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“Shocking nobody” I would add… This is an obvious Musk scam and anyone with financial knowledge called it as such ever since it’s been on the table. Why else lo
by ornornor 3mo ago
“Shocking nobody” I would add… This is an obvious Musk scam and anyone with financial knowledge called it as such ever since it’s been on the table. Why else lobby and change the NASDAQ listing rules for instance?
- spiderfarmer 3mo agoIt really showed which financial commentators should be ignored. Hearing some of them speak was just painful.
- fullshark 3mo agoAnd it worked. And whatever schemes he has in mind to have Space X merge with Tesla to increase market cap further will work too.
- jmye 3mo ago[dead]
- infecto 3mo agoI don’t think scam is the right word. The valuation and bank price targets are absolutely insane. I myself could never invest at those multiples. I think they absolutely have governance problems but at the same time I have to admit he is a great financial engineer. Investors who do have conviction here most likely see this as the platform vehicle for everything else coming through the pipeline. Again I could not buy into that but I think it’s a far cry from a scam.
- colechristensen 3mo agoThere's no room in the global economy to justify the kinds of numbers. Like spacex isn't going to be the world's first 100 trillion dollar company because there isn't that much money. That's nearly as high as the global GDP. Crazy growth rates are not possible.
- ahtihn 3mo ago> Like spacex isn't going to be the world's first 100 trillion dollar company because there isn't that much money. That doesn't really matter. As we saw with crypto valuations, market cap is just number of shares * last price. If you have 1 trillion shares and one is traded for $100 you have a 100 trillion market cap.
- wyre 3mo agoSPCX has 555 million shares, thats $180,000 for a share for this 100 trillion market cap. Don't be ridiculous.
- LorenDB 3mo ago> there isn't that much money It's almost as if SpaceX would have to use another planet's resources to generate money for that valuation. Oh wait...
- dd8601fn 3mo agoOh, bull. The market is not pricing in a theoretical gdp of Mars in 2070. They’re thinking “Tesla stock trades at absurd P/E for no reason other than vibes… this one might, too!”
- epistasis 3mo agoI'm unclear why you don't think it's a scam, because "he is a great financial engineer" seems awfully close to admitting that and then the "platform vehicle for everything else coming through the pipeline" seems to be the clincher that it is indeed a scam. For example, he's talking about data centers in space as the "everything else coming through the pipeline" and space data centers are an obvious engineering boondoggle, but sound cool to people that don't know anything about data center design or the challenges of space engineering (ie heat rejection)
- infecto 3mo agoI think you're collapsing a few different concepts together. Calling something a scam implied intentional deception about the underlying business. I don't think that's the same as selling an extremely optimistic vision at a valuation I personally think is unjustifiable. Plenty of companies have traded at prices that assumed almost everythign would go right. Most of those expectations eventually proved wrong but that doesn't retroactively make them scams. If the argument is that space data centers or some of these future initiatives are technically unrealistic, then criticize those ideas on their merits. If they're impossible or economically irrational, the market will eventually price that in, even if it takes a long time horizon.
- epistasis 3mo agoThe space data centers are intentional deception.
- ryandvm 3mo agoAre you telling me that you believe the nobody at SpaceX has run the numbers and shown the richest person in the world that according to the known laws of physics each data center will have to have MANY ACRES of radiator? Fuck, even Grok would have told him this. The SpaceX IPO was intentional deception - no doubt.
- infecto 3mo agoI realize you are passionate about this topic and maybe I am just not in that same bucket. I could take it or leave it. The valuation is absurd, the TAM is wild and I have no faith in the underlying business being able to grow that fast. Forward looking statements are rarely a scam no matter how silly they sound. You may be passionate enough to say intentional deception no doubt. I would argue I am happy to let the market figure it out. It may take a while but eventually over a long enough horizon it should figure it out.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- bobro 3mo agoCan you spell out a bit more how these three thoughts live together consistently for you: 1) The price is insane 2) The price is a work of great financial engineering 3) The price isn’t a scam
- infecto 3mo agoThey're perfectly consistent. An absured valuation isn't evidence of fraud. Exceptional capital formation isn't fraud either. You're conflating overpriced, good at raising money and scam as if they're synonyms. I am curious how the absurd bank price targets will play out in the long-term and if there will be any repercussions but its hard to immediately jump to scam but I realize this is the favorite fan-fic for folks on both sides.
- oblio 3mo agoWhat about Musk gutting government agencies (including the SEC) through DOGE? Or Musk pushing NASDAQ & co to fast track SpaceX into their indexes, to force institutional investors to buy SpaceX? Or about Musk & others weakening analyst protection through the current US administration cutting legal failsafes so that now basically every analyst on the market never releases negative share projections? At which point do we accept that these billionaires push these systems until they crack, "legally", because they buy the people making the laws.
- infecto 3mo agoI did not realize that is what we were discussing. Just because I don't like someone (I don't like musk) does not mean I will immediately jump to the harshest classification. I could never get behind the valuations, I don't generally like how he behaves but I also recognize that he historically has done a great job at financial engineering and serving as a hypeman, both can be true at the same time for me.
- oblio 3mo ago> I will immediately jump to the harshest classification. The first points are just facts. Not "harshest classifications".
- jagged-chisel 3mo ago> I don’t think scam is the right word. The valuation and bank price targets are absolutely insane. I was hoping you were headed to "...beyond scam" into serious fraud or something. Regardless how this is categorized, everyone (banks, stock market, the executive branch) is complicit, and I think SpaceX stock should have stayed off the public market.
- infecto 3mo agoLuckily neither you or I get to make that decision.
- jagged-chisel 3mo ago"Luckily"?
- 0x3f 3mo agoI guess it depends on the framing: a scam perpetrated on whom? It's not a scam on active investors if you lock in a bump from guaranteed passive investors. The active investors will see gains from that bump. But on the passive investors? On wider society? If you spot the regulator looking the other way and try to sneak one past, is that legitimate, or sketchy? What if you recently had the influence to make them look the other way or be under-resourced? You could argue 'treason' is a better word than 'scam'.
- infecto 3mo agoI mean sure some indexes will include the name eventually but I would hope most “passive investors” are not investing in the Nasdaq 100. Folks have latched on to this like it’s the greatest fraud of all time. It’s not showing up in most normal passive portfolios anytime soon.
- avaer 3mo agoI guess the difference between "scam" and "financial engineer" is whether it works. If everyone loses their money it will be a scam. If people get rich he will be a financial engineer. These aren't two different things. The winning side will make up reasons why they are right, and the losing side will make up excuses why they were wrong.
- infecto 3mo agoWhat is this scheme he is getting away with? We all saw the numbers, it is an absolute absurd valuation. Like I said I would never make the bet but just because I don't like him, does not mean I will immediately call the scam card. Both can be true.
- avaer 3mo agoWhen this gets listed, your retirement savings will be obligated to support it whether it makes sense or not. If it tanks AI, or the broader economy, everyone will pay the price. No matter what, your money is going to Elon and friends. That's one of the schemes. There's plenty of other schemes too, like merging in Twitter and an AI company to confuse investors and inflate valuations. I'm not calling it a scam either. I'm saying it entirely depends on whether this insane level of scheming causes people to lose a trillion dollars or gain a trillion dollars, then history will be rewritten to match the narrative.
- infecto 3mo agoWhy will my retirement savings be obligated to be part of it? No doubt it will be part of some indexes but I know for example mine it won’t.
- lorecore 3mo agoIt’s illegal for a CEO to make fraudulent promises regarding product delivery, timelines and financial projections. Musk does this regularly.
- 3mo ago
- k4rli 3mo agoAlmost all of their promises since start have just been corporate puffery and pure vaporware. Going to Mars, point-to-point Earth travel, Starship, reusable rockets... Same with all his other companies.
- insane_dreamer 3mo ago> I have to admit he is a great financial engineer. so was Madoff
- infecto 3mo agoBut that was a ponzi. The numbers here are public. You can make forward looking statements. I could never underwrite that valuation but others have. Who knows will be correct but over the long horizon the market will figure it out.
- vor_ 3mo agoI must say, "great financial engineering" serves as an amazing spin on "scam."
- chasd00 3mo agoNot a scam IMO, I don’t think musk is that motivated by wealth but im sure plenty of the heavy hitter investors are. I’m sure he didn’t complain about the valuation however. I think SpaceX is a solid well run company (praise be to Gwen Shotwel) but $1T is a bit much. I’ll eventually buy in when things settle down and we have a few quarters of financial data to work with.
- criley2 3mo ago> "Not a scam IMO" > "I think SpaceX is a solid well run company" This should be all the proof you need that it's a scam. Here's why: The company isn't "SpaceX" it's "SpaceXAI", and nearly all of the valuation comes from the "AI" component, not the "SpaceX" component.
- epistasis 3mo agoWhat you describe is exactly a scam: he somehow convinced you that he's not motivated by wealth! That alone is clearly a scam, the idea that Musk is not motivated by huge amounts of wealth and high valuations is just implausible considering g his behavior at every single turn.
- CrimsonRain 3mo agoWhat is he doing with all that wealth? Taking lavish vacations? Buying luxurious yacht? Buying islands and making bunkers?
- gambiting 3mo ago[flagged]
- ordersofmag 3mo ago[flagged]
- sailfast 3mo agoI would much prefer Mr. Musk found a nice hobby like yachts or race horses instead of buying communication platforms, bulldozing regulations, and bribing officials with PAC money. That said, he needs the wealth to keep the whole machine from falling over. One element might be stable but the rest is overstretched and about to go bankrupt at any minute. He is doing this to get back control of Tesla while also investing in AI and not exploding. He is running forward falling and his wealth legs need to keep up or it all goes down hard (and takes a bunch of bagholders with)
- baxtr 3mo agoI warned people 2 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48368668 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48368668
- toomuchtodo 3mo agoI was told I was giving poor advice explaining how to avoid exposure to the latest Musk grift. Unfortunate. “It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” —- Mark Twain https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48374430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48374430 (SpaceX shorts have made ~$4B in profits on paper so far, as of this comment)
- toomuchtodo 3mo ago~$8.7B in profits, as of this comment. Short sellers notch $8.7B profit as SpaceX shares dip to IPO price - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48948435 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48948435 - July 2026 SPCX is now Wall Street's most shorted new stock - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48938001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48938001 - July 2026
- toomuchtodo 3mo ago~$15.5B in profits, as of this comment. Short sellers notch $15.5B profit as SpaceX shares slip - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49021030 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49021030 - July 2026
- ToValueFunfetti 3mo agoThis is shaped like more-or-less every IPO I've seen. I think you have to wait for more of a collapse to claim dispositive evidence of a scam (or widen your claim to 'almost all IPOs are scams').
- lorecore 3mo agoThe valuation based on fundamentals is a scam, you can just look at the numbers. This is unlike any other IPO.
- trescenzi 3mo agoThis is something you could empirically study. Looks like this NASDAQ study from a few years back has some numbers. At 3 months, that’s what’s in their chart, it’s still about 50/50. At 3 years it’s 29% with returns greater than 10% and 69% with returns greater than -10%. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/what-happens-to-ipos-over-the-long-run-2021-04-15 https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/what-happens-to-ipos-over-th...
- JCW2001 3mo agoMost companies are not successful. That's all you need to know.
- jmye 3mo ago> (or widen your claim to 'almost all IPOs are scams') In a world where retail basically has no access to true IPO pricing, I don't think this is untrue for the majority of investors. Jamming SpaceX directly into a bunch of indexes just because Musk wanted it (and everyone is a coward or complicit) stunk of "scam" in a very different way, though.
- oblio 3mo agoSpaceX has a float of 5%. So only 5% of SpaceX shares have been released to the public. Slowly, starting in August, employees and investors will be able to sell their shares, about 45% more until December 2026 and another 45% until July 2027. What do you think will happen to SpaceX share prices when roughly 18x the number of shares at IPO are released? From a company that only made $18bn in sales last year and lost $5bn. For reference, Aramark, a company basically nobody has heard of made as much money and even turned a $0.5bn profit. SpaceX shouldn't be worth more than $30 in 1 year's time. Of course, irrationality can be an extremely strong force, so let's see.
- indoordin0saur 3mo agoIt's right at IPO price, which (thus far) means it was more or less priced correctly.
- rob74 3mo agoYes, it is an obvious scam, but as far as I understood, it was a scam that was guaranteed to succeed: SpaceX is listed on Nasdaq and added to the Nasdaq index after only two weeks thanks to the rules Nasdaq changed at SpaceX's behest, so all funds that track Nasdaq have to buy SpaceX shares, so the prices were going to explode automatically because they made sure there will not be enough shares available. What went wrong? Are SpaceX employees dumping their shares so fast that supply outstrips demand?
- bartek_gdn 3mo agoPriced in before the event then?
- robot_jesus 3mo agoThere's a lot to unpack here, but a few thoughts. SpaceX wasn't added to the Nasdaq until two days ago, which is right around the time the stock was reaching it's current lows. Doesn't make sense to say that they prices exploded because of that. Second, I don't know the details but it's extremely unlikely that most SpaceX folks have been able to sell any shares. Typically there's a 90–180 restricted window where pre-IPO holders are not allowed to sell. The limited float could theoretically drive up, but as I noted, it wasn't added to the Nasdaq 100 until two days ago, so it's not something we can really attribute to that. Btw, I loathe Elon Musk as a human, but am just clarifying some facts.
- rob74 3mo agoI didn't say that the prices exploded, I said that (according to the maybe dodgy experts who I read/heard) they were practically guaranteed to explode. And by explode, I mean go up. But if SpaceX was only added to the index two days ago, maybe that might still happen. According to the same experts, the stock sale restrictions for pre-IPO holders were also changed for SpaceX, but I don't remember the specifics...
- HDThoreaun 3mo agoAll the investors knew that nasdaq and trackers would have to buy spacex and that number of shares traded is extremely limited. They might have bought earlier and planned to sell when the index crunch started?
- nxm 3mo agoSo I presume you made a lot of money shorting the stock if you were so confident?
- sethammons 3mo agoThe market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent
- ryandamm 3mo ago“The world can remain irrational longer than you can remain liquid.”
- stingraycharles 3mo agoWhy would anyone want to risk any money going any way with these stocks? Tesla isn’t behaving rationally, there is no way to tell whether SpaceX will behave rationally or not. It seems like it’s becoming somewhat more rational, but all these stocks just seem to be incomprehensible to me.
- ornornor 3mo agoI can hold a strong opinion on this matter without risking any of my own money. I own no Musk stock and never short anything. I don’t think that affects the opinion I stated in any way.
- eudamoniac 3mo agoWell I sure did. Not sure why you are writing this as a "gotcha". Buying puts is not some insane play. I gained about 85%.
- m3kw9 3mo agoSome would still say Tesla is a scam.
- randusername 3mo agoWhat's the point of an IPO? Show problematic institutional investors the door and replace them with disorganized public investors? Attract talent? Seems like if the company is really doing great you'd want to retain ownership. Raise from bonds or something. Put simply, if it's valuable why would anyone sell it?
- dhagz 3mo agoA lot of VCs had money locked up in SpaceX, like, portfolios going back a decade or more had some sort of investment in SpaceX. The IPO gave them an exit.
- LightBug1 3mo agoIt's ok. Let the Musk-riders enjoyed their ride ... Elon bought them an imaginary horse ...
- sleight42 3mo agoDoesn't need to be said but "Thank you for being the top comment." Shocking nobody, indeed.