| ▲ | cj 6 hours ago |
| What exactly is SpaceX's core business? |
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| ▲ | jeltz 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Their satellite internet business is the only thing which makes them money, which is enabled by their orbital launch business which is as of right now not profitable and I have no idea of if it ever will be but without it they would not be able to launch enough satellites. Their stupidity with AI and buying X mostly seems to be about scamming investors to make Musk even richer. Like this particular deal is just them doing what CoreWeave does at a SpaceX valuation. |
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| ▲ | ACCount37 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Launch isn't profitable simply because ongoing Starship R&D is eating into it. A lot of opex, capex, and pre-revenue. If they start running Starship anywhere near the way they do Falcon 9, it'll flip into profits. A lot of big bets SpaceX made ride on Starship coming online. I'm honestly surprised Starlink is already so profitable without it. One of their big named bets includes: orbital datacenters. Which puts this specific deal into perspective. | | |
| ▲ | jordanb 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | 80% of the space launch business is putting starlink satellites into orbit, so it's all internal funny money. They could very well be letting the space launch business take losses to make the satellite internet business look better (only profitable part of the whole thing). Wasn't starship supposed to be funded by the NASA contract? | |
| ▲ | shiandow 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Orbital datacenters sound like a dangerous bet. I couldn't think of a worse place for a lot of delecate electronics. | | |
| ▲ | largbae 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Have you considered Magma Chamber datacenters? | |
| ▲ | diordiderot 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Boomers and luddites won't let them be built on earth so no other option really | | |
| ▲ | flextheruler 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | It's more unpopular than that. Not surprising since they're competing underhandedly for electricity generation with everyone else. |
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| ▲ | sidcool 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I can understand this being a move to increase valuation, but I can't connect with the stupidity and scamming investors argument. | | |
| ▲ | jeltz 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sorry, I was unclear. With that I did not talk about this particular deal. This particular deal seems sane. XAI built more compute that they can use themselves since Grok is not very successful so to not just have the hardware standing there they rent it out to competitors. Makes total sense. It is other things Musk has gone with Twitter and SpaceX which are shady. |
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| ▲ | Laurel1234 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm pretty sure xAI is just Musk throwing a tantrum after being played for a fool by Lying Sam. |
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| ▲ | cryo32 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Smoking crack and investment fraud. With a light sprinkling of space. |
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| ▲ | diordiderot 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Harvesting energy from the convulsions of people who got tds / tiktok psychosis during covid | |
| ▲ | 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | hirako2000 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Its main business is connectivity. Starlink generated over 10B last year. Becoming a broader infrastructure company with xAI. |
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| ▲ | raphaelj 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That's only about 35% more than the main telecom operator here in Belgium (Proximus: $7.2B revenue in 2025, $2.5B market cap, positive earnings for 15+ years). Obviously Starlink can and will growth. I'm just pointing out how insane the market cap is, when compared to similar scale "connectivity" businesses. | | |
| ▲ | hirako2000 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm with you the 5B loss for 18B overall revenue shouldn't grant a valuation anywhere near 1.7 trillion. was just answering the question. |
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| ▲ | ninkendo 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Starlink generated over 10B last year An entire one-hundredth of their proposed valuation! | | |
| ▲ | diordiderot 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yeah, crazy for a company with nothing but the largest civilian satellite network and what amounts to a monopoly on space flight. | | |
| ▲ | ninkendo 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Profitability of space flight has a hard maximum. It’s not anywhere close to what their valuation would suggest. There’s a reason Elon keeps trying to get investors to believe his “data centers in space” lunacy, because you need that sort of magic pixie dust to justify why any of this valuation makes sense, let alone have anywhere to go but down. |
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| ▲ | sublimefire 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Starlink terminals are popular, they put them on drones to avoid jamming (Starling jamming exists but not that easy for now). It might be their sales are inflated due to its use at war. |
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| ▲ | dgellow 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Government contracts. Dumping its shares on retail investors. Selling compute to AI vendors |
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| ▲ | sourcecodeplz 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| A datacenter that also provides connectivity/Internet |
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| ▲ | dehrmann 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Elon Musk. |
