Investors salivate over SpaceX's mega IPO, the company reportedly lost $5B

13 points

1/21/1970

19 hours ago

by rawgabbit

Comments

rawgabbit

Quote

     At $1.75 trillion, you'd be paying about 56 times SpaceX's 2025 revenue (7) (over $18.5 billion) or 109 times its EBITDA, even if you are super-optimistic about its growth. That's a lot, considering that even Nvidia, at its wild AI peak, traded at 15-20x revenue, making SpaceX is even more aggressive with its ask. Retail folks could end up buying high into hype that crashes if Starlink or xAI stumbles.

      Third, the losses don't disappear at listing. The $5 billion figure, whether it's attached to xAI or not, is still real. The subsidiary is still burning roughly $28 million a day. And until SpaceX can translate that spending into revenue, either through Grok's commercial growth or the orbital data center thesis, xAI is still dragging SpaceX.

19 hours ago

Zigurd

Blaming all the losses on xAI makes my hair stand on end. It's way too convenient a place to bury aggressive accounting in other areas: Falcon 9 booster reusability is a nice story, but the cost of refurbishment is easy to game. Starlink subscriber numbers aren't going to support replacing 9000 satellites. Unlike a software business with a simple scaling path, the math doesn't support going from EBITDA to GAAP profit.

6 hours ago

Ekaros

Even as Musk hater I am grudgingly willing to admit that there is reasonable business in SpaceX. But it ain't any time soon a trillion dollar one. And I even question starship propaganda. Sadly we just are not in era where profitable business answering to organic growth of demand is seen desirable...

As such whole thing is just insane...

6 hours ago

Zigurd

Like Falcon 9, Tesla's charging business is a real business. Seemingly well run. But impossible to evaluate when baked into the fruitcake of overhyped Elon companies. And even if it's all true, those businesses still don't come close to supporting the overall valuation.

6 hours ago