of a(n orbital) rocket, to high-frequency / high-reliability / low cost launches of that rocket, appears to be extremely difficult.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- garbawarb 11mo agoGiven Musk's pay package that requires getting Tesla's valuation to $8 trillion, isn't it obvious that he should absorb all of his holdings (SpaceX, X, xAI) into Tesla?
- delichon 11mo agoThat pay package was a reaction to the large problems he is having competing with ESG forces for control of the company. Keeping SpaceX private is another. He described it as trying to keep the robot army he is building out of enemy hands.
- fundad 11mo agoWhat does "ESG forces" add to the discussion other than culture-war flaming?
- gsibble 11mo agoThe accuracy that people want to actively sabotage Elon's plans for Tesla.
- delichon 11mo agoIt's a big reason why SpaceX is staying private. To understand this news it helps to know that Musk considers ESG to be the enemy.
- markdown 11mo agoAnd wtf is ESG?
- throwup238 11mo agoEnvironmental, social, and governance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental,_social,_and_governance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental,_social,_and_gov...
- bfeynman 11mo agoWould think that blue origin and project kuiper launching for amazon that would put downward pressure on SpaceX, as they are about to have a huge amount of competition for starlink, as Amazon has massive distribution advantages - wouldn't be surprised introductory bundling with Prime etc...
- saubeidl 11mo ago> as they are about to have a huge amount of competition for starlink Don't forget about IRIS2!
- panick21_ 11mo agoYour joking right? IRIS2 is mostly for government and has nowhere near the capacity or ground infrastructure necessary. Lets alone the advanced laser links to compete for shipping and planes. Let alone the manufacturing of ground terminals.
- saubeidl 11mo agoIris2 doesn't require ground terminals, it uses good ol 5G
- vardump 11mo agoStarlink will soon be (probably already is) 4G/5G capable. I'd be surprised if Kuiper won't get the same capability.
- panick21_ 11mo agoIris2 might will support 5G-NTN. But that doesn't many any phone can use it no problem. Even if you use 5G-NTN you want some dedicated terminals, and there are prototypes for that. The exact details for Iris2 is not yet known publicly and there are many vendors trying to get in on it. The specification basically says support 5G-NTN (3GPP) “to the maximum extent possible”. And maybe future handsets will support it better. But we are decently far from a situation where Iris2 has a dedicated consumer arm that spits out millions of consumer grade standard terminals that people can set up within minutes. We are still very early, with contracts just signed and many questions still open. And ESA not exactly having a track record of great execution. Lets remember this system even if you are insane optimistic will not exist fully before 2031. Likely years after that if you take into account all the ongoing issues. And even when it finally arrives, the capacity isn't really designed for mass users against Starlink anyway.
- spwa4 11mo agoProbably a good idea to do it now, because Trump has made sure SpaceX is about to have yet another European, a Chinese and an Indian competitor soon. 2 out of 3 have already demonstrated landing a rocket, as has Blue origin in the US with the New Glenn launch + landing. Plus a few countries are thinking about it, at least Switzerland, South Korea and Israel if you can believe it. Also the EU has setup a working Starlink competitor (by approving the feature on "old" satellites), and China is already doing launches and theirs should be at least partially operational. Russia claims to have a working Starlink competitor and India is building one. Oh and as for profitability ... not that Starlink hasn't been tried 10 times before, with the most spectacular crash being Iridium, but that was far from the only attempt+bankruptcy building Space internet. Well, the economics are discussed in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaUCDZ9d09Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaUCDZ9d09Y TLDR: SpaceX is bankrupt, Starlink is a pets.com "We lose on every sale but make it up on volume" style move. So yes, high time to sell the stock indeed. Oh, and Blue Origin has beat SpaceX to Mars and will be the first private company getting a payload to Mars soon (the "ESCAPADE" mission). As in payload is on the way and there's no way SpaceX can catch up anymore. In fact it's pretty tough finding another rocket manufacturer that has not launched a mission to Mars. Boeing has launched payloads to Mars. Blue origin has. Arianespace has. Russia has. Not especially economically relevant* but worth mentioning. Economics are not what determines either rocket building or launches and hasn't ever done so. Which means rocket launches are cheaper than they can be in private hands. * what is economically relevant though is that SpaceX is not even saving the US government money. The US government cannot risk having SpaceX as a single option to get to orbit, so it has no choice developing a publicly funded rocket program. Everyone always makes the point that SpaceX is cheaper than SLS. However ... this fails to correctly compare prices for the only options the US government has: Option 1: pay for SLS Option 2: pay for SLS and SpaceX. So really the price of SpaceX rocket launches doesn't even matter, not using SpaceX will be the cheapest option because math.
- vardump 11mo ago> Plus Blue Origin has beat SpaceX to Mars What about that Tesla that regularly crosses Mars orbit? Ok, it's not on Mars, but it was just about calculating an orbit. They could have smashed it on Mars as well.
- outside1234 11mo agoWhy not a $40T valuation? Let's really think big here. /s
- jjcm 11mo ago800b valuation on 13b of revenue in 2024. That's a 61x multiple. Boeing for comparison has a 2x multiple (65b rev with a 154b valuation).
- spongebobstoes 11mo agoSpaceX has hints of monopoly, has shown consistent innovation, and has an ambitious long term vision. Boeing lacks all of the above, so it's apples and oranges
- FatherOfCurses 11mo agoBoeing has an over 100 year history of consistently delivering products at all levels of its industry. SpaceX has .... good vibes?
- misiti3780 11mo agoSuni Williams and Butch Wilmore beg to differ.
- MetaWhirledPeas 11mo ago> Boeing has an over 100 year history of consistently delivering products Like Starliner? > SpaceX has .... good vibes? ...if by "good vibes" you mean: - 138 rocket launches last year - Global low-latency internet
- socrateswasone 11mo ago[dead]
- antoniuschan99 11mo agoHere’s a good infographic on how dominant SpaceX is in the launch market https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1iarntp/orbital_launch_attempts_of_2024/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1iarntp/orbit...
- thinkcontext 11mo agoI wonder if this has more to do with XAi than SpaceX. He recently had SpaceX invest $2B into XAi due to the AI arms race. If SpaceX had unneeded cash sitting around why raise money now?
- JumpCrisscross 11mo ago> why raise money "SpaceX is kicking off a secondary share sale." It isn't raising money, it's letting insiders sell. In the past, SpaceX has been a net buyer of its shares in such tenders.
- DarmokJalad1701 11mo agoThis has since then been confirmed to not be true: There has been a lot of press claiming @SpaceX is raising money at $800B, which is not accurate. SpaceX has been cash flow positive for many years and does periodic stock buybacks twice a year to provide liquidity for employees and investors. Valuation increments are a function of progress with Starship and Starlink and securing global direct-to-cell spectrum that greatly increases our addressable market. And one other thing that is arguably most significant by far. While I have great fondness for @NASA, they will constitute less than 5% of our revenue next year. Commercial Starlink is by far our largest contributor to revenue. Some people have claimed that SpaceX gets “subsidized” by NASA. This is absolutely false. The SpaceX team won the NASA contracts because we offered the best product at the lowest price. BOTH best product AND lowest cost. With regard to astronaut transport, SpaceX is currently the only option that passes NASA safety standards. Source: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1997399963509150089 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1997399963509150089
- straydusk 10mo agoSorry but you linked a source that is bogus be definition