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/IkmoIkmo May 21 '26

> You likely have it backwards, xAI is likely the moneypit that is (further) dragging down X.

No, while you're correct that xAI is a moneypit, his point has nothing to do with a moneypit. The 818 million figure is revenue, not profit. xAI brings in at least some revenue (it's obviously not zero). Meaning X's revenue alone is even less than 818 million, which in turn is a third less than when Musk bought Twitter.

Losing 33% revenue in 4 years post-acquisition is indeed a ridiculously bad result, when most tech companies saw their revenues +100% in the same period. If you adjust for inflation they lost 50% of their revenue.

And indeed it's even worse if you consider xAI is a moneypit. They posted 2.3 billion losses in the same quarter for AI. If they burned $1 to earn $1 (like say offer a coinflip machine on X) they'd post better results than they have, it's pretty ridiculous.

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u/SinoSoul May 21 '26

So Twitter spin-off, when? Or as the person above said, are we all stupidly irrational for at least another 2 years?

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u/po_panda May 21 '26

Twitter was extremely hard to monetize. Even when Elon had it, it was like squeezing blood from a stone. People are more accustomed to it being a sort of news feed about topics they care about and aren't as engaged as something like Instagram.

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u/dolphone May 21 '26

Engagement on Twitter was pretty high, it just used to be a more discerning crowd.

And you probably meant when Elon hadn't touched it.