With the highest level person at SpaceX worried about them going bankrupt it is in Europe's best interest for them to develop their own launch systems an capability.
I am willing to bet a lot of money that SpaceX will not go bankrupt as long as it keeps up the pace of innovation, and even after that happens, for a very long time.
SpaceX can turn to private investment and there are a lot of people willing to buy what they are selling. And SpaceX is incredibly innovative and a stratetic asset for the US so they will not let it sink. Sometimes, the utility of something is much more than the immediate economic calculation.
I suggest that Musk sending emails containing sentences like this "“We face genuine risk of bankruptcy if we cannot achieve a Starship flight rate of at least once every two weeks next year" tends to worry people. It was a very irrational and illogical email for him to send.
Unfortunately as usual, most people only saw the clickbait about the email and not the subsequent clarification about how he meant that while it was unlikely, it wasn't impossible in the event of a severe enough global economic downturn, pointing to examples of much bigger companies which went bankrupt during downturns: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/30/elon-musk-warning-not-first-...
Given his net worth right now, he could very likely carry SpaceX through some economic trouble, but in the event of a big enough downturn, his net worth will probably drop hard due to it being mostly Tesla stock, thus his concern.
Getting results, short term, isn't being an effective leader. Effective leaders do what they say and don't take insane risks that have no way of paying off.
Don't forget everything in SpaceX is built around the Mars mission. They could reorganize the business and "simply" be a profitable orbital launch provider if they wanted to.
Space, despite what some people want to believe, is not for commercial enterprise. SpaceX is backed by uncle Sam's deep pockets. And uncle Sam is locked into a cold war with China.
"The white bird rose up once again, laser cannon in its wings. It was a moving sight. In my heart, though, I wished it didn't have to be used in war."
I want to say upfront that I have no issue with the latter half of your statement, but not the way intended by who I responded to. First though what I don't think is correct:
>With the highest level person at SpaceX worried about them going bankrupt
Um, no. That statement got very, very confused in the media and retellings. The "bankruptcy" has to do with SpaceX's ultimate Mars ambitions and the rapid viability of Starlink without further investment. Very correctly, Musk and everyone else at SpaceX wants it to be able to stand on its own two feet as fast as possible, and further be able to be printing enough money to fund the enormously long term and capital intensive vision of Mars development. That is the point of it after all, and ultimately that must happen for it all to work. However, that's not the same thing at all as saying that it won't actually be getting further funding. Musk has tens of billions worth of Tesla, a bunch of which he liquidated last year. He will indeed continue to pour money into it. The number of private investors who'd be happy to add in is not exactly tiny either, nor the public for that matter though both those of course bring some challenges around control and overhead.
But that message was a rally-the-troops kind of thing, in stark contrast to Blue Origin for example. Musk doesn't want employees to think of SpaceX as a government too-big-too-fail contractor on safe cost-plus financing simply because it's backed by someone wealthy and dedicated. SpaceX's vision is too big even for him by itself. It needs to be a viable enterprise. It needs to stay hungry and fast even though it has earned the top spot in the current launch market, because they want to obsolete the current launch market entirely while expanding it by orders of magnitude. Starship (and future even bigger ships) has to work for all this, and for Starlink to work economically and help kick off the planned virtuous circle. And Musk is correct that the environment may turn hostile in unpredictable ways so who knows how many years SpaceX actually has to prove itself and really get bootstrapping.
But it's still in a stupendously better position than the ESA, which isn't aiming humanity for the stars in the first place right now with Ariane.
So all that said:
>their own launch systems an capability
This is certainly fine and yes I think it matters strategically. While I don't agree with much of what the EU has done, I also think much of it is wonderful and that fundamentally it's a great institution as well as Europe as a whole. Any entity on that scale should have a route to space in the future, just as the EU has Airbus for flight. And that will help the US as well.
But the way to go about that isn't through Arianespace. The EU, yesterday (a decade or more ago in fact), needs to get their own commercial sector going. With proven examples they can go much faster than NASA did if they want. But they need to supply the vision, big incentives, cut regulatory obstacles, and provide good government infra support and so on then let private players work out the actual implementation servicing those goals.
>But that message was a rally-the-troops kind of thing
I disagree. Statements like this "“We face genuine risk of bankruptcy if we cannot achieve a Starship flight rate of at least once every two weeks next year” sent of a holiday demonstrate a level on strangeness that really worries people launching very expensive space hardware.
It is hard to understand what he will say / do next and the gulf between what he says and what he does seems to be growing over the past year.
Yes. A CEO should always be worried about bankruptcy and do everything to avoid it, but never talk about it, except if they want to file for it soon. Even if the company is shortlz before going bankrupt, it woule just drive the value down, and prevent it from getting the needed capital.
He said that it was unlikely, but not impossible, pointing to risks like a large global economic crisis that drives away investor money before Starlink becomes self-sustaining (which requires Starship to be successful too).
I think you're seriously exaggerating the "gulf between what he says and does". He's always been the type to be extremely focused on the smallest of risks.
>I think you're seriously exaggerating the "gulf between what he says and does".
His statements regarding subsidies being wrong / government interference in the market as contrasted to how actively Tesla searches for and applies for subsidies.
I personally have an issue with those who think that burning the bridge that helped them get where they are so others can't use it is the correct thing to do.
If he was always focused on the smallest of risks he would not have smoked a joint on camera while working to launch national security payloads for the NRO and DoD. It was just a very short sighted thing for him to do.
SpaceX can turn to private investment and there are a lot of people willing to buy what they are selling. And SpaceX is incredibly innovative and a stratetic asset for the US so they will not let it sink. Sometimes, the utility of something is much more than the immediate economic calculation.