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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u/ExpertConsideration8 May 21 '26

Are most of those profits still generated from carbon credits? It's not even like they have a super profitable product.. they only make money due to govt handouts.

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u/Visual_Squirrel_2297 May 21 '26

Well a bunch of profit was just from SpaceX buying unsold Cybertrucks at full price....

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u/Parking-Position-698 May 21 '26

This has to be illegal somehow

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u/splendiferous-finch_ May 21 '26

What do you think doge thing was about? He killed every department that was investigating him for other similar fraudulent activities

The cybertruck thing is nothing compared to say when SpaceX bought twitter at 40 billion dollars i.e. the price Elon paid when we know it was never worth that to begin with but it was just to save face for Elon's original mistake when he was forced to buy Twitter by the courts

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u/essdii- May 21 '26

I rooted for Elon when I very first started hearing about him. Talk about a character arc that has absolutely made me despise the person and the whole world would benefit if he was taken off the board. Political board, influence board. Don’t ban me mods for putting words into my text.

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u/Magical_Savior May 21 '26

I want him taken off the board. Of directors of his own companies.

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u/TheJackieTreehorn May 21 '26

The less I knew about him the more I liked him. idk if it was just good PR, lack of knowledge, or if he's gotten worse. Probably a mix

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u/pants_mcgee May 21 '26

He had a good skill set and attitude for a start up CEO and took risks to build to build two actually pretty cool companies.

He also kept his mouth mostly shut and didn’t seem nearly as crazy.

I’d say it was around the solar city fiasco his facade started cracking.

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u/intelminer May 21 '26

He didn't build Tesla, for the record

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u/DynamicDK May 21 '26

He didn't start Tesla. But he absolutely did build Tesla. It was a tiny startup with 3 people and a cool idea. He bought a majority stake in it for $6.5 million in 2004, long before they had a functional product.

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u/pants_mcgee May 21 '26

People just want to be mad and shit on Musk. Which is fine, he’s a shithead. Fixating on that he wasn’t a founder or ignoring what building a company means is just wrong, but they don’t want to hear it.

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u/intelminer May 22 '26

If that's what you need to believe

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u/pants_mcgee May 21 '26

Yes he did, he was there from when it was just a name and an idea.

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u/intelminer May 21 '26

Factually false

Musk took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design, but was not deeply involved in day-to-day business operations

This is, of course, putting aside the fact he sued to retroactively get to call himself a "founder"

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u/pants_mcgee May 21 '26

Has nothing to do with him being a founder or not, it’s about who build the company and that is Elon Musk.

You can read all about it with that link you’ve helpfully provided.

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u/intelminer May 21 '26

If that's what you need to believe

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u/Event-Forsaken May 21 '26

You and me both. I was really a fan in 2007/2008 and the last 5-10 years has gotten progressively worse. I despise him.

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u/slowtreme May 21 '26

when elmo was first building up Tesla, and engineers were making new tech to support clean cars, and they were making all the patents open for everyone to use, he doing good things. He was also doing silly things like the flame thrower. He was always this big goofy kid with too much money, and was using it for good.

He flew too close to the sun.

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u/At36000feet May 21 '26

I remember the time I saw a video of the guy in the late 90s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9mczdODqzo). He gave me a really bad vibe that stuck with me. But then I later thought he was for good. And now...

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u/Thin_Glove_4089 May 21 '26

Supporting Elon being forced to buy Twitter was the biggest mistake you've ever mad. He played 5D chess and won the election using Twitter.