I assuming they drug test because it's a requirement for govt contracts. Given that they get something like 98% of their funding from the govt, they can't exactly flippantly violate their best customers rules.
Under the Drug-free Workplace Act of 1988, workers at any company that receives a federal contract of $100,000 or more are prohibited from using or distributing drugs in the workplace, and the firm must have a drug-free workplace policy. Elon himself is subject to drug tests by the federal goverment
I'm curious how well this is actually enforced. I would imagine a lot of big tech companies have $100k government contracts: Google, Microsoft, etc. Pretty sure employees of either company are not drug tested (and a large number of them would fail a test if it were required). I'm not sure what "drug-free workplace policy" means, while I was at Google I don't recall ever hearing "don't do drugs".
On the other hand, I met a person recently who works for Lockheed and I'm pretty sure he was regularly (or randomly) tested at his workplace.
SpaceX undoubtedly does have US government agencies as some of their biggest customers, but 98% must be a gross exaggeration. The Falcon 9/Heavy have made nearly all of their launch revenues, and from just perusing the lists [1][2] of all launches, the US government can't be more than some low double digit percentage.
SpaceX does receive other funding as part of various NASA contracts, but that funding is also related to providing services to them, not just receiving money for nothing.
98% wasn't a number I pulled out of thin air. It's hard to know exact figures, but there are some people who publicly track what they can. [1]
From that source, SpaceX has about ~$5.515B in contracts. Of that, about $5.411B is from government contracts (military, NASA). That's about 98.1%.
There's probably a good chance it's higher, if they have govt contracts that aren't allowed to be public knowledge for security reasons.
Also, nobody is claiming SpaceX receives "money for nothing" from the govt. They are a contractor who, at least at these relatively early stages, need government contracts to survive. It's not necessarily a bad thing, and it's the way many nascent industries survive. But we need to call a spade a spade.
That source only lists contracts where the price is known or can be reasonably estimated. Naturally, US government entities which have a semi-public bidding process are much easier to obtain a price estimate from. There's a large amount of foreign government contracts and private commercial contracts that are omitted from that list. Just from 2020 alone, SkySats 16-21, ANASIS-II, SXRS-1, SAOCOM 1B, GNOMES 1, Tybak-0172, SXM-7, and NROL-108.
Edit: I did unreasonably make the assumption that you were making the case the SpaceX was receiving subisidies for "nothing" and I see that you weren't now.
Hell, SpaceX is private so we have limited information across all domains. I acknowledged in my first post that accurate numbers are hard to come by. But we have to work with what information we have.
Foreign govts would still be govt money; many of those you listed are still public projects. Do you have estimates for those other private launches? If not, it's just speculation. Based on the information we have, it seems like it's safe to say the bulk of their launches are for governments. It's not a knock on them, and I'm not saying this is your perspective, but there's this kinda weird sentiment that they are some paragon of free-market capitalism when in fact they are a company highly dependent on government money. But that's exactly what I think is reasonable to expect in a nascent industry.
The other respondent brought up a good point regarding selection bias. A different way to approach the problem would be to look at total SpaceX launches by customer. This has its own problems, but might paint a better picture.
When talking about funding in general, you also have to consider that SpaceX has significant non launch Equity funding to the tune of $10B, and that contracts can include potential future Revenue instead of funds received.
Edit: If you look at their launches for 2020 onwards[1], Their number 1 customer is SpaceX (themselves), followed by US and other governments, followed by private companies.
While your borader conclusion is probably accurate regarding income, your spreadsheet only 71 of 216 Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches, for ~$9B total. This is roughly on par with the VC funding they have recieved.
Sure, I can acknowledge there is likely a selection bias based on public reporting. But I would push back that it skews the data by an order of magnitude as suggested. We'd likely see many, many more private launches compared to public for that to be true. Let's be super generous and say that Starlink brings in $1B in revenue; that still means govt funding accounts for 80% of their revenue.
And, yes, we can talk about different ways of accounting. But I wouldn't count the fickle or volatile ones like "potential future revenue" as better than measuring actual contracts. (This is what SpaceX is investing in with their own launches, to be fair, but that's different than actual revenue). People trying to raise capital are always talking about potential revenue and potential market share, but you'll get much more investor money if you have actual purchase orders.
The bulk of their own launches are for their own infrastructure. That doesn't bring revenue at the launch date. They aren't paying themselves to launch their equipment; it's an investment in future revenue. Even looking at optimistic projections for 2023 Starlink revenue puts would still mean govt contracts dwarf Starlink revenue by 4:1.
>And that is outside of their Starship business, that is by now a large part of its revenue.
Starship is bringing in investment money, not revenue that I'm aware of. I don't know what revenue it would be bringing without actual launches. Maybe I'm wrong and you can correct me here, but I think you are conflating some business aspects.
Now if you're saying that the private money will be a bigger factor in the future, I agree. That's the whole idea behind govt money being used to foster along nascent industries: the govt props them up early until a viable private enterprise can exist later.
That is nonsense. Look at their flight manifest and see how many flights are NASA or Space Force. Maybe like 3 launches in the next several months out of planned 25.
Again, this comment, like most, misses the point. I'm saying they required govt contracts early to be a viable business. You're pointing to late-game information that doesn’t speak to that point. They can both be true without the point being "nonsense".
The point is their business model is predicated on using govt contracts early, when they were an unproven commodity, because the govt is generally the only organization who can take those kinds of risks. In turn, this fosters the development of a space industry which can transition to more private revenue streams. Musk himself said they were in the 11th hour of bankruptcy before NASA "saved" them with a huge contract.
It doesn't miss the point because the OP is talking in the present tense. Not something from 10 years ago, e.g. "they get something like 98% of their funding from the govt"
The OP was intended to convey that their business model is predicated on heavy govt funding early. I never said they get, and will continue to require, that level of support in perpetuity. The intent was to show the level of govt support necessary to where they're at. Those "old" contracts are still in execution; they're not done and and in the past. Meaning the funding is still relevant and so are the rules attached to those funds. If you doubt that, what do you think will happen to SpaceX if they suddenly start going against their SpaceAct agreements that are part of those contracts?
Even if you want to go against HN guidelines and not read the comment generously, they have still gotten the vast majority of their revenue from the govt in present tense. We can quibble about the exact percentage, and in reality it's probably impossible to pin-point without insider information. But we can use the information we know to estimate that it's still a major part of their business and it wouldn't be viable without it. And they'd still have to keep those customers happy by following their rules.
I worked there for 3 years and was never asked to do a drug test. Maybe that's the case now? Or maybe it's based on job responsibilities?
The only time I was ever tested for drugs was when I started an internship at Toyota back in 2006 or so. I had to do a whole physical. At the time it seemed pretty silly. Later in my career I started a new job, and the new company's background check flagged me for being unable to verify my employment at Toyota. That also seemed pretty silly, considering the company's CTO used to be in the
same department at Toyota back in the day!
Putting a rocket into orbit requires a good understanding of science and reality. There is no actual scientific proof that occasionally using marijuana is a bad thing that would make a potential employee a bad employee.
Maybe politicians don't like that reality, but they are not the ones putting people into orbit.
The traditional explanation is that drug users can be blackmailed and security compromised by adversaries threatening to reveal federally prohibited behavior.
It seems antiquated.
Edit: as cannabis use is transitioning to decriminalized, testing specifically for that will become antiquated. Standing crimes of course will remain leverage for bad guys.
Eh, I buy that "habitually committing crimes" makes it easier for adversaries to blackmail you. Seems like evergreen logic that doesn't get antiquated.
It's an evergreen that can be easily repaired by eliminating silly categories of crime and social conventions. See e.g., the old restrictions on allowing gay people to hold security clearances, which stemmed from the fact that it was easy to blackmail gay people in a society that (foolishly) kept penalizing people for being gay. We lost Alan Turing because of stupid crap like that, god only knows what else we lost.
> See e.g., the old restrictions on allowing gay people to hold security clearances, which stemmed from the fact that it was easy to blackmail gay people
AFAIK, they did not stem from that fact, that was a later rationalization from keeping them around. They stemmed from the fact that being gay was seen as a serious moral failing in its own right, and indicative of propensity for other moral failings.
No, implying that I think that "they are worse at building and launching rockets because they drug test employees" when I never said that at all is not sound reasoning, it is terrible reasoning actually
Why do you immediately jump to drugs as a conclusion?
Maybe they just want to commemorate the birthday of the visionary leader who recognized and funded the genius inventor that ultimately ended up being instrumental in getting the American space program of the ground?
If someone can't quit for the time it takes to get a job, then I wouldn't want them on my team. It's usually one and done at these companies, not random throughout employment, and usually purely for outside regulation purposes. A modicum of self control isn't a bad thing.
When I was in high school my desk had a graffiti carved in it of the three most important numbers: 69, 2112, and 714. 2112 was the Rush album (which I liked), and I had to ask a friend about 714: he explained that it was the number printed on Quaalude pills (as if everybody knew that).
1134 is the angel number, I think something to do with Tarot. I know there was the calculator trick: 1800-666=1134. Turn it upside down and it spells "hell".