Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by vineyardmike 794 days ago
> Still profitable company with an incredibly high market cap

A market cap that has more than halved in the last year. And market cap isn’t everything. Plummeting sales amid higher competition, layoffs, etc don’t paint a great picture.

> Twitter's market cap hasn't change much

Since what time period? Since after he shaved 70% of it off? [1]. It wasn’t and still isn’t profitable, yes, but it now has a far higher debt load and a drop in advertising revenues which make it worth less.

> profitable and future projects are set to make it more even more profitable.

Oh I said rarely and barely profitable. That doesn’t imply much profit, nor potential. It has promise, yes, but clear profits… no. Sorry for the confusion. They turned a profit only for one quarter. The structural risks are due to government subsidies that can (and are) being pulled from SpaceX. Starlink has been a huge boom to its revenue, but those subsidies were part of that. His errant behavior could jeopardize additional contracts (eg his drug use).

> hardly worth mentioning

The trail of headline worthy businesses are worth mentioning because they add to his allure and image. That they have little business potential, amount to trivial cost to him, and are for vanity, makes them meaningless.

1. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/01/since-elon-musks...

2 comments

What subsidies are given that will be pulled?
SpaceX wanted more subsidies ($900M) to build starlink. They wanted ISP subsidies to reach "last mile" customers. The reason given for the subsidy rejection: SpaceX over-promised, under-delivered (an Elon theme).

Generally, Tesla built its sales on the EV subsidy, Solar City is based on Solar Installation subsidies. Starlink was going to be subsidy-driven. Most of the factories/land for Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity were based on where the government would provide tax credits or other subsidies.

As Elon gets more politically active (and controversial) his ability to attract politicians for publicity will be scrutinized and harder to come by. Especially if he under-delivers on commitments.

https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-reaffirms-rejection-nearly-...

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-201...

You can't pull something you never gave. If you understand the RDOF bid and how Telco subsidies work you'll understand there's nothing political and talk about under delivering don't make sense because the time of the test is in the future
Those subsidies were not part of Starlink revenue. They received zero