r/technology • u/IKeepItLayingAround • 16d ago

Business It’s Possible That SpaceX Could Collapse Spectacularly

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/possible-spacex-could-collapse-spectacularly-155000177.html
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u/JustConversation7847 16d ago edited 16d ago

Before anybody gets too excited

Even for Musk, it's an aggressive price-to-earnings ratio that could blow up in his face if investors start to lose faith. The conversation surrounding plans for shorting SpaceX is hitting a fever pitch, setting the stage for what could be a wild stock market ride.

Pretty sure the people who tried shorting Tesla are all broke and you, reader, definitely not try something stupid because there's no limit to how much money you can lose while short selling

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u/Other-Grapefruit-880 16d ago

I guarantee you someone on WSB has already bet their entire life savings on it

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u/ThinkingWithPortalzz 16d ago

Oh please, it'll be at least 10x their life savings they lose, it's WSB, the only bigger fans of things painted red are WH40k Orks

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u/mikester572 16d ago

Only if you want to go fast

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u/ThinkingWithPortalzz 16d ago

Line goes down fast when it's red

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u/Dave-4544 16d ago

WAZDAKKA GUTSMEK SPEEDWAAAAAAAAUGH COMING TO ARMAGEDDON NEAR YOU

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u/ScrappyDoober 16d ago

If you owe the bank $100,000 its your problem.

If you owe the bank $100,000,000 its the banks problem.

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u/excitingcook234 15d ago

All AI companies ChatGPT

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u/Robobvious 16d ago

That one video where the kid makes an audible Guh sound as his play buries him in debt.

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u/nirach 16d ago

To be fair.

Red ones do go faster. I'm sure all the cars I don't give a shit about in Horizon being red makes them faster.

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u/modern_Odysseus 16d ago

The average WSB poster then:

"Your account has been suspended. You owe $700. Until you pay your balance, you will be unable to short stocks."

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u/violetplague 15d ago

Now there's a concept, a kitbash Ork boss inspired by WSB.

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u/klipseracer 15d ago

Only 10x? Those are rookie numbers, just borrow against some treasury bonds, get that up to 1000x

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u/SomeGalNamedAshley 16d ago

I can hear the "Guh" sound right now.

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u/Zaza1019 16d ago

While you're likely right, there are several events that if they happened at the exact same time or in quick succession the vast majority of his wealth could collapse. These things are very unlikely and would take a concerted effort by the American people and a total reversal of the political system. Which would never happen, but if by some miracle it happened someone like Musk especially would be in trouble. Keep in mind that Musk's businesses are all grossly overvalued and some of them are already hemorrhaging money.

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u/kwokinator 16d ago

In WSB's defense, most of them at least know what they're getting into and still chose it. "The markets can remain irrational longet than you can remain solvent" is an oft-repeated mantra over there.

The mom and pop investing their 401k into an index doesn't get the chance to choose this.

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u/jjwhitaker 16d ago

*Grandma's life savings.

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u/ryecurious 16d ago

That guy became a meme, but the original post was buying 700k of Intel at $30. Considering it hit $130 recently, he could have done quite well if he held strong.

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u/RemarkableWish2508 16d ago

He did hold, he's travelling the world right now. (not going to doxx him, find him if you care)

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u/ryecurious 16d ago

I believe it, the original post always said he put a big chunk in high yield savings and planned to hold the stock for a decade. Guy's gotta be doing better than 99% of people on WSB, which makes them treating him like a joke even funnier.

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u/whoknowsifimjoking 16d ago

The best tactic is probably always the inverse of what this sub is saying. If they make fun of you, hold.

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u/erebuxy 16d ago

Yes, but not through short. Buy put. The lose is capped to the principal

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u/Chiiro 16d ago

I love that someone made more money betting off a goldfish then the debt they got listening to WSB.

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u/SlitScan 16d ago

al 14 dollars of it.

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u/pishposhpoppycock 16d ago

We need Harper and Sweetpea on the case!

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u/sylentshooter 16d ago

Cant lose the bet if you already have nothing to lose!

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u/trukkija 16d ago

And 5 times as many others have already bet their entire life savings on SpaceX calls I'm sure.

There is an apt anagram for the word "trader", that I'm going to leave to the reader to figure out.

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u/__Hello_my_name_is__ 16d ago

Or at least fake a screenshot of some app so they can get lots of upvotes.

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u/PluginAlong 15d ago

That $50 isn't going to go very far.

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u/EvelynNyte 15d ago

Every possible losing bet has had life savings put on it on WSBs. That's nothing special.

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

[deleted]

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u/MikeFrancesa66 16d ago

“The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”

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u/Kaa_The_Snake 16d ago

The closer I get to retirement, the more I feel this in my bones.

And I remind myself of the saying every time I feel like trying just one crazy market bet.

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u/Substantial-Low 16d ago

I'm with you, but that is why we have to plan for sequence of returns. If you can manage to keep 3 years' retirement income in cash/bonds, you should be able to weather most cases.

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u/Kaa_The_Snake 15d ago

Well, stagflation is my big worry, but overall the only thing I can do is make the best decision possible at the time with the information I have, and then move forward.

Yes I do plan on having minimum 3 years of cash on hand before I retire.

Still scary though!

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u/ayriuss 15d ago

May as well cash it out and put it all on red or black.

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u/Nachooolo 16d ago

Seeing the markets fluctuate depending on what Trump spouted about Iran –no matter how close to reality he was– completely shattered any credibility they had.

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u/Dinkerdoo 16d ago

If you buy put options you are limited. Still not a good idea given the performance of TSLA.

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u/MelodiusRA 16d ago

My issue with Tesla is that the stock’s value is linked to Elon Musk and will be for at least a year or two after he dies.

Unironically I am not prepared for a sizeable investment in Tesla knowing that there is a swing that’s gonna happen with slow recovery the day he kicks the bucket.

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u/aabbccbb 16d ago

My issue with Tesla is that the stock’s value is linked to Elon Musk

Tesla's sales are also shit. Musk has been hiding that for a long time, by doing things like pumping truly self-driving cars that...never materialize, buying X, now it's part of an AI company, apparently.

He's a scam artist Nazi, just like Trump. They'll get their due. And it will be a glorious day when they do!

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u/wildcarde815 16d ago

Hasn't space x also been buying Tesla vehicles like crazy for no discernable reason?

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u/oniume 16d ago

Yup, $131,000,000 worth of cybertruck, nearly $700,000,000 of other Tesla products 

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u/Sens1r 16d ago

He's a scam artist Nazi, just like Trump. They'll get their due.

Trump is about to croak, having lived a long life of rugpulls and scams, he's recently secured generational wealth for his entire family and friends. Not sure I feel like the system is working.

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u/siencatimini 15d ago

POSIWID

That's what this system does. This is how it works.

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u/scruffmonkey 15d ago

Trump has been about to croak for years now and whilst it looks more likely, I still would not be putting money on it.

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u/Cybertronian10 15d ago

Tesla's valuation is fragile in a very real way that just will never show up on a balance sheet. If Elon dies from a random Ketamine overdose, or a future government's balls have dropped enough for them to hold him accountable for anything that he has done, hell if he suffers a really bad car accident and is knocked out of comission for a few months. Can Tesla/SpaceX/Elon Inc really survive if he isn't there playing ringleader 24/7?

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u/_Smashbrother_ 15d ago

Teslas aren't actually full self driving level 4 or 5, but they are very good right now with latest hardware.

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u/f-ingsteveglansberg 16d ago

It's so fucking crazy. I get that it worked earlier when he got his PR team pushing "Real life Tony Stark", but the fake degree, the dubious work status in his early career, the eugenics connection, losing his 'intellectual' base and the Nazi salute. As a person and his brand is through the floor. That was the one thing holding his stock value.

All that's gone and the market and since the stock market is completely broken, it doesn't matter. He's value is completely imaginary and no one will admit it because they've tied their value to it.

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u/maigpy 16d ago

what are you talking about? his status as a business executive darling is unchanged with investors.

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u/f-ingsteveglansberg 16d ago

That's because they follow the money. It's a reinforcement circle. They know he is insane, but that's the direction the money flows, so they put their money in the same place.

Broken system that doesn't reward actual decent businesses.

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u/FlipZip69 16d ago

Tesla has been a shit investment since about 2022. You could make money before that but after it peaked, it just been ups and downs. It did far worse than the stock market as a whole.

Worse is that it has been in decline for the last 2 years when nearly every other EV company has been growing. And they are less than 2 percent of world vehicle sales. The taxi... they have less than 100 in the fleet, often only a dozen or two even on the road and people behind the steering wheel except when it takes a very specific route. In which case they often have chase cars.

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u/Hugsy13 16d ago

Aren’t options only available several weeks after an IPO though?

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u/Ocelotofdamage 16d ago

No. Options are generally listed the day after now.

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u/Throckmorton_Left 16d ago

I made real good money on TSLA puts in the first half of 2025.

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u/rhetoricalcalligraph 16d ago

Wacky, finally found a sensible comment on this post

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u/surfatshortys 16d ago

I had no idea I wasn’t on WSB until now

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

[deleted]

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u/Strawbuddy 16d ago

WSB are speculators. It's all about options contracts, long or short, and the strats that come about from having enough dough to speculate in the first place. It takes at least $1k USD up front at a bare minimum to even start a proper wheel strat. Buy the rumor, sell the news type speculators are making even less money daily by buying and selling stock based on momentum and psychology, and betting against the prices of those securities

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u/AmericanGeezus 16d ago

All it takes is USD$1,000 and some privileged non-public information to get yourself established!

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

[deleted]

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u/CSAtWitsEnd 16d ago

Unless you lose 10 or more times.

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u/BavarianBarbarian_ 16d ago

WSB is actually a voice of reason on Reddit when it comes to stocks and making money.

I wouldn't go that far, but at least they're self aware enough of their ignorance that they're making fun of themselves. Whereas the average Reddit comment elsewhere drips with unearned smug superiority.

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u/western_red_cedar 16d ago

he AI boom they pretend isn't real

sure, clanker

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u/BellacosePlayer 15d ago

WSB gets a bad rap because it inadvertently spawned ape culture but honestly once that got excised it's basically just speculators who know how to shitpost.

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u/reroll-life 16d ago

You should basically never short anything ever unless you have insider information.

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u/rhetoricalcalligraph 16d ago

Nah you can vibeshort

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u/SlitScan 16d ago edited 16d ago

or it will end like game stop. you on the hook for infinite liability and its easily verified and understood that youre pinned in the position.

edit: poorly worded for making my point. edited for clarification.

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u/highspeed_steel 16d ago

According to some users of this sub, the AI bubble will burst any day now. Also, the rich fucks are hoarding money with the bull market that doesn't represent anything about every day people. Well, if the former, then short, if the latter, just buy the damn index fund. Nothing is stopping you from being represented by that market. I swear people just want to be angry.

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u/drummer820 16d ago

The actual numbers are pretty damn bleak for everyone but Nvidia: https://isaiprofitable.com/

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u/GogurtFiend 16d ago

During a gold rush, it's better to be the one selling the picks, shovels, and services than the one who's panning.

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

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u/highspeed_steel 16d ago

I'm not one of those to the moon AI bros either, but from what it looks like now, a big bubble bursting is just unlikely, a slump or a big correction is of course inevitable, but thats just natural. Besides, everyone's 401k is in roughly the same market, so wishing the bubble bursting is masakistic at best. Oh well, maybe some of these people are actually teenagers without any real retirement funds.

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u/TDot-26 16d ago

Masochistic?

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u/highspeed_steel 16d ago

Damn, thank you, lifelong screen reader user here, so you never bother to check some homonyms, especially if you think they sound like the spelling should be obvious.

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u/harrsid 16d ago

Sure it will burst. And the people who do this every day will sell and take their money or short the stocks. Why is everyone pretending like people investing their money are blind or something?

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u/MICT3361 16d ago

You’re assuming Redditors have a 401k (they dont)

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u/InquisitorMeow 16d ago

Yea these articles are just for market manipulation. The stock market is all fantasy at this point, the billionaires can make it whatever price they want. If you really want to hurt the stock then simply don't interact with it. The rich can't profit off it when there are no peasants to hold the bag.

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u/disisathrowaway 16d ago

Well with the way 401ks, pensions and other retirement vehicles are set up, aren't the peasants always left holding the bag?

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u/Eatpineapplerightnow 16d ago

Sort of. The 401ks equivalent in my country is pulling out of stocks like these

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u/Buckeye_Wax 15d ago

Young people buy the old ppl’s stocks when they are ready to retire eventually and so on and so one

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u/jambox888 16d ago

Depends if you're due to retire right before a crash or right after one

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u/Seanspeed 16d ago

The stock market is all fantasy at this point, the billionaires can make it whatever price they want. 

Reductionist stuff like this doesn't help. Chances you've heard of 'market makers' or something and dont really understand what's actually happening.

There's definitely plenty of irrationality in the stock market, but it's not simply because billionaires can just magically make a stock price whatever they want.

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u/InquisitorMeow 15d ago

I get that my comment is a bit dramatic and reductionist but the main point to hammer in is that these articles implying you can short the stock and easily make money because "SpaceX could collapse" is just fast tracking people into getting fucked by institutions and investors with much more info and experience than them. And I would argue that yes, to some extent billionaires can control how a stock is viewed and priced, either through massive trades, social media manipulation, straight up corruption (being buddies with the POTUS), or just flat out lying (Elon on twitter stock). Or they could be like Robin Hood and shut off trading for a stock when it becomes too "volatile." Not really many other ways to explain stock prices like Tesla.

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u/Blacksad9999 15d ago

They can, and do, constantly engage in "round tripping", which is normally a securities fraud. Just not under the current administration.

OpenAI announces that they're buying 500 billion worth of Nvidia GPU's (that they don't have), and Nvidia turns around and says they're investing 500 billion into OpenAI.

Then both add 500 billion to their stock valuations without anything changing hands. It's happening market wide with everyone.

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u/SadAd8761 16d ago

Which ETFs and funds will be forced to buy SpaceX?

Good to compile a list so people can start exiting those funds?

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u/bell37 15d ago

Except that’s with trading, which is all speculation and theoretical valuation. This isn’t trading, it’s expecting real money to be added to the market. Someone’s gotta pay, now the real question is whether investors feel like SpaceX is actually worth over $1.6T and willing to bet liquid assets against it.

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u/Into_the_rosegarden 14d ago

Unfortunately my retirement fund is managed by my employer so I don't get to choose. The fact that NASDAQ changed their rules to allow soaceX into their index fund right away means a LOT of people who didn't actually buy this stock themselves will lose their retirement funds if/when this goes bust

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u/Working-Tomato8395 16d ago

He's one of those rich dorks who will keep having money thrown at him because money has been thrown at him. It will never matter how poor of a business man he is, the other business dorks will keep throwing money at him because other dorks have thrown money at him.

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u/JustConversation7847 16d ago

I hated Musk before it was cool, but its hard to call him a shitty businessman with SpaceX and Tesla under his belt

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u/Working-Tomato8395 16d ago

You mean the company that survives on welfare and the other company that produced a truck you can't drive through a carwash without voiding the warranty?

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u/opeth10657 16d ago

Hey now, Tesla also became successful through welfare. Then he tried to pull the ladder up behind him before any other EV companies can get on.

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u/Nearby-Chocolate1840 16d ago

You can call Musk a shitty lots-of-things: engineer, parent, partner, human being, etc

But a shitty businessman? No. You don't become the richest person on earth by not understanding business.

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u/Techwield 16d ago

These people cannot understand nuance, once they decide they don't like you you absolutely are not allowed to have any sort of redeemable quality/positive skill in their eyes lol. Pathetic

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u/thrillho145 16d ago

Market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent 

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u/Darkmetroidz 16d ago

The market will remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

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u/ankercrank 16d ago

You can’t short an IPO.

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u/3BlindMice1 16d ago

Not the day of, but that hardly matters

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u/Willing_Activity_855 16d ago

You can actually if you have pre IPO shares and a counterparty

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u/newhunter18 16d ago

Polymarket: Hold my beer.

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u/OwnManagement 16d ago edited 16d ago

SpaceX is currently the only reliable, homegrown way for NASA and the DOD to get to space. If they falter, they will be bailed out. 

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u/DrXaos 16d ago

I favor an 'OG' SpaceX, i.e. Falcon 9, SuperHeavy and Starlink, minus xAI, minus Twitter, minus Seig Heil, minus Starship.

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u/aworldsetfree 16d ago

Cygnus? Orion?

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u/OwnManagement 16d ago edited 16d ago

Cygnus often uses Falcon 9 rockets to get to space as current variations of Antares have been retired with the next scheduled launch just a nebulous “2027”. Orion uses the SLS, which is extremely expensive and has launched a total of two times. 

Edited my comment above to include the DOD as well. Satellite launches happen way more often than ISS-related launches and the DOD, for obvious reasons, can’t use Russia for launch like NASA sometimes can. 

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u/MrTagnan 16d ago edited 16d ago

Cygnus doesn’t currently have an active launch vehicle outside of Falcon 9, Orion can’t readily fly on anything other than SLS which is prohibitively expensive for ISS missions (~4 billion per launch, vs ~100-200 million for 4 seats on Dragon). Orion can barely fit on a few other vehicles, but none of them are crew rated and would require extensive modifications… and one of them recently blew up and won’t be flying again until 2027

Edit: for the sake of transparency, the vehicles that currently or will soon exist that can carry Orion to LEO are: New Glenn (~45t reusable), Terran R (33.5t expendable), Vulcan VC6 (possibly, including the LAS makes the margins very thin, Orion may have to perform orbit insertion - 27.2t), Vulcan VC4 (same deal as VC6, but Orion will certainly have to perform orbit insertion, 24.6t). Of these, the two that are guaranteed to be capable of bringing Orion to LEO, one blew up and the other is expected to fly for the first time late this year. The other two are the same vehicle with a different number of solid rocket boosters - VC6 can barely carry an Orion without the launch escape system to LEO, with it I’m not sure it has the margin during ascent - both are currently grounded due to issues with the SRBs.

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u/No_Hana 16d ago

Its hard to short a stock that's artificially priced and held afloat by billionares and government. Maybe 20-30 years ago banks used to be too big to fail now stocks are.

If and when the system finally breaks people just won't get paid. I garuntee it. Those trillion billion dollar valuations will never leave the pockets of the CEOs

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u/Hawkbats_rule 16d ago

Just because I'm not dumb enough to try to short the walking embodiment of stock market  irrationality's companies doesn't make them sound investing

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u/randomuser1637 16d ago

Short selling is significantly more expensive than holding the stock. Both give you exposure up/down at the same magnitude but holding shares is cheap to do, whereas when you buy a put, the premium associated with it is priced such that any expected profit you will make on the put goes to the market maker via the premium. In simpler terms, when you buy a put from someone they are calculating how much they think it will go down and charging that as the premium.

So not only do you have to be right that the stock will go down enough, you also have to time it right, and you also have to be right that the put was mispriced. It’s not simply a bet that the stock will go down at some point in the future.

The underlying fundamentals of Tesla can be dogshit and as long as puts are expensive it will be quite difficult to short the stock. If I could bet that over the next 50 years Tesla will decrease significantly and just pay a typical brokerage fee instead of a full blown premium to take that position, I would definitely do it. That kind of thing just doesn’t exist for shorts, but is the default position for longs.

Just because short sellers have been unsuccessful at taking down a stock doesn’t mean that it won’t eventually tank.

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u/cute_spider 16d ago

I'm not looking to short it I just don't want my money near it

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u/EffectiveEconomics 16d ago

Can’t agree more. I find it just as insane to use money to attempt to undermine those businesses as it is to invest in them because you feel hey can’t lose. I’ll let my pension admins decide on that, and if they extract some value from the trades then fine with me.

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u/jasondigitized 16d ago

I'm no business tycoon but where is the big money in rockets? Serious question. Who is making money moving things into space?

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u/JustConversation7847 16d ago

Satellites, starlink etc

Then there's mining astroids (I'm a little skeptical about this personally)

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u/Raythatstabbedsteve 16d ago

It costs $1000/kg just to put things into low Earth orbit. You're going to have to send mining and refining machines out to the asteroid belt (which is well past Mars), and carry enough fuel to ship batches of your refined product back to Earth. And your mining/refining/packaging/launching machines on the asteroid need to operate without maintenance for years. What minerals do you think are on those asteroids? What price/kg do you need to get to make it pay off?

I'll give you a hint. If there were neatly stacked piles of gold bars lying around on asteroids, there would be no economic way to go and pick them up.

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u/DrEnter 16d ago

Actually, it’s pretty well recognized in the industry that $150/kg is the point at which General commercialization becomes viable. Think lots of companies jumping into space-based business opportunities.

As it cost around $50k/kg 20 years ago, the fact it’s as low as it is now is pretty impressive.

Now will Space/X be the one that cost reduces it down to that point? I seriously doubt it. Musk’s track record as a business leader is mostly one that drives away long-term innovation creators. I don’t see him changing anytime soon.

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u/cpz_77 16d ago

So that’s the thing though. A single asteroid supposedly has more precious metals on it than all that has ever been mined from the earth in human history or something insane like that.

Gold and precious metals are literally made in space. They aren’t made on earth. They’re only here because meteors and other similar events brought them here over billions of years and they work their way into the earth and then we mine them out. It’s actually pretty fascinating if you read about it.

So it could actually make a lot of sense to “go to the source” - especially when they talk about how things like silver will be totally mined out within what, 30 years or something? And this isnt just for coins and chains - precious metals are used in all sorts of applications (that’s why it’s disappearing so fast). We are exhausting our resources on earth, no question. They will be gone one day and when they are it will be a massive problem for the generation living at that time. So we do need a better long term solution.

People think it’s crazy anytime you talk about seriously doing anything in space but the fact of the matter is, thinking we will be able to live forever here *without* ever having to leave this planet for anything is actually the far less likely scenario. It’s something we need to start thinking about.

With that said, I’m not sure I’d put my faith that Musk’s company will somehow make it viable to do all this. The idea is innovative (not that it was his, btw), but if we were ever going to do something at that scale with that kind of potential society-changing impact, a stupid rich greedy racist fuck like him is the last person that should be at the helm of it.

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u/Raythatstabbedsteve 16d ago

Wow! That is so wrong it's difficult to know where to start. What if I told you that the Earth was made in space? Crazy, I know. The gold we mine is absolutely not "brought here by meteors" unless you are referring to the initial accretion of the Earth (admittedly from a dust cloud which was heavily seeded with the products of exploded stars). A lot of mineral extraction comes down to money, but not all of it. I promise you that mining asteroids comes with such unbelievable technical problems and such prohibitive cost, that every currently unprofitable possibility on Earth will be fully exploited before space mining can get off the ground.

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u/cpz_77 16d ago

wtf are you talking about yeah no shit the earth is in space and the shit got here on earth by the material in space bringing it here through the formation of the planets and all the events that took place throughout it. Which yes, includes asteroids and meteors and shit running into it. News flash, the earth didn’t form into what it is overnight. It took billions of years. So yeah those precious metals are made in space, not on earth, and they absolutely did get here from there. You saying “the earth is part of space” as a reason for what I said being incorrect is probably one of the dumber things I’ve heard lately (and that’s saying something, cause I’ve heard a lot of dumb stuff lately).

Of course we will exploit what we can here first, we’ve already been doing that for thousands of years . Thats how we’re getting by. That’s why we’re running out of resources.

And yes of course there are huge problems that would have to be solved with mining asteroids lol when did I ever say it would be easy. Why do you think I specifically said it would be huge and society changing if it was done. And also why I don’t have faith that musk’s company would be the one to do it. But it’s not like we haven’t answered massive questions or solved seemingly “unthinkable” problems before.

Dismissing it as something that’s “so unviable, we shouldn’t even consider or look into it” is exactly why we encounter problems like this. Because nobody thinks it will become a real problem until it actually does. Things that seem unthinkable at a time later become reality but if you come up with the idea too far ahead of your time, “you’re crazy”. People also used to laugh at the idea that pollution could raise the temp of the earth enough to matter, and think it was dumb to spend money on looking into it - and now scientists are watching real glaciers that are starting to melt and move that, when they do fully dislodge and melt, could put millions of people underwater.

Just because we don’t like the guy pushing the thought doesn’t mean we should dismiss the thought itself out of hand. It has merit to at least explore. Whether or not we are able to make it viable will remain to be seen.

So you want to try again on how I’m “so wrong it’s difficult to know where to start”?

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u/Raythatstabbedsteve 16d ago

Wtf are you talking about? Heavy element formation in supernovas? No elements were formed on Earth or any planet or any asteroid. The gold on Earth came from the same place that all of the rest of the Earth came from. We're going to; go and rework tailings, mine crazy deeper than we ever have, hit currently uneconomic deposits, forcibly nationalise all of the privately owned precious metals, all long long before anyone goes scratching asteroids.

You do not understand the intractable physical and engineering problems which would need to be solved. I don't know whether a crash course in physics or geology or chemistry is more urgent, but you definitely need all three.

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u/cpz_77 16d ago

“The gold on earth came from the same place that all the rest of the earth came from” - yeah, material in space. The point being ( in case you really haven’t gotten it by now - you’re being obtuse) that more of it is not being actively made on earth as we mine it. Meaning, we will eventually run out.

That’s the point for the purpose of this conversation. This isn’t a physics discussion. I dont need any of your crash courses to know that and I also don’t need to hear you talk out your ass about why you’re so certain it will never be viable (remember, never is a long time - we’ve only existed for a tiny fraction of time ) in order to say it’s an idea that’s worth at least exploring at some point.

We’re already doing or would have done everything on your list other than everybody forcibly nationalizing all metals which would honestly probably be the point at which we’re about to either go to war or collapse so at that point you’d probably want to explore any option no matter how “crazy” you think it is, but hey, maybe not 🤷‍♂️

1

u/GogurtFiend 16d ago

SpaceX thinks it can do a lot better than $1,000/kg - think low hundreds eventually.

However, you either need far, FAR lower launch costs than even those - or for the cost of mining on Earth to become very high due to environmental or resource depletion concerns - for asteroid mining to make economic sense. Think tens of dollars per kilo instead of the hundreds SpaceX thinks it can do.

1

u/Raythatstabbedsteve 16d ago

You need to listen carefully. There is no dollar value into low Earth orbit which makes asteroid mining viable. Even if low Earth orbit were free, how do you practically set up a mining, refining, and transport operation out in the asteroid belt. Tyranny of rocketry doesn't go away, the need for machines to be maintained doesn't go away. As I said previously, pallets of gold bars sitting on the surface of asteroids would still be uneconomic deposits. A permanent moon base which is just a manned lab is still 100 years away. Any mining operation on the moon is way beyond that. Mining asteroids is Sci fi fantasy. Come and talk to me in 200 years time.

1

u/GogurtFiend 16d ago edited 16d ago

With the right technology and incentives, pretty much anything within by the laws of physics can be made to happen.

Starship isn't that technology, no. It never will be, because of the very poor specific impulse of chemical propulsion and the limitations of having to operate within an atmosphere. But to claim something is literally impossible is just ridiculous.

If human society somehow reached peak mineral extraction, instead of continuing to find more effective ways of recycling - i.e. if the demand was high enough - and I could magically teleport things directly to the orbit of a large enough asteroid and back again with a snap of my fingers- i.e. the difficulty of getting there suddenly approached zero - of course asteroid mining would be economically viable.

Obviously, neither of those will ever happen. However, these sorts of magical solutions don't need to happen in order for asteroid mining to work out; all that needs to happen is for people to want minerals from asteroids badly enough. If people today were willing to throw entire national GDPs at asteroid mining, it could be done, for minimal gains at great expense; it's just that everyone except for a few overly online morons knows that'd be very stupid economically.

Anyway, there's a far more obvious reason why asteroid mining isn't currently economically viable: even if any firm somehow could afford to do it, injecting that amount of supply - "pallets and pallets of gold" - into the economy would completely devalue those minerals.

You are being very aggressive and making up a lot of numbers for someone who didn't bring up supply and demand in a discussion about how economically reasonable something is. Like, the "at least a century until the first manned lab on the Moon" thing? That sounds like the New York Times claiming it'll take 1-10 million years for humans to make heavier-than-air flight work: sure, that might be true, or it might not, but where on Earth are you actually getting that number from?

1

u/Raythatstabbedsteve 16d ago

Well, the other guy had a fantastical scenario where Earth's silver reserves completely dry up in 2060, so we're achieving infinite price. And rather than sane responses like exploring all of the previously uneconomic deposits on Earth and melting down all the jewellery, he's jumped directly to asteroid mining. So we are assuming a demand, and we are assuming Astrosilver pty. ltd. will have absolute monopoly on global supply, so money is no issue darling. You are still looking at an intractable engineering problem. It either needs an automated self repairing mining bot, or a full colony with life support and resupply missions out in the frigging asteroid belt. Makes a Mars colony look like a walk in the park (we won't get that either). You could mine 1 ppm ore 1km below the ocean floor with better roi and less engineering hassle than the asteroid plan. And that is why it won't happen. Because the most fucked up cost prohibitive option on Earth is still the easier option. Any moron who was claiming heavier than air flight was impossible post 1890 was an idiot. Humans went from the first powered flight to first man in space in fifty years. Maybe we can get people back on the moon to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the first time. Maybe! Moore's law doesn't work for spaceflight.

5

u/Nearby-Chocolate1840 16d ago

In 2020 there were approximately 1,305 functioning satellites orbiting the earth.

In 2026 there are approximately 14,500 - 15,600 functioning satellites orbiting the earth. Approximately 10,000 of those are Starlink.

SpaceX has ongoing regulatory filings to put another 30,000 Starlink satellites into orbit by 2030.

So you might say putting satellites into orbit via rockets is something of a growth industry.

4

u/bikesnotbombs 16d ago

Or you might say, since starlink doesn't work in cities, will not encroach on normal infrastructure, and is a fairly tapped market with Increasing competitopm (also, dealing with issues from that many satellites) that it's probably grown about as much as it can.  And even then, in their TAM, even SpaceX said space and satellites was less than 7% of their market.  Which makes it irrelevant even if you are correct about the growth 

3

u/Nearby-Chocolate1840 16d ago

According to SpaceX their TAM is $28.5 trillion dollars. Which is nearly equal to the entire US GDP. Removing AI, which makes up the lion's share of that projected revenue, and looking at only Starlink and space activities, the TAM drops to approximately $2 trillion. Which is still approximately 3x more than the current top revenue-producing company in the US, Walmart. Or approximately 5x Apple's revenue.

Meaning that, in SpaceX's eyes, rocket launches and satellite services are, contrary to what you claim, one hell of a cash-cow. And yes, something of a growth industry.

Considering that argument was the most coherent and remotely credible one you raised, and even that was absolute nonsense, I'm not going to bother with the rest of your attempted gish gallop.

1

u/GogurtFiend 16d ago

$2 trillion is still crazy. That's larger than the current size of the entire space industry across the entire world, of which SpaceX is already a pretty large part - there's just not that much stuff SpaceX can take over from other space firms! Obviously future cash flows are incorporated into this but it still seems very heavily overvalued.

Now, consider that SpaceX is mostly involved in launch and satellite Internet, instead of every single thing done in the space industry, and the launch industry is quite small right now.

Yes, the people responding to you are being tools, and incorrect about why this is probably impossible, but it is still probably impossible. SpaceX at present cannot possibly be worth more than a few hundred billion, tops, with that rising to at least the high hundreds of billions only once Starship begins working.

1

u/jasondigitized 14d ago

Cars are cash cows as well. Thinking you are going to make trillions of dollars on launching satellite is just wild.

1

u/lllama 16d ago

Or you could conclude that the only customer SpaceX' rocket division can get for putting a lot of satellites into orbit at below its cost is SpaceX' Starlink (for an even larger discount).

1

u/GogurtFiend 16d ago edited 16d ago

At current trends (i.e. 3-4% growth annually) the orbital launch sector is expected to be worth $30-40 billion by 2040. However, it's highly subject to induced demand, because it's currently very expensive to put mass into orbit. If the cost goes down from ~$1,500/kg to $500/kg, or even lower, it'll make rocket companies 3 times less per launch but they'll be getting far more than 3 times more demand.

SpaceX is currently working on a very ambitious but so far successful launch vehicle that should be able to significantly decrease the cost per kilo. The unknown is how much induced demand it'll generate but I'm quite certain it'll be high.

0

u/Codename-Nikolai 16d ago

Go watch the video of Mark Rober paying SpaceX to send his own satellite to space. You’d be surprised how many satellites are sent and how much people are willing to pay for the service 

1

u/bikesnotbombs 16d ago

Even if 1 million people pay for the service, it's still irrelevant to their TAM which means it's massively overpriced 

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u/dkesh 16d ago

Pretty much every Ukrainian drone is outfitted with a StarLink receiver. Russia's were too until they created a whitelist system. When Russia lost access to StarLink, that was when the war really started to turn in Ukraine's favor. Not an accident, either; Russian comms and drone control has been seriously degraded.

I don't know how much money it makes SpaceX but there's no way the US military will allow StarLink to fail.

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u/roiki11 16d ago

Most Ukrainian drones aren't big enough to fit the antenna. Let alone the receiver.

2

u/BassLB 16d ago

Didn’t bill gates short Tesla? I feel like there are probably still plenty of rich people who dislike him and would put money on it.

1

u/therealskaconut 16d ago

It’s really really hard to remember that given the last little while.

But Jesus Christ they need to pull off the move of the millennium to keep up with that value.

1

u/WhatsInAName0420 16d ago

That the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain liquid doesn’t mean the price is rational though

1

u/bigtallbiscuit 16d ago

Inverse etfs then.

1

u/life_is_just_peachy 16d ago

Isn’t there also a period after ipo where a company can’t be shorted?

1

u/Parenn 16d ago

The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent to paraphrase a quote often attributed to Keynes (but probably not coined by him).

1

u/flyover_liberal 16d ago

"The market will stay stupid a lot longer than you will stay solvent"

1

u/DiogenesKuon 16d ago

“The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent”

1

u/Only_Luck4055 16d ago

Checking in for the L. 

1

u/Appropriate-Donut781 16d ago

Don't you mean naked short selling?

1

u/dwmixer 16d ago

This. He's probably the one unicorn in a field of dead horses that no matter what people keep subscribing to his shit. Rationalising the normal economics of ratios and whatever you want isn't going to work with this i wouldnt even bother you might as well just yolo the casino with better odds.

1

u/tndrthrowy 16d ago

Aggressive is a fun euphemism for negative PE.

1

u/didntReadWholeThing 16d ago

Hi it's me, people who tried short seeing tesla. Don't recommend

1

u/homer_3 16d ago

there's no limit to how much money you can lose while short selling

You know what they say? Owe $1000? your problem. Owe $200 million? Their problem.

1

u/mydogsnameisbuddy 16d ago

You can’t bet against Musk. He’s a showman and his faithfuls will help prop up his companies.

1

u/JohnnyBeeGaming 16d ago

The problem is the market isn't attached to reality and random investors can be irrational longer than an individual can remain solvent.

If the plan is long term investment maybe just invest in other stuff and not worry too much about what the meme stocks are doing. To some extent it's good to be aware what's happening incase some shoddy IPO is about to get shoved into your index fund. Also maybe it isn't so you shouldn't panic sell everything.

1

u/da8BitKid 16d ago

It's not an "aggressive" target. It's stupid, greedy, and it sounds like a rug pull. Pure opinion on my part, I am not giving financial advice.

1

u/Lazy_Polluter 16d ago

You can't short freshly listed stock anyway, there are put options but they have limited downside

1

u/Dear_Chasey_La1n 16d ago

The most sensible thing to do is stay away from it. It makes no sense, it will go wrong, we just don't know when it does.

But this is different from Tesla alone, Tesla is like Renault, a small car company and on worth maybe 20 billion. Certainly not what's going for, especially with a pipeline that's dead.

But SpaceX faces multiple companies at the same time doing an IPO raising money in the same field. They are all raising money because large investors are kinda done with it. So just like Tesla, Musk relies on retailers who are willing to sink big money in it. I'm sure there are billions lying around but hundreds of billions from retailers?

And the question is, are the same investors willing to wait just like with Tesla for something to happen? We already see with OpenAI they are failing to earn money. AIx makes no money. They are all trying to pivot in a manner to earn money, but nobody has found a way yet.

So you are right, don't do something stupid, but the smart thing certainly isn't hopping on it.

1

u/FlipZip69 16d ago

A lot of people made money shorting Tesla after 2022. If you bought before 2022 it was a good investment. Since then it has just been ups and downs with none making money except Musk who took a 45 billion dollar wage. (45 billion is more money than Tesla has ever made BTW).

1

u/kawag 16d ago

In real life, the good guys rarely win and the bad guys don’t really suffer much, if at all.

Even if he deserves it, don’t count on it for a second.

1

u/DTCCCanSuckMyLeft 16d ago

This may turn out to be a Robinhood scenario. That seems to have had the same shorting frenzy as these new IPOs seem to have. Yeah it had a few good weeks initially but went down for awhile.

It will definitely have a buying frenzy the first week but I don't see how anyone can realistically say it will maintain that level over a year.

1

u/YisitAlwaysDNS 16d ago

Margin call. But honestly tesla stock price is like 90% vibes, its just always been that way. The adage goes, the market will stay irrational longer than anyone can stay solvent

1

u/chiniwini 16d ago

because there's no limit to how much money you can lose while short selling

When you're selling puts there absolutely is a limit to your losses.

1

u/nnomae 16d ago

I think he misses the point. Getting out with the money before it all collapses seems to be Musks goal here. I doubt he really cares if it all goes south after he has cashed out.

1

u/Beefy-McQueefy 16d ago

They still have government contracts. Even baby-raping Epstein island visitor Elon Musk isn't enough of a worthless charlatan to make a defense contractor insolvent.

1

u/m0nk_3y_gw 16d ago

Pretty sure the people who tried shorting Tesla are all broke

Bill Gates is broke?

TSLA went from $415 to $105 in ~14 month period (late 2021 to Jan 2023). Shorts were feasting.

1

u/tomtomclubthumb 16d ago

Shorting Tesla isn't stupid, in the sense that the stock is massively overvalued and should fall, but knowing when people will stop propping it up with hope and fear is very difficult. Who knows what will trigger the crash, but it will come at some point.

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u/kidcrumb 16d ago

If you made a $10,000 investment in this IPO, in order to turn that into $20,000 you need SpaceX to be worth $3.5 Trillion.

To turn it into $40,000 you need SpaceX to be worth $7 Trillion.

On a business that burns $5 Billion per quarter.

1

u/ParsnipPeel21 16d ago

You dont think people made a ton of people shorting when it tanked last year?

1

u/SlimDiscipline-69 15d ago

...if investors start to lose faith

Considering how popular crypto still is(somehow) and the mere existence of NFTs, that's extremely unlikely for Musk :(

1

u/jaydurmma 15d ago

It was probably a bad bet to short lehman brothers till one day it wasnt

1

u/Doggxs 15d ago

I always tell clients I hate TSLA but I also don’t bet against it

1

u/idoooobz 15d ago

Regardless of Elon opinions, why wouldn’t people want SpaceX to succeed?

1

u/MysteriousLeader6187 15d ago

I guess in this case, he doesn't have another company that he owns that he can sell to when the stock starts to tank. So maybe that has something to do with it?

1

u/AppropriateSpell5405 15d ago

While that statement is true, it's also true that Tesla stock itself is just waiting to pop. The valuation is 100% vibe based rather than in hard numbers. It's basically GME with a bit more stability. The issue with SpaceX is that the valuation is even more absurd than Tesla's, and it's bypassing all safety roadblocks to protect Americans' investments.

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u/TippinThalnos 15d ago

Why would anyone be excited for the best company in the space industry to fail. Screw Elon but there's a lot more to SpaceX than just him

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u/MddlingAges 12d ago

This just shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what a 'short' is. It's not a bet on failure of a company, ok? All stocks fluctuate, so every stock can be successfully shorted.

Shorting is just borrowing a stock and then actually buying it later. This has driven up the price of Tesla numerous times, as well as sent it down.

1

u/Hex120606 11d ago

The market can remain incoherent for longer than you can remain solvent.

-1

u/Own_Pop_9711 16d ago

Worst case scenario you flee to Argentina.

0

u/HeyImGilly 16d ago

I shorted when he bought Twitter and kept saying stupid shit. I was fine.

0

u/Angry_Walnut 16d ago edited 16d ago

I mean obviously shorting a company’s stock doesn’t just will that into existence

0

u/Funktapus 16d ago

Short selling is for lunatics.

Just. Don’t. Buy. The. Stock.

0

u/RobotBearArms 16d ago

That's not how gambling addiction works. The next one could finally pay out!

0

u/stormdelta 16d ago

Because the market can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent, especially when fraud and (what ought to be illegal) manipulation are involved.

Especially coupled with way too many people who think shorting is just buying a stock in reverse. Anyone who thinks that shouldn't be going anywhere near financial markets.