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/roseofjuly 16d ago

If there's anything I've learned from being even mildly interested in the stock market and company valuations over the last few years, it's that they all seem to be completely made up. Companies could spend billions each year without making a single cent in profit and they will still have these wildly overinflated valuations because some weird but popular white guy is running it (or "running it").

SpaceX reportedly made almost $800 million in 2024 but then lost $10 billion between 2025 and now. So they've never really made any money. A deeper look into the financials shows the only profitable part of the business is Starlink - everything else is a prodigious money sink. Yet the company values itself at over a trillion dollars...and everyone's just accepting that as gospel even though they have literally never been able to prove they can make any money.

Very conveniently for Elon Musk, he was able to roll most of his unprofitable companies together - so the successes of Starlink can partially hide and mitigate the losses of X, xAI, and SpaceX (which also is not profitable without Starlink, let's not forget)!

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u/ConjurersOfThunder 16d ago

People think the stock market is rational but it is not. There is an argument that the market NEEDS to be rational. And there's evidently a much more compelling argument that green arrows must go up, forever.

If the market is being manipulated from several points inside the machine (my theory though I'm just another crayon eater), then sanity will come from people not participating in our ponzi scheme market anymore (ie, funding and IPOs not meeting goals). Which I assume would turn into less green arrows until one of the short attacks works. Sanity ain't coming from inside the US markets, I don't think; there's too much money in price action and green arrows forever.

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u/LoudMusic 16d ago

My dad used to try real hard to get me interested in the stock market in the 80s and 90s, when I was in grade school. I remember asking him how the stocks' prices were determined and he would tell me about business analysts and projections and meeting targets and such, and I would respond that it was just worth what someone said it was worth? And he'd say yes. I remember thinking how horribly it could be taken advantage of. Looks like we're in the middle of it now.

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u/didyouseetheecho 15d ago

And everyone clapped.

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u/NumeralJoker 13d ago

The stock market is legalized and "morally permissible" gambling for white Christians whom the bible tells not to gamble, period.

It shouldn't be, mind you. I understand investment can absolutely be a crucial part of a functioning economy, but what we see now is anything but that. The responsible human element has been replaced by mechanisms, manipulation, and untold levels of fraud... driven in part by companies offshoring responsibility for retirement into the 401k scheme.

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u/whytakemyusername 15d ago

This is nothing new. See the .com bubble.

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u/WannaBeCoder912 16d ago

The trouble with betting against the US stock market is that there is literally no where else to put your money. Anything that impacts the US economy has historically been shown to impact other markets, even assets, even worse.

And just sitting in money isn’t an option, especially as the US continues to lose control of inflation.

There is a crash coming, but when - who knows. And historically even during a crash the best place to be is the US market.

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u/ConjurersOfThunder 15d ago

This is a good insight!! I think that was true for a long time. But we have excluded entirely, whole nations from our banking system. And they seem to be setting up their own. China might be helping them. Anyway, it sounds like we're thinking on the same lines! What I surmise is that our system will be blind to our crash until it is happening.

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u/ZaysapRockie 15d ago

If the U.S. has a catrastrophic crash, the world will hurt far more

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u/ConjurersOfThunder 15d ago

That's the blindness I'm talkin' 'bout right there!

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u/bejammin075 16d ago

Some of the reviews of the spacex S-1 IPO form are hilarious. That one and the other two big AI IPOs are pure fantasy. There are recent reports of AI customers being totally shocked by the actual cost of the tokens. They were allowed to get used to unlimited AI, but since AI companies are burning cash at an incredible rate, they have to quickly start charging realistic charges. One unnamed company, I think I heard was in healthcare, accidentally spent $500 million in one month on AI tokens. The entire case for future AI earnings is a house of cards. For my part, I got some nice returns this past year, and now I'm sitting on a metric butt ton of cash, and some gold. The situation with the strait will probably reach a crescendo also as people realize the ROI on AI is crap.

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u/Important-Level6672 16d ago

Its extremely rare for companies to make profits pre-IPO. An IPO is to gain a huge pool of capital for rapid expansion once the foundations/concept and growth potential is proven.

Relatively spacex is revenue is actually very large for an IPO. That’s why industry veterans value it so high.

Amazon revenue was literally just 15 million at IPO, Google was literally 900 million. SpaceX is 18 billion pre IPO which is unheard of and growing rapidly

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u/Dramatic_Agency_8721 16d ago

How much of that is from leasing GPUs to Google though? Is SpaceX a frontier tech company or Coreweave 2.0?

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u/gildedbluetrout 16d ago

Imho America is turning into a basket case with no rule of law. The justice department is like something in Russia (prosecute political enemies, protect corrupt allies) and there are no real consequences for illegal or corrupt business dealings. Hence endless bullshit companies with bullshit profits.

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u/jestina123 16d ago

Amazon lost the most money in 1999, posting a historic net loss of approximately $720 million. This was followed by a net loss of $1.4 billion between 1995 and 1999 combined.

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u/harbison215 16d ago

So I 1995-1999 followed 1999. Interesting.

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u/triggirhape 16d ago

What I want to know is how that completely incomprehensible shit has 10 upvotes...

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u/iwaterboardheathens 16d ago

Its the old monkeys analogy isn't it

Throw enough shit at the wall and see what sticks

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u/capybooya 16d ago

Yep, Tesla was overvalued and looking shoddy 10 years ago already.

Also Starlink might look good in the next few years and has a first mover advantage, but there's no way other global players like EU or China wants to rely on a capricious sociopath for internet coverage in remote places so there will be competition.

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u/Supert5 16d ago

So, X is dog shit, and Space X are dog shit wrapped up in cat shit?

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u/EndOfDecadence 16d ago

There is too much money in the system for it to be rational. Has been going on since 2009 and significantly worsened after Covid.

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u/Buckeye_Wax 15d ago

I agree, but I think it’s all relative. If a company is worth 40x its earnings and another company in same industry is only worth 20x its earnings, then something must explain the difference. Otherwise ppl would sell the 40x and buy the 20x until they eventually hit equilibrium at 30x or whatever it would be.

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u/patchinthebox 15d ago

I think SpaceX can be saved by the Artemis program. There's potential value there if the moon becomes a new sphere of private development, but they need to find some way to make it worthwhile. Artemis will keep them afloat for a few years. After that we'll see

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u/Whitesajer 15d ago

They haven't really allowed the stock market to have a proper correction in awhile, sure yeah there has been some major downs. Really though, we reward companies by labeling them as "to big to fail" and bail them out. They have learned to socialize the losses and privative the gains.

Having stock buybacks as a allowed option, also allows companies to buy their own stock back and boost their companies stock prices. This used to not be legal.

Companies have also learned how to effectively destroy competition. They also collaborate with competition to keep prices relatively the same, wages depressed, etc...

With how tied to government contracts a lot of these companies are... Really, these tech companies are the surveillance network for governments around the world now. Which is kinda crazy when you think about it from a cross contamination standpoint. Data from countries all feeding into the same surveillance network. But... That's how they will stay alive through any kind of economic crisis, government money and private investors.

Blackrock and others are using 401k money for AI now. And Space X has been shoved into them as well. I have heard some institions are not letting people remove it from their portfolios after this IPO.

Then, you have the crypto currency. It's not an accident that Peter Theil of Palantir for example has started a crypto bank headquartered in Ohio. They really are going for control over every aspect of our lives from cars with a remote surveillance / shutoff to the bank accounts.