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This investment has never been secret. Google (now under parent company Alphabet) invested roughly $900 million as the majority of a ~$1 billion funding round
by miohtama 3mo ago
This investment has never been secret.
Google (now under parent company Alphabet) invested roughly $900 million as the majority of a ~$1 billion funding round alongside Fidelity Investments. This gave Google an initial equity stake of about 7–7.5% in SpaceX at a valuation of roughly $10–12 billion.
- matwood 3mo agoRemember this was also when SpaceX was actually about space, instead of mostly AI and Twitter. Long-term shareholders that were sold on the space, have to be thinking about how to get out once their lockups expire.
- miohtama 3mo agoSpaceX, like Tesla, has always been about Elon Musk. Investors are buying Musk, like they were buying Warren Buffett with Berkshire Hathaway. Long-term shareholders are not buying space; they are buying Musk. This has been clear to everyone since the beginning; it has been well communicated (look at SpaceX governance rules in Texas), and there is nothing mystical about it. It's very likely Musk will roll everything up into a single Musk conglomerate.
- SecretDreams 3mo agoInvestors are buying into the fallacy that musk can continue to work as a hype man, rather than some visionary or innovator. They like that he can make stock numbers go up, seemingly against all odds and reason. Whether this trend continues or not indefinitely will largely determine if incestors start looking for the door.
- miohtama 3mo agoIt's a valid point. But the markets are a harsh mistress. If you don't like fallacies, you don't buy. And if you think the number is not going to go up, you can always short the stock. In defence of Mr Musk, despite his character flaws, Tesla is the only Western electric car company in the top 20, and this includes Korea and Japan. Also, SpaceX is ~90% of the world's commercial rocket launch capacity. But this does not mean SpaceX would be correctly priced at the moment. It may be expensive, but SpaceX is going to have many years to come to reap the benefits of their hard work building the business.
- groby_b 3mo ago> you can always short the stock. Which is going not too badly for the shorts, so far. There's a reason almost 50% of the float is loaned out. We'll see once the earnings call rolls around.
- rabf 3mo agoPossible that a lot of those shorts are by early SpaceX investors who want to lock in a specific price before their share lockup period ends.
- lindig 3mo ago> In defence of Mr Musk, despite his character flaws, Tesla is the only Western electric car company in the top 20, and this includes Korea and Japan. Also, SpaceX is ~90% of the world's commercial rocket launch capacity. This conflates the quality of the product with the value of the business. There is no contradiction between Tesla cars selling well because they fit a market and Tesla the business not being a good investment.
- jeltz 3mo ago> Tesla is the only Western electric car company in the top 20 WV is number 6 in the top 20, and BMW is number 10. And while Tesla has good sales now their lack of innovation is a huge risk. https://www.blackridgeresearch.com/blog/list-of-global-top-electric-car-vehicle-ev-companies-manufacturers-makers-suppliers-in-the-world https://www.blackridgeresearch.com/blog/list-of-global-top-e...
- 8note 3mo ago> Tesla is the only Western electric car company in the top 20, and this includes Korea and Japan id attribute that to the US government rather than musk? same with the resuable rockets. american taxpayers have been screwed over by doing these things as money to musk vs just building it
- mhitza 3mo agoLove the typo. I think Musk's luck is running out, he's been too political this past year and he seems to also have run out of geek "street cred". Remember youtubers visiting (whatever the Tesla trade show was called) were more perplexed than impressed with what has been shown. Similar sentiment seen across trade shows (like CES) where everything was AI and no one seemed to ask themselves "why are we putting AI in this?". The answer, of course, for startups and stock listed companies, to make themselves more valuable on paper. Investors would probably be aware of that if they run any kind of sentiment analysis on online social media content. And at the same time there's some pull-out from tech stock. So maybe some are starting to realise that things are too shaky for their risk profile?
- mrits 3mo agoIt’s so weird to see people actively try to criticize arguably the most successful person in the history of Earth.
- wongarsu 3mo agoUnlike Tesla, SpaceX is still a visionary and innovative company. Their current cash problems are precisely because they are so heavily invested in so many innovations that have yet to pan out
- dmix 3mo agoTesla is making two big R&D plays into humanoid robotics and cyber taxi. That’s just as bold and requiring innovation as the SpaceX AI and starship stuff. That plus Tesla/SpaceX/Intel are together putting big money into Terafab to make semiconductors in Texas for those platforms.
- bdangubic 3mo ago> Tesla is making two big R&D plays… The funniest thing you can write… Can’t believe people still write “Robotaxi” after 12+ years of failed promises… wild wild stuff
- miohtama 3mo agoWaymo currently operates 250,000 paid robotaxi rides a week across several U.S. cities, and the robotaxi market is projected to grow at a yearly rate of ~70% from 2025 to 2030.
- bdangubic 3mo agoexactly, and Tesla cannot move a car from point A to point B since 2014 so this projected growth certainly is great news for a lot of companies - Tesla is not one of them
- jeltz 3mo agoExactly. Tesla is way behind the competition.
- dmix 3mo agoWho is better than Tesla besides Waymo? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48070467 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48070467
- dgellow 3mo agoIt's really sad to see that we just accept that Elon Musk, one of the most influential and maybe-still-the richest person in the world is constantly lying to shareholders for his own benefit. And gets zero punishment for it.
- hnbad 3mo agoWe really need to stop thinking in terms of individuals and more in terms of systems. The problem isn't just Musk. If it wasn't him, it would be someone else.
- dgellow 3mo agoNot just that, but private investors were sold shares that all had the same voting rights. Since just before the IPO SpaceX now has dual class shares, Elon and a few insiders have class-B shares with 10x the voting power, while everybody else (including private investors) have class-A shares with 1x the voting power
- georgeburdell 3mo agoWith the serious lapses in governance being made by founders with these special shares, such as Musk and Zuckerberg, I wonder if the shares without these special rights will be substantially discounted. What rights do these other shareholders retain that would keep them valuable? Rights to compensation in the case of bankruptcy?
- jdross 3mo agoThese have become some of the most valuable companies on Earth. The idea that there are lapses in governance in these companies is insane. Any shareholder is buying in fully aware of the governance structure. Many because of it! Shareholders’ rights are clearly enumerated.
- NuclearPM 3mo ago> Any shareholder is buying in fully aware of the governance structure. This is laughable. Many shareholders don’t even know they own stock in these companies.
- andsoitis 3mo agoThat’s an indictment on them. You should know where you’re putting your money and why. If you delegate this to a professional or influencer, you do not get to blame them. After all, you could just buy something you think you understand better like real estate or keep it in cash.
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- Fire-Dragon-DoL 3mo agoWell X is at the end of the name, so first is about Space, then about X, right? /s
- onlyrealcuzzo 3mo agoSpaceX is WAY more about space than Twitter. Twitter by itself is lucky to be worth $15B anymore. The space portion of SpaceX is easily worth 10x that. xAI is theoretically the hype machine that makes up the remainder of the value.
- cowboy_henk 3mo agoTwitter is the “hype machine”. It’s basically the advertising arm disguised as a social media company. At SpaceX’s valuation, even a 1-2% increase in share price due to some astroturfing on the platform they themselves own basically pays back the cost of acquiring twitter.
- mrits 3mo agoWhere did you get $15 billion from?
- dopa42365 3mo agoOr $150 billion SpaceX? Internet constellations may be mildly profitable, but beyond that, most things are an endless money pit without clear path towards profit anytime soon. Like, no one is going to spend a trillion on a moon base (or exponentially more for mars) without plans to somehow recover all that money.
- cineticdaffodil 3mo agoMoon is taxfree zone?
- johncearls 3mo agoFree Luna!
- elif 3mo agoThe US government is the one who routinely spends trillions with no plans to recover money. And SpaceX has become their favorite place to put money over the last 5 years.
- trimbo 3mo agoI don't think companies expanding their business should be the only reason to sell. Apple was a desktop and laptop computer company when they released the iPod. Nokia was a company making rubber products when they started making cellular equipment in the 1970s. Amazon was a ecomm company when they released AWS. Etc. Sure, I'm cherrypicking the success stories but I don't think it's the only signal people should use.
- miohtama 3mo agoNvidia was a company making PC gamer hardware, not high-performance computing.
- infinitewars 3mo ago[dead]
- paulryanrogers 3mo agoCompanies laundering their CEO's other failing companies is certainly a reason to sell.
- elif 3mo ago$8.7B in losses over the last 5 quarters sounds bad, but that is also with $20.4B capital expenditure in the period and double digit percent increases per quarter in user metrics. By traditional business metrics it looks toxic but compared to a typical tech unicorn it's not really outstanding. Considering it's a tech unicorn with strategic and financial leverage like no other (their own global Internet infrastructure, access to arbitrary billions in capital, ability to build the biggest chip fab in the world), it's certainly fair to call it a gamble, but to call it failing is a stretch imo.
- cinntaile 3mo agoDid I miss something? When did Spacex get into the fab business?
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- hn_throwaway_99 3mo agoIt also seems to me to be a very odd conflict of interest given that they must see themselves as primary competitors in the AI space. Seems similar to me as when Eric Schmidt resigned from the Apple board many years back because their products started to overlap, especially mobile.
- bpodgursky 3mo agoYes I'm sure they are just desperate to get out of their 100x investment. A huge mistake, I'm sure the relevant parties have been punished appropriately.
- consensus1 3mo agoThey must be seething in envy at the superior returns of the average HN naysayer who has been predicting the imminent collapse of all the "scams" Elon Musk is running for the last several years.
- nairboon 3mo agoI think those long-term holders who 10x their investment are quite happy with that investment so far.
- 3form 3mo agoIn fact it was often mentioned as a recommended way to try to invest in SpaceX via proxy, before IPO. I don't think that advice had much merit, but it was there nevertheless.
- alberth 3mo agoOriginal HN thread, 11-years ago (220 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8914956 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8914956
- miohtama 3mo agoWhat a find in the archives! "It's quite amazing how this values SpaceX at 10bn, less than 50% of WhatsApp." Somebody was wise a decade ago.
- justinhj 3mo agoAt the time Starlink was announced as was rocket reusability. Both were widely mocked and considered infeasible. Since then Starlink has succeeded, reusable rockets are a reality, ISS crewed spaceflight restored to US. I expect all that had an impact on the valuation. Personally I wouldn't invest in Elon because his stock is a wild ride but space x has achieved a lot.
- mvdtnz 3mo agoNo one made any claim that it was a secret. The linked article is literally about public disclosures from Google themselves.
- blitzar 3mo agodisclose /dɪˈskləʊz/ verb verb: disclose; 3rd person present: discloses; past tense: disclosed; past participle: disclosed; gerund or present participle: disclosing make (secret or new information) known.