5 ms·

It's funny it concludes "A line is not a law" while the entire page is just lines and charts. If you didn't know anything going in, SpaceX might as well be a co

by themgt 4mo ago

It's funny it concludes "A line is not a law" while the entire page is just lines and charts. If you didn't know anything going in, SpaceX might as well be a company selling toilet paper for all you learned. I've got no idea what a share of SpaceX is worth today or 14 years from now, but fully reusable rockets are going to be one of the most important engineering achievements in human history, and SpaceX appears far in the lead to getting there first. Ignoring everything else they're at the cutting edge of. It's really just sad to me how upset how many people are about an IPO. "Imagine what a waste, if the stock market were to overvalue the company dedicated to solving the challenges required to make humanity a multi-planetary species, when this graph clearly shows we could've wisely allocated more of civilization's resources to Saudi Aramco."

iterance 4mo ago
All things equal I would agree with you. However, all things are not equal. SpaceX's target 2040 revenue of $4.3T. Let us assume that the US GDP grows at 3% p/a; in 2040 we may project a GDP of around $50T. Naturally, SpaceX would pushing 10% of the total US GDP. Such a change is possible. It is not out of the question. Companies can and do reach that size, though obviously for mathematical reasons only a small number do. However, the claim that one will reach that size 14 years in advance beggars scrutiny. Simple credulity is not justified and it naturally follows that there will be a large number of people, even people with very bullish outlooks, who do not believe SpaceX will meet target. 30% growth p/a for 14 years would, historically, represent a fantastic rate of return and yet still it falls considerably short of target. All the same, part of the promise to investors (whether one believes it or not) is that, even if SpaceX were to fall short of target, the long term revenue prospects are so explosive that one can't help but feel it's a good deal. (Is it? Time will tell.)
- ai-x 4mo ago
  Why are you comparing SpaceX revenues to US GDP? (when it's main customers will all have a global footprint) GDP rates should be nominal (5-6%) not 3% Also, go back in time and do the same analysis for Anthropic in 2023 or Nvidia in 2021, would you have predicted their current Annual revenue for them?
  - mlyle 4mo ago
    Outgrowing GDP for awhile— especially from a smaller base— is certainly possible. It is much less likely to do it from a long time from already large revenue.
    - ai-x 4mo ago
      If you looked at Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft valuation around 2007 (before the crash), you'd asked the same question about the large base. But here we are.
      - mlyle 4mo ago
        But none of any of those has grown at the pace from that large base necessary to justify this kind of valuation.
      - andruby 4mo ago
        * GOOG's revenue grew from 16.6B in 2007 to 402B in 2025 for a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 20.4% * AMZN: 11.7B to 717B = 24.8% * AAPL: 24B to 416B = 18.6% * MSFT: 49.7B to 245B = 10.2% SpaceX is claiming they will grow by 41.5% !! That's double GOOG's growth and 4x MSFT's growth.
        mlyle 4mo ago
        And claim they will keep bigger margins, despite needing to do all kinds of infrastructure stuff.
- michaelmrose 4mo ago
  Also we crashed 2000-2002 2008-2009 2020. Although specific causes vary we haven't had 14 good years in a row so even the size of economy may be optimistic. SpaceX will never be 10% based on rockets. Rockets will get shit canned in the next crash because it's less important and spacex not having saved sufficiently will get wrecked. Their 10% basically depends on them getting to super intelligent ai first despite others obviously being more successful. An actually wildly successful projection would be asking us to imagine they weathered the next crash ok and were very successful at rockets after exiting AI.
nemomarx 4mo ago
They aren't being valued on the rockets, though, they're claiming a large TAM based on the ai portion. if I could invest in just the rockets that would be cool. much less downside risk
mlyle 4mo ago
I am upset that I am forced to either rebalance out of NASDAQ and incur significant tax consequences, or bet that SpaceX is about to become nearly 10 percent of GDP and keep exceptional margins while doing it. I would not voluntarily take that bet, but we have regulatory and financial engineering nearly forcing me to do so.
- testing22321 4mo ago
  So you’re upset at the broader system that has allowed that change.
  - mlyle 4mo ago
    I am upset that it is not a great bet and that retail investors and pensions are being forced to take it. Let’s not pretend that this is not regulatory capture and financial engineering by techbros.
    - testing22321 4mo ago
      I’m not pretending anything. You are upset the system is weak and can be captured/manipulated by the rich. It is always good to accurately identify what you are upset at so you know where to direct your energy.
      - mlyle 4mo ago
        Plenty of places to direct it. I can be upset both at those cheating -and- the referees. If SpaceX is such a great business, it should be able to win legitimately.
- HWR_14 4mo ago
  You could maintain a short SpaceX portion in the approximately same percentage as your NASDAQ ETF. You'd have more slight tax events as you increased or closed out that short position to maintain the percentage, but significantly less than your NASDAQ position's taxes. Then when you sell your ETF you could close out the short to effectively remove SpaceX from the equation.
jdhwosnhw 4mo ago
> fully reusable rockets are going to be one of the most important engineering achievements in human history The number of implicit biases, assumptions, and unsubstantiatable assertions packed into that extremely confident sentence is frankly kind of impressive. We have no idea how important reusable rockets will end up being, because we have no idea of what the future potential (economical or otherwise) space travel will have. Even Musk’s oft repeated (supposed) personal motivation for space travel (“protection of the species”) will ultimately hinge far more on other, far more important (and as of yet unrealized) technologies than reusable rockets. Not to mention your implicit comparison of reusable rockets to literally every other extant technology. I mean really - transistors? The written word? RF comms? Indoor plumbing??
bryanlarsen 4mo ago
Falcon 9 was in a quasi-monopoly position in 2025, and had $4 billion in revenue. That's revenue, not profit. Starship will expand the market, but it would have to expand it by ~1000x to justify the valuation.
- andruby 4mo ago
  Exactly the TAM for rockets just isn't there, and probably never will be. That's why SpaceX is "betting" so hard on datacenters in space (just build them on earth with solar and batteries), and AI. I think they know they are pumping the stock and that's a pity because I do think Tesla and SpaceX are really good at scaling industrial production (car factories, rocket factories) and I think they could be really good (the best) at building earth-based datacenters at scale. But it's probably hard to value that at $1.7T

by themgt 4mo ago

iterance 4mo ago

All things equal I would agree with you. However, all things are not equal. SpaceX's target 2040 revenue of $4.3T. Let us assume that the US GDP grows at 3% p/a; in 2040 we may project a GDP of around $50T. Naturally, SpaceX would pushing 10% of the total US GDP. Such a change is possible. It is not out of the question. Companies can and do reach that size, though obviously for mathematical reasons only a small number do. However, the claim that one will reach that size 14 years in advance beggars scrutiny. Simple credulity is not justified and it naturally follows that there will be a large number of people, even people with very bullish outlooks, who do not believe SpaceX will meet target. 30% growth p/a for 14 years would, historically, represent a fantastic rate of return and yet still it falls considerably short of target. All the same, part of the promise to investors (whether one believes it or not) is that, even if SpaceX were to fall short of target, the long term revenue prospects are so explosive that one can't help but feel it's a good deal. (Is it? Time will tell.)

ai-x 4mo ago
Why are you comparing SpaceX revenues to US GDP? (when it's main customers will all have a global footprint) GDP rates should be nominal (5-6%) not 3% Also, go back in time and do the same analysis for Anthropic in 2023 or Nvidia in 2021, would you have predicted their current Annual revenue for them?
- mlyle 4mo ago
  Outgrowing GDP for awhile— especially from a smaller base— is certainly possible. It is much less likely to do it from a long time from already large revenue.
  - ai-x 4mo ago
    If you looked at Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft valuation around 2007 (before the crash), you'd asked the same question about the large base. But here we are.
    - mlyle 4mo ago
      But none of any of those has grown at the pace from that large base necessary to justify this kind of valuation.
    - andruby 4mo ago
      * GOOG's revenue grew from 16.6B in 2007 to 402B in 2025 for a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 20.4% * AMZN: 11.7B to 717B = 24.8% * AAPL: 24B to 416B = 18.6% * MSFT: 49.7B to 245B = 10.2% SpaceX is claiming they will grow by 41.5% !! That's double GOOG's growth and 4x MSFT's growth.
      - mlyle 4mo ago
        And claim they will keep bigger margins, despite needing to do all kinds of infrastructure stuff.
michaelmrose 4mo ago
Also we crashed 2000-2002 2008-2009 2020. Although specific causes vary we haven't had 14 good years in a row so even the size of economy may be optimistic. SpaceX will never be 10% based on rockets. Rockets will get shit canned in the next crash because it's less important and spacex not having saved sufficiently will get wrecked. Their 10% basically depends on them getting to super intelligent ai first despite others obviously being more successful. An actually wildly successful projection would be asking us to imagine they weathered the next crash ok and were very successful at rockets after exiting AI.

nemomarx 4mo ago

They aren't being valued on the rockets, though, they're claiming a large TAM based on the ai portion. if I could invest in just the rockets that would be cool. much less downside risk

mlyle 4mo ago

I am upset that I am forced to either rebalance out of NASDAQ and incur significant tax consequences, or bet that SpaceX is about to become nearly 10 percent of GDP and keep exceptional margins while doing it. I would not voluntarily take that bet, but we have regulatory and financial engineering nearly forcing me to do so.

testing22321 4mo ago
So you’re upset at the broader system that has allowed that change.
- mlyle 4mo ago
  I am upset that it is not a great bet and that retail investors and pensions are being forced to take it. Let’s not pretend that this is not regulatory capture and financial engineering by techbros.
  - testing22321 4mo ago
    I’m not pretending anything. You are upset the system is weak and can be captured/manipulated by the rich. It is always good to accurately identify what you are upset at so you know where to direct your energy.
    - mlyle 4mo ago
      Plenty of places to direct it. I can be upset both at those cheating -and- the referees. If SpaceX is such a great business, it should be able to win legitimately.
HWR_14 4mo ago
You could maintain a short SpaceX portion in the approximately same percentage as your NASDAQ ETF. You'd have more slight tax events as you increased or closed out that short position to maintain the percentage, but significantly less than your NASDAQ position's taxes. Then when you sell your ETF you could close out the short to effectively remove SpaceX from the equation.

jdhwosnhw 4mo ago

> fully reusable rockets are going to be one of the most important engineering achievements in human history The number of implicit biases, assumptions, and unsubstantiatable assertions packed into that extremely confident sentence is frankly kind of impressive. We have no idea how important reusable rockets will end up being, because we have no idea of what the future potential (economical or otherwise) space travel will have. Even Musk’s oft repeated (supposed) personal motivation for space travel (“protection of the species”) will ultimately hinge far more on other, far more important (and as of yet unrealized) technologies than reusable rockets. Not to mention your implicit comparison of reusable rockets to literally every other extant technology. I mean really - transistors? The written word? RF comms? Indoor plumbing??

bryanlarsen 4mo ago

Falcon 9 was in a quasi-monopoly position in 2025, and had $4 billion in revenue. That's revenue, not profit. Starship will expand the market, but it would have to expand it by ~1000x to justify the valuation.

andruby 4mo ago
Exactly the TAM for rockets just isn't there, and probably never will be. That's why SpaceX is "betting" so hard on datacenters in space (just build them on earth with solar and batteries), and AI. I think they know they are pumping the stock and that's a pity because I do think Tesla and SpaceX are really good at scaling industrial production (car factories, rocket factories) and I think they could be really good (the best) at building earth-based datacenters at scale. But it's probably hard to value that at $1.7T