6 ms·

The SpaceX Sham

39 points by cdrnsf 2mo ago

AlexMuir 2mo ago
> Although SpaceX stock has since fallen far below its IPO price I'm a skeptic on SpaceX but the IPO price was $135, low was $108 and current price is $130. I wouldn't say that's far below.
- caconym_ 2mo ago
  Worth noting that it actually opened at $150 on public markets. It's kind of funny how we call the $135 figure the "public offering" price when there is really nothing public about it. Maybe it made more sense in some past era when it was more difficult for third parties to make private pre-IPO investments. Not that there's anything particularly unusual about this. High profile tech companies almost universally (actually I am not aware of any moderately recent exceptions at all) fall below the actual public opening price in the days or weeks following the IPO. I honestly don't know why anybody buys them.
  - encoderer 2mo ago
    All you had to do was put in an order with your broker (robinhood, E*Trade, etc). Some brokers did not get much allocation (Schwab) but this was not a hard stock to get at $135.
    - caconym_ 2mo ago
      My understanding based on reading first hand accounts is that very few people who tried for a retail allocation got anything close to what they asked for. Total retail allocation was apparently around 20% of the IPO. Hard to get a few shares so you can say you have some? Probably not.
  - Dig1t 2mo ago
    Anyone could sign up for the IPO price. I’m a nobody and I was able to buy some shares at $135 on the opening day. You just had to sign up to participate before opening day.
    - caconym_ 2mo ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49264831 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49264831
  - orwin 2mo ago
    Really? i got out of the crypto/finance bubble a few years ago, but that feels heavily like a crypto scam. You create a coin, you keep a few, sell another few to influencers cheaply, then ICO, then profit.
    - tim333 2mo ago
      There's some real business there unlike crypto.
- b3orn 2mo ago
  There are a lot of people who want to see them fail. Have some patience, it's not even been a year.
ck2 2mo ago
it's worse than a scam, he's doing real, permanent damage to the environment * https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/31/spacex-wont-remove-all-of-xais-unpermitted-turbines-for-another-year/ https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/31/spacex-wont-remove-all-of-... and illegally, not sure how he's allowed to get away with it and each starlink deorbit is putting toxic pollution into the atmosphere without penalty (launches too) * https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-space-orbit-satellites-pollution/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-space-orbit-satellit...
- Dig1t 2mo ago
  How many satellites would it take burning up in the atmosphere to raise the aluminum content of the atmosphere by just 1 part per billion (not million)? Each satellite is 300kg, it would take 57 MILLION satellites. The cost to do that at current prices would be $138 trillion. Airplane exhaust has a real measurable impact on the atmosphere, curious why people choose to target satellite debris instead of plane exhaust as their topic of environmental concern.
- ggreer 2mo ago
  The article about atmospheric pollution from deorbiting satellites leaves out the biggest source of stratospheric aluminum oxide: Solid rocket boosters. A single Ariane 6 launch creates 100-200 tons of aluminum oxide in the atmosphere (depending on whether it uses 2 or 4 boosters). SpaceX doesn't use solid boosters, so it's a rounding error in terms of its contribution. Also SpaceX is switching to Starship, which uses methane instead of kerosene, drastically reducing the amount of soot produced. Last year when this topic came up, I did the math for how long it would take before aluminum oxide from satellites was worth worrying about. If you assume the entire satellite is made from aluminum, and that aluminum oxide is as bad as the most potent ozone-destroying CFC, and that the particles stay in the atmosphere forever, it would take 5,000 years before atmospheric levels of aluminum oxide reached the same concentration as R-12.[1] So basically, it's not worth worrying about. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45493143#45494364 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45493143#45494364
- atmavatar 2mo ago
  > and illegally, not sure how he's allowed to get away with it The law's hold over you is inversely proportional to your net worth in the US.
midwestfounder 2mo ago
It's difficult to get past what comes across as an attempt to analytically substantiate moralistic reasoning. The contention that it's scandalous to raise capital to support an "automated future" then a dotted line to transhumanism and then the conclusion "it's a sham" feels shoddy.
- sfblah 2mo ago
  To me, the bigger issue with SpaceX is that there's no real argument for how space exploration will benefit humanity in any tangible way. Humans cannot live sustainably on Mars or the moon -- that's just a straight-up lie. Satellites add some value for sure, but it's pretty limited, which helps explain why most of the launches just support StarLink (which itself is probably unsustainable financially). This whole thing is just a bunch of space nerds pushing society down a terrible cul-de-sac which will lower quality of life in meaningful ways in the coming century.
  - ggreer 2mo ago
    How is Starlink financially unsustainable? In 2025, Starlink generated $4.42 billion in income from $11.39 billion in revenue. Last quarter Starlink generated $1.6 billion in income from $4.3 billion in revenue.[1] So it's already a profitable enterprise, and their costs will likely go down over time as their launch capabilities improve. 1. https://s21.q4cdn.com/184289198/files/doc_financials/2026/q2/SpaceX-Reports-Second-Quarter-2026-Results.pdf https://s21.q4cdn.com/184289198/files/doc_financials/2026/q2...
    - sfblah 2mo ago
      Here's an OK article on the topic: https://archive.is/eKCJu https://archive.is/eKCJu Starlink is almost certainly playing games with capex and depreciation to appear profitable when it is not. They're also using political patronage to get contracts from the government to do things that are probably worthless.
      - ggreer 2mo ago
gfosco 2mo ago
SpaceX and Elon are the litmus test for the future. You're either with him, or your opinions are ignorant and irrelevant.
- benj111 2mo ago
  Sarcasm? Hard to tell.
  - ubiquitysc 2mo ago
    They work for Gab, not sarcasm
qwerpy 2mo ago
@cdrnsf is posting negative articles all you do? isn't it exhausting to bathe in negativity all day long?
rendang 2mo ago
> punitive capital gains taxation A strange turn of phrase. What is the crime in view that's supposed to be punished?
- tim333 2mo ago
  Being rich. "Anti-oligarchy initiatives" as he puts it. Sounds a tad socialist.
MarkusQ 2mo ago
> Negative coverage of the IPO was limited due to the participation of so many major banks in the IPO process; they don’t want to poison the cash cow they’re milking for underwriting fees. WTF? Anyone willing to read this far knows that this is flat out false. The negative coverage was unrelenting, and largely driven by big players peeved by the unconventional process. Anyone who bothers to continue past that point is probably just looking for validation.
- jotux 2mo ago
  It's funny how our perceptions are driven by the source of our news. I generally perceived the positive coverage in regular news as unrelenting. I know the tech news sources I read were constantly complaining about rule changes and manipulations on the part of Spacex, but run-of-the-mill national news outlets seem to be endlessly hyping the stock to the point that a few of my non tech-savvy family members were asking if they needed to buy it as soon as they went public.
  - MarkusQ 2mo ago
    https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/why-we-think-spacex-ipo-is-overvalued?content_id=20768396545 https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/why-we-think-spacex-ipo-i... https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/01/technology/spacex-ipo-elon-musk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/01/technology/spacex-ipo-elo... https://montanaskeptic.substack.com/p/the-spacex-ipo-will-be-the-theft https://montanaskeptic.substack.com/p/the-spacex-ipo-will-be... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rS3fTbC7TE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rS3fTbC7TE https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2026/06/03/heavily-in-debt-loss-making-with-eyes-on-sending-people-to-mars-why-would-anyone-invest-in-spacex/ https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2026/06/03/heavily-in-de... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X6YzlY_8tM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X6YzlY_8tM https://jamesthomason.com/spacex-ipo-bagship-carries-full-payload-of-elons-mistakes/ https://jamesthomason.com/spacex-ipo-bagship-carries-full-pa... https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/940001/elon-musk-spacex-ipo-ai https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/940001/e... It all seems pretty negative to me.
    - 2mo ago
baron3dl 2mo ago
The real sham has yet to materialize. You only get a single $1T IPO. For the AI labs, investors are tapped out, and the only thing left is a huge IPO. Google, Meta, Microsoft's cash reserves are drying up, they're squeezing operations for every cent, and sure they can issue some stocks to raise cash, but not $1T. I think this bubble's failure mode matches that of a Ponzi scheme.
- sfblah 2mo ago
  The Fed can still declare some kind of financial emergency and increase the money printing again. My guess is this is likely, given the sway that tech CEOs have over the White House, and the reality of overseas competition.
- Zigurd 2mo ago
  Not to imply that AI spending isn't a bubble, but there's a difference between cash rich tech giants going slightly free cash flow negative, and a company like Oracle that's all in. Apple is sitting it out, Google and Microsoft are not taking existential risks relative to their resources, Meta is doing who knows what but it won't break them, and Oracle's fate couldn't happen to nicer people.
slowmovintarget 2mo ago
Ah yes... Critical Space Theory.
rtaylorgarlock 2mo ago
I remember when a post of mine was flagged due to pretty obvious patent trolling against a cool FOSS project, but i made the critical error of 'crying' in my title. Maybe I should flag this to get it out of my system.
3asj176 2mo ago
In retrospect it was a cunning plan to get $100B from the Musk-faithful to build Terafab. Intel is in, AmericaFirsters support it and Taiwan should feel less secure now. The stock price is of course ridiculous: Intel lagged behind TSMC, but apparently Terafab has orders for ASML's latest gen machines (2nm). If Intel will manage to get a yield, we'll see. All this space and AI stuff is marketing. The IPO was to get free money for a serious TSMC competitor.
bigbuppo 2mo ago
Whether it's a good idea don't matter. Fundamentals don't matter. What matters is if enough investors think they can make a lot of money. The bet is on a government bailout of some sort. SpaceX itself is now critical to national security, as is Starlink. Tossing every other Musk company into SpaceX means that when they fail SpaceX itself has to be bailed out. Probably safer than government bonds at this point if you can HODL.
- nh23423fefe 2mo ago
  Clearly logic doesn't matter if you'll say Treasuries are less safe than SpaceX because reasons.
  - bigbuppo 2mo ago
    Among people with a certain world view, the US government has been days away from defaulting on its obligations for decades on end. These sorts of people tend to like Elon Musk for some reason.
- chollida1 2mo ago
  > Probably safer than government bonds at this point if you can HODL. Not sure how you came to the conclusion that SPCX is safe because of the government backstop/bailout, but government bonds are less safe. I'll take the other side of your claim here and say SPCX goes bankrupt before the US government does
- rurp 2mo ago
  SpaceX isn't more secure than the government because the government might bail it out in the future, that makes no logical sense. Obviously SpaceX is a higher default risk than the entity supposedly backstopping it. Not to mention that stock holders are hardly guaranteed to be made whole if the company crashes hard enough to need a bailout.
  - zrobotics 2mo ago
    Plus, couldn't a theoretical bailout come with pretty onerous terms and focus on just the actual space launch & starlink divisions? It isn't hard to argue that they are as critical of a defense contractor as Lockheed. However, supposedly ~80% of the value is AI and Twitter, which certainly aren't in the same category. I agree that stockholders would likely not come out well at all in a theoretical bailout. A bailout would likely involve chapter 11 or something similar, and shareholders would be last in line behind other creditors. They might get additional protection if it looked like the collapse of the company would significantly affect retirement and pension funds, but that hypothetical certainly doesn't give me any additional faith in the stock.
tim333 2mo ago
>The real scandal is how much capital the tech oligarchs have been able to raise on the promise of an automated, even transhumanist, future. Dunno. Why shouldn't they raise money for that? People can always not invest if they think it's bunk.

39 points by cdrnsf 2mo ago

> Although SpaceX stock has since fallen far below its IPO price I'm a skeptic on SpaceX but the IPO price was $135, low was $108 and current price is $130. I wouldn't say that's far below.

caconym_ 2mo ago
Worth noting that it actually opened at $150 on public markets. It's kind of funny how we call the $135 figure the "public offering" price when there is really nothing public about it. Maybe it made more sense in some past era when it was more difficult for third parties to make private pre-IPO investments. Not that there's anything particularly unusual about this. High profile tech companies almost universally (actually I am not aware of any moderately recent exceptions at all) fall below the actual public opening price in the days or weeks following the IPO. I honestly don't know why anybody buys them.
- encoderer 2mo ago
  All you had to do was put in an order with your broker (robinhood, E*Trade, etc). Some brokers did not get much allocation (Schwab) but this was not a hard stock to get at $135.
  - caconym_ 2mo ago
    My understanding based on reading first hand accounts is that very few people who tried for a retail allocation got anything close to what they asked for. Total retail allocation was apparently around 20% of the IPO. Hard to get a few shares so you can say you have some? Probably not.
- Dig1t 2mo ago
  Anyone could sign up for the IPO price. I’m a nobody and I was able to buy some shares at $135 on the opening day. You just had to sign up to participate before opening day.
  - caconym_ 2mo ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49264831 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49264831
- orwin 2mo ago
  Really? i got out of the crypto/finance bubble a few years ago, but that feels heavily like a crypto scam. You create a coin, you keep a few, sell another few to influencers cheaply, then ICO, then profit.
  - tim333 2mo ago
    There's some real business there unlike crypto.
b3orn 2mo ago
There are a lot of people who want to see them fail. Have some patience, it's not even been a year.

ck2 2mo ago

it's worse than a scam, he's doing real, permanent damage to the environment * https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/31/spacex-wont-remove-all-of-xais-unpermitted-turbines-for-another-year/ https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/31/spacex-wont-remove-all-of-... and illegally, not sure how he's allowed to get away with it and each starlink deorbit is putting toxic pollution into the atmosphere without penalty (launches too) * https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-space-orbit-satellites-pollution/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-space-orbit-satellit...

Dig1t 2mo ago
How many satellites would it take burning up in the atmosphere to raise the aluminum content of the atmosphere by just 1 part per billion (not million)? Each satellite is 300kg, it would take 57 MILLION satellites. The cost to do that at current prices would be $138 trillion. Airplane exhaust has a real measurable impact on the atmosphere, curious why people choose to target satellite debris instead of plane exhaust as their topic of environmental concern.
ggreer 2mo ago
The article about atmospheric pollution from deorbiting satellites leaves out the biggest source of stratospheric aluminum oxide: Solid rocket boosters. A single Ariane 6 launch creates 100-200 tons of aluminum oxide in the atmosphere (depending on whether it uses 2 or 4 boosters). SpaceX doesn't use solid boosters, so it's a rounding error in terms of its contribution. Also SpaceX is switching to Starship, which uses methane instead of kerosene, drastically reducing the amount of soot produced. Last year when this topic came up, I did the math for how long it would take before aluminum oxide from satellites was worth worrying about. If you assume the entire satellite is made from aluminum, and that aluminum oxide is as bad as the most potent ozone-destroying CFC, and that the particles stay in the atmosphere forever, it would take 5,000 years before atmospheric levels of aluminum oxide reached the same concentration as R-12.[1] So basically, it's not worth worrying about. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45493143#45494364 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45493143#45494364
atmavatar 2mo ago
> and illegally, not sure how he's allowed to get away with it The law's hold over you is inversely proportional to your net worth in the US.

midwestfounder 2mo ago

It's difficult to get past what comes across as an attempt to analytically substantiate moralistic reasoning. The contention that it's scandalous to raise capital to support an "automated future" then a dotted line to transhumanism and then the conclusion "it's a sham" feels shoddy.

sfblah 2mo ago
To me, the bigger issue with SpaceX is that there's no real argument for how space exploration will benefit humanity in any tangible way. Humans cannot live sustainably on Mars or the moon -- that's just a straight-up lie. Satellites add some value for sure, but it's pretty limited, which helps explain why most of the launches just support StarLink (which itself is probably unsustainable financially). This whole thing is just a bunch of space nerds pushing society down a terrible cul-de-sac which will lower quality of life in meaningful ways in the coming century.
- ggreer 2mo ago
  How is Starlink financially unsustainable? In 2025, Starlink generated $4.42 billion in income from $11.39 billion in revenue. Last quarter Starlink generated $1.6 billion in income from $4.3 billion in revenue.[1] So it's already a profitable enterprise, and their costs will likely go down over time as their launch capabilities improve. 1. https://s21.q4cdn.com/184289198/files/doc_financials/2026/q2/SpaceX-Reports-Second-Quarter-2026-Results.pdf https://s21.q4cdn.com/184289198/files/doc_financials/2026/q2...
  - sfblah 2mo ago
    Here's an OK article on the topic: https://archive.is/eKCJu https://archive.is/eKCJu Starlink is almost certainly playing games with capex and depreciation to appear profitable when it is not. They're also using political patronage to get contracts from the government to do things that are probably worthless.
    - ggreer 2mo ago

gfosco 2mo ago

SpaceX and Elon are the litmus test for the future. You're either with him, or your opinions are ignorant and irrelevant.

benj111 2mo ago
Sarcasm? Hard to tell.
- ubiquitysc 2mo ago
  They work for Gab, not sarcasm

qwerpy 2mo ago

@cdrnsf is posting negative articles all you do? isn't it exhausting to bathe in negativity all day long?

rendang 2mo ago

> punitive capital gains taxation A strange turn of phrase. What is the crime in view that's supposed to be punished?

tim333 2mo ago
Being rich. "Anti-oligarchy initiatives" as he puts it. Sounds a tad socialist.

MarkusQ 2mo ago

> Negative coverage of the IPO was limited due to the participation of so many major banks in the IPO process; they don’t want to poison the cash cow they’re milking for underwriting fees. WTF? Anyone willing to read this far knows that this is flat out false. The negative coverage was unrelenting, and largely driven by big players peeved by the unconventional process. Anyone who bothers to continue past that point is probably just looking for validation.

jotux 2mo ago
It's funny how our perceptions are driven by the source of our news. I generally perceived the positive coverage in regular news as unrelenting. I know the tech news sources I read were constantly complaining about rule changes and manipulations on the part of Spacex, but run-of-the-mill national news outlets seem to be endlessly hyping the stock to the point that a few of my non tech-savvy family members were asking if they needed to buy it as soon as they went public.
- MarkusQ 2mo ago
  https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/why-we-think-spacex-ipo-is-overvalued?content_id=20768396545 https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/why-we-think-spacex-ipo-i... https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/01/technology/spacex-ipo-elon-musk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/01/technology/spacex-ipo-elo... https://montanaskeptic.substack.com/p/the-spacex-ipo-will-be-the-theft https://montanaskeptic.substack.com/p/the-spacex-ipo-will-be... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rS3fTbC7TE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rS3fTbC7TE https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2026/06/03/heavily-in-debt-loss-making-with-eyes-on-sending-people-to-mars-why-would-anyone-invest-in-spacex/ https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2026/06/03/heavily-in-de... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X6YzlY_8tM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X6YzlY_8tM https://jamesthomason.com/spacex-ipo-bagship-carries-full-payload-of-elons-mistakes/ https://jamesthomason.com/spacex-ipo-bagship-carries-full-pa... https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/940001/elon-musk-spacex-ipo-ai https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/940001/e... It all seems pretty negative to me.
  - 2mo ago

baron3dl 2mo ago

The real sham has yet to materialize. You only get a single $1T IPO. For the AI labs, investors are tapped out, and the only thing left is a huge IPO. Google, Meta, Microsoft's cash reserves are drying up, they're squeezing operations for every cent, and sure they can issue some stocks to raise cash, but not $1T. I think this bubble's failure mode matches that of a Ponzi scheme.

sfblah 2mo ago
The Fed can still declare some kind of financial emergency and increase the money printing again. My guess is this is likely, given the sway that tech CEOs have over the White House, and the reality of overseas competition.
Zigurd 2mo ago
Not to imply that AI spending isn't a bubble, but there's a difference between cash rich tech giants going slightly free cash flow negative, and a company like Oracle that's all in. Apple is sitting it out, Google and Microsoft are not taking existential risks relative to their resources, Meta is doing who knows what but it won't break them, and Oracle's fate couldn't happen to nicer people.

slowmovintarget 2mo ago

Ah yes... Critical Space Theory.

rtaylorgarlock 2mo ago

I remember when a post of mine was flagged due to pretty obvious patent trolling against a cool FOSS project, but i made the critical error of 'crying' in my title. Maybe I should flag this to get it out of my system.

3asj176 2mo ago

In retrospect it was a cunning plan to get $100B from the Musk-faithful to build Terafab. Intel is in, AmericaFirsters support it and Taiwan should feel less secure now. The stock price is of course ridiculous: Intel lagged behind TSMC, but apparently Terafab has orders for ASML's latest gen machines (2nm). If Intel will manage to get a yield, we'll see. All this space and AI stuff is marketing. The IPO was to get free money for a serious TSMC competitor.

bigbuppo 2mo ago

Whether it's a good idea don't matter. Fundamentals don't matter. What matters is if enough investors think they can make a lot of money. The bet is on a government bailout of some sort. SpaceX itself is now critical to national security, as is Starlink. Tossing every other Musk company into SpaceX means that when they fail SpaceX itself has to be bailed out. Probably safer than government bonds at this point if you can HODL.

nh23423fefe 2mo ago
Clearly logic doesn't matter if you'll say Treasuries are less safe than SpaceX because reasons.
- bigbuppo 2mo ago
  Among people with a certain world view, the US government has been days away from defaulting on its obligations for decades on end. These sorts of people tend to like Elon Musk for some reason.
chollida1 2mo ago
> Probably safer than government bonds at this point if you can HODL. Not sure how you came to the conclusion that SPCX is safe because of the government backstop/bailout, but government bonds are less safe. I'll take the other side of your claim here and say SPCX goes bankrupt before the US government does
rurp 2mo ago
SpaceX isn't more secure than the government because the government might bail it out in the future, that makes no logical sense. Obviously SpaceX is a higher default risk than the entity supposedly backstopping it. Not to mention that stock holders are hardly guaranteed to be made whole if the company crashes hard enough to need a bailout.
- zrobotics 2mo ago
  Plus, couldn't a theoretical bailout come with pretty onerous terms and focus on just the actual space launch & starlink divisions? It isn't hard to argue that they are as critical of a defense contractor as Lockheed. However, supposedly ~80% of the value is AI and Twitter, which certainly aren't in the same category. I agree that stockholders would likely not come out well at all in a theoretical bailout. A bailout would likely involve chapter 11 or something similar, and shareholders would be last in line behind other creditors. They might get additional protection if it looked like the collapse of the company would significantly affect retirement and pension funds, but that hypothetical certainly doesn't give me any additional faith in the stock.

tim333 2mo ago

>The real scandal is how much capital the tech oligarchs have been able to raise on the promise of an automated, even transhumanist, future. Dunno. Why shouldn't they raise money for that? People can always not invest if they think it's bunk.