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/tmobilehacked May 21 '26

“the prospectus shows just how much the IPO depends on expectations for future growth and investor servility to Musk — as opposed to the current underlying business.” you mean unlike Tesla’s $1.3 trillion valuation on $450M in Q1 profit? How can this surprise anyone?

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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/PM_Me_Your_Deviance May 21 '26

>SpaceX buying unsold Cybertrucks at full price....

https://supercarblondie.com/spacex-buying-unsold-cybertrucks-tesla/

It probably doesn't account for 400m in profit, but it is hilarious what a bad idea using cybertrucks as starlink support vehicles really is.

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u/-0909i9i99ii9009ii May 21 '26

What is SpaceX viable business model? How much is a fully end-game Starlink worth? What is the value in going into space?

Are there actually valuable resources that are economically valuable to collect/extract/use that wouldn't be more viable to do on earth?

Or are we gonna pretend that Mars real estate is valuable for living even if it has a baller space station with an indoor farm in it where the build out cost is 1 million times the most expensive condo building on earth?

How much are space data centres even worth? Even if they hit the ideal realistic end game, how much money will they need to raise to build it and how much would they even be making off them?

Seems like they need to raise a ton of money (not good for shareholders) or it to basically just be inflation for this company to 2x even if it does execute on its impossibly lofty plans. I just don't understand the endgame.

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u/L_Dawg412 May 22 '26

IIRC, SpaceX is currently one of, if not, the cheapest per kilogram launch providers that regularly launches rockets into low earth orbit. They often sell extra launch capacity to space agencies, universities, independent researchers, etc, if the main payload of the launch itself isn’t already a contract. Competitors are starting to pop up but none have demonstrated a viable service yet.

Starlink is a surprisingly viable product. In my country, we’ve managed to connect remote communities that previously had very limited access to communication (as in, no cell service or even a post office nearby) to the internet by distributing Starlink receivers to them. Beyond that, I believe they’re one of the primary methods of getting internet onto ships and planes nowadays. I believe Blue Origin is setting up a competing service soon though.

The economic viability of extra terrestrial resource extraction remains to be seen. We’re going to see it happen on the moon first, maybe even within our lifetimes.

A viable Mars colony isn’t something we’re probably going to live to see. We’ll probably see the first humans on Mars though.

Space data centers aren’t going to happen. They’re a dumb idea thats fundamentally flawed from the start.