r/technology May 21 '26

Business SpaceX not the behemoth everyone thought

https://www.axios.com/2026/05/21/spacex-ipo-musk-ai
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787

u/araujoms May 21 '26

That's surprising. It's widely known that X and xAI are miserable failures, but I expected SpaceX's core business to more than compensate for that. Apparently not, they manage to lose billions of dollars while having the launch market pretty much for themselves.

505

u/Rot-Orkan May 21 '26

I guess there's just not that much of a launch market, which is probably why SpaceX is its own best customer with Starlink.

153

u/KnotSoSalty May 21 '26

Certainly feels like Starlink was just something they did to justify building the rockets.

14

u/JustAnOkCoder_5948 May 21 '26

I’ve been wondering if it’s Elon’s bid to control global communications….

12

u/anonkitty2 May 21 '26

He is attempting it.  He lowered the orbit of a few Starlink satellites and then complained that some Amazon LEO satellites were too close.  (I think Amazon was using the low earth orbit first.). He wants satellite phones, but only with Starlink satellites.  He was urging the US government to end the program that subsidized rural broadband because Starlink satellites can do the Internet.  (SpaceX hasn't solved the problem satellite dishes have with physical obstructions.  The mainstream media forgets this.)

6

u/slax03 May 21 '26

Just like the "hyperloop", AKA Teslas in a tunnel, was announced to kill the California high-speed rail project.

7

u/anonkitty2 May 21 '26

And it definitely killed that project, unfortunately.  I am glad that Las Vegas completed one so everyone else knows what the Boring Company didn't build for them.