While I detest Elon, the company definitely has some value. They’re still the global launch leader at this time. That said, their valuation based on promises of AI and asteroid mining is complete nonsense.
Rocket launch, Twitter and xAI is roughly a zero valuation.
Starlink the worlds fastest growing ISP, while having an enormous profit margin is the bread and butter. From a serious perspective, also what you should aim the valuation for.
Did their IPO launch at a fair valuation? Hell nah
Starlink the worlds fastest growing ISP, while having an enormous profit margin is the bread and butter.
Starlink has only had one profitable year ($70m total), and that’s only if you exclude the cost of rocket launches and only count selling end user hardware and subscriptions.
Literally almost the entire infrastructure of Starlink has to be “rebuilt” every 8 -10 years, because that’s how long their latest generation (v3) satellites last in average before they deorbit due to the air drag at low orbit or their electronics fail due to the higher radiation in Earth’s orbit
Their business model hasn’t even been proven to be profitable outside niche markets where they’re the only solution for Internet and there are enough people/companies who can afford and are willing to pay a big enough premium for that service that it offsets Starlink’s costs of having to manufacture and launching replacement for their satellites, all of which invariably die after about 10 years.
Sure, but you are talking about being the leader in an industry that has historically been the profitless province of state sponsored exploration, scientific discovery, with supplementing industrial functions as a value-add. It is not a given what value there actually is in being the leader in this field.
It’s almost like things are fundamentally different now from “historically.” Historically, we (I’m in the launch vehicle industry) didn’t have reusable launch vehicles. Even 10 years ago the launch community was hugely skeptical of being able to successfully refurbish a rocket and maintain mission assurance.
My point is that most of the launches being performed now are not state sponsored or for scientific discovery. You are looking at it from the lens of a period when there were only two providers and only a few customers. With tons of commercial companies interested in proliferated LEO programs, there is a lot of profit in launch.
However, that STILL only gives the stock a value of around $8/share.
NASA flies roughly 3 missions per year. DoD/DoW launches around 12 missions per year. NRO launches around 5 per year. That is a total of around 20 government missions per year. SpaceX launches roughly 150 missions per year, so removing state funding would only take out about 13% of their $18 billion annual revenue. 100 of those launches are Starlink, which gets funded by both commercial, private users, and government users.
That 18 billion in revenue already results in an operating loss of 4 billion a year. So its a little odd to hear you act like “only” losing another 13% is insignificant since it would increase their loss by about 30%.
Also, that is assuming that all launches cost the same, which is probably not the case at all. The NASA launches are likely considerably more costly than Starlink launches.
You can get infinite Revenue by giving everybody $2 if they give you $1 dollar.
Such a company could proudly claim to have 1 billion sales and $1 billion dollars in revenue whilst not mentioning the “small detail” that they took $1 billion in losses to make those sales - which is pretty much what you’re doing there for SpaceX.
When judging an investment, which is what we’re doing here when talking about their IPO, what maters is profit, not revenue.
That was because it was so costly to get even a single kg into orbit. The commercial satellite industry is a quarter of a trillion dollars and growing in part because the cost to get stuff in orbit is going down.
Jokes on you because it never had any real value to begin with
While I detest Elon, the company definitely has some value. They’re still the global launch leader at this time. That said, their valuation based on promises of AI and asteroid mining is complete nonsense.
It had value, before it bought xAI.
Now there’s an infinite money pit attached to it
Rocket launch, Twitter and xAI is roughly a zero valuation.
Starlink the worlds fastest growing ISP, while having an enormous profit margin is the bread and butter. From a serious perspective, also what you should aim the valuation for.
Did their IPO launch at a fair valuation? Hell nah
Starlink has only had one profitable year ($70m total), and that’s only if you exclude the cost of rocket launches and only count selling end user hardware and subscriptions.
The whole scheme is a shitshow of one company propping up another with fake revenues and profits.
Or
If people are stupid enough to invest without understanding valuation, then they deserve poverty.
Literally almost the entire infrastructure of Starlink has to be “rebuilt” every 8 -10 years, because that’s how long their latest generation (v3) satellites last in average before they deorbit due to the air drag at low orbit or their electronics fail due to the higher radiation in Earth’s orbit
Their business model hasn’t even been proven to be profitable outside niche markets where they’re the only solution for Internet and there are enough people/companies who can afford and are willing to pay a big enough premium for that service that it offsets Starlink’s costs of having to manufacture and launching replacement for their satellites, all of which invariably die after about 10 years.
Sure, but you are talking about being the leader in an industry that has historically been the profitless province of state sponsored exploration, scientific discovery, with supplementing industrial functions as a value-add. It is not a given what value there actually is in being the leader in this field.
It’s almost like things are fundamentally different now from “historically.” Historically, we (I’m in the launch vehicle industry) didn’t have reusable launch vehicles. Even 10 years ago the launch community was hugely skeptical of being able to successfully refurbish a rocket and maintain mission assurance.
My point is that most of the launches being performed now are not state sponsored or for scientific discovery. You are looking at it from the lens of a period when there were only two providers and only a few customers. With tons of commercial companies interested in proliferated LEO programs, there is a lot of profit in launch.
However, that STILL only gives the stock a value of around $8/share.
If you took the state funding out of Space X how much money do they make?
NASA flies roughly 3 missions per year. DoD/DoW launches around 12 missions per year. NRO launches around 5 per year. That is a total of around 20 government missions per year. SpaceX launches roughly 150 missions per year, so removing state funding would only take out about 13% of their $18 billion annual revenue. 100 of those launches are Starlink, which gets funded by both commercial, private users, and government users.
Revenue is not profit. 13% is likely more than their profit margins.
That 18 billion in revenue already results in an operating loss of 4 billion a year. So its a little odd to hear you act like “only” losing another 13% is insignificant since it would increase their loss by about 30%.
Also, that is assuming that all launches cost the same, which is probably not the case at all. The NASA launches are likely considerably more costly than Starlink launches.
NASA launches are very different, not LEOs.
You can get infinite Revenue by giving everybody $2 if they give you $1 dollar.
Such a company could proudly claim to have 1 billion sales and $1 billion dollars in revenue whilst not mentioning the “small detail” that they took $1 billion in losses to make those sales - which is pretty much what you’re doing there for SpaceX.
When judging an investment, which is what we’re doing here when talking about their IPO, what maters is profit, not revenue.
Look up AST, better tech and is used by most of the major carriers.
That was because it was so costly to get even a single kg into orbit. The commercial satellite industry is a quarter of a trillion dollars and growing in part because the cost to get stuff in orbit is going down.
And other countries have reusable rockets, namely China and Japan.