I know Dwarkesh Patel was interviewing Elon and brought up the fact that power cost for data centers is only 20%. The number I could find is 7-18%? GPUs are the majority of the cost. I don't think Elon responded directly to that.
There's the argument that licensing to build these things is cheaper in space. But earth has a lot of space in the middle of nowhere that no one would object to. That seems cheaper than space.
And the heat dissipation argument against it seems like a good one but I don't know if it's actually just a small engineering problem that can be solved cheaply or more fundamental.
On the plus side, you could say there is better connectivity in orbit. But if you're running inference, you'd probably want to talk to the same server that has your context cached. As it whips around earth, your latency would vary a lot, right?
I'd love it if someone could point me to a better analysis. It's an interesting question in general. Not just because one of the highest valued companies in the world is based entirely on its feasibility.
A dip because of a scrubbed launch is a blip on the radar compared to the catastrophically bad ideas Musk is promising to implement. Data centers in space? That's just lunacy. A ridiculous idea from a ridiculous man.
That is exactly what Musk was counting on. Reality is boring and no fun. People want promises, stars and dreams.
Might have something to do with Musk making outlandish promises (AI datacenters in space) and the fact that most of the company's value is tied up in xAI, the shittiest AI provider.
SpaceX is not a growth stock. The launch business is limited and circular with Starlink, Twitter is a loss and xAI's hardware rental business is being entered by Meta and others.
38 comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48948435 - "Short sellers notch $8.7B profit as SpaceX shares dip to IPO price" - reuters.com | 71 points | 3 hours ago
281 comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48933344 - "SpaceX stock erases all its gains and slides below IPO price in intraday trading" - latimes.com | 306 points | 1 day ago
603 comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48920181 - "SpaceX bond worth 10% less than issue price – heading for junk bond status" - ft.com | 561 points | 2 days ago
98 comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48639057 - "SpaceX sheds $400B in market value as debut rally hits reverse" - ft.com | 77 points | 24 days ago
66 comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48634931 - "SpaceX Drops 14% in One Day, Price Now Below IPO Launch" yahoo.com | 62 points | 24 days ago
21 comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48598558 - "The average SpaceX buyer post-IPO is almost under water after two-day slide" - cnbc.com | 40 points | 28 days ago
Bonus:
149 comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48604186 - "Americans express unease over SpaceX's influence on retirement savings" - theguardian.com | 253 points | 27 days ago
94 comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48576113 - "With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX" - paulkrugman.substack.com | 114 points | 29 days ago
For what possible reason would a failed rocket launch affect the fortunes of an electric car company?
* the obvious one is Elon - both valuations are largely propped up on belief in Elon. Whenever he falters, his companies that are speculation-based (all of them) will take a hit
* Elon pitched SpaceX as an AI company. Tesla needs better AI because they keep sending signals that they won't be at L5 anytime soon, and Tesla's valuation is still very speculative[0]at least in part due to the race to L5 autonomy. i.e. Tesla will need better AI , and SpaceX is that natural fit (on paper, at least, I'm not sure SpaceX has any useful AI for any use case, let alone self-driving).
[0] Tesla's PE ratio of is still 30x massively out of line with it's actual earnings and ~30x the American automotive industry.
Once a company is listed, exchange rules prohibit adding super-voting shares, it has to be done prior to listing. In order to qualify for the S&P500 a company has to have a large enough market cap and be net profitable over an entire year in the market. It seems unlikely that SPCX will qualify for that bar in the foreseeable future.
However, a merger can combine both features into one company. TSLA recently rechartered in Texas, which makes it very hard for shareholders to sue. Presumably most of the TSLA shareholders today like Elon Musk, so they would be okay with the merger, and as mentioned above Elon has full control over SPCX. Since they are in totally different markets it is hard to see what sorts of anti-trust arguments even a hostile government (e.g. Europe or Democratic state level AG's) could convince a judge of. But he does kinda need the merger to seem like something of equal companies, not an acquisition of a failing company by a successful one, so that he can keep both of the features that he wants.
Also, the vibe is harshed, which is actually the most important factor for these kinds of wild valuations.
It could grow, it could shrink, but it seems like the root comment misunderstood the headline by thinking it's current market cap is <$1T
Might even be able to write it off on their taxes as they'd be doing the planet a public service.
Clown show:
Raymond James - $800
Morgan Stanley - $300
Deutsche Bank - $255
JPMorgan - $225
Goldman Sachs - $205
Citi - $200
In days of yore you'd look at the fundamentals like:
- ability of the firm to service its debt
- profitability ratios
- revenue growth
- total addressable market
- competition
- market dynamics
etc.
You'd also pore over their quarterly and annual regulatory findings and see what's in the MD&A sections, assess the competency of senior leadership, look at how they view themselves, etc.
Then you'd look at comparable firms, i.e. companies doing the same or materially-similar things. Some of those are "pure plays", i.e. companies selling exactly the same product/service (e.g. TSMC, UMC, GFS) and some are not pure (e.g. red bull sells energy drinks but it also has a bunch of other stuff like a formula 1 team).
You compare your target company's fundamentals to those of its comparables, see what prices those comps are trading at, look at discounted cash flows, and then you pull a semi-informed number more or less out of your ass for the target as a forecast, based on your analysis.
These days, though, valuations are more or less completely disconnected from fundamentals. This is why Warren Buffett-style value investing is commonly said to be dead in today's market.
Put another way, the US spent $250b~ (inflation adjusted) dollars on the shuttle program, and we get much more output from SpaceX than we did for Shuttle.
The launch number is irrelevant. Starlink is SpaceX's largest customer and that is a problem. The revenue from launches is not great. The xAI fantasies are unproven.
Multiple launch vehicles and crew vehicles exist now, and more are on their way.
Taking tech from TRL1 to TRL9 with 2.5million moving parts in it is vastly different from coming up with another TRL9 design.