[Zigurd]

Does anyone pay for Grok? Despite claims of profitability, SpaceX still needs huge investments despite having spent all the lunar lander money without producing anything more than a render. Tesla is valued at more than the rest of the car industry put together, even after two years of stagnation and collapsing margins. Though it overlaps the AI bubble, Elon accounts for more of a general tech bubble than anyone else. Oracle might crash and burn first, but the Elonverse is the really big bubble.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Despite claims of profitability, SpaceX still needs huge investments

This is false. SpaceX is cash flow positive.

[Zigurd]

SpaceX is in fact not profitable. Depending on how you price internal transactions for manufacturing and launching Starlink satellites you can fudge the hell out of the term "cash flow positive." In fact, SpaceX continued to take outside investments in 2025.

[JumpCrisscross]

> SpaceX is in fact not profitable

This is false.

> Depending on how you price internal transactions for manufacturing and launching Starlink satellites you can fudge the hell out of the term "cash flow positive.”

This is nonsense. In accrual accounting, yes, there is room for fuckery. In cash accounting, you can shift cash around within the system, but the system is cash constrained.

SpaceX is cash-flow positive.

> SpaceX continued to take outside investments in 2025

Sure. It raised in its Series J. It has bought back more than that total round, secondary included, in stock.

It will probably raise massive amounts in 2026. It’s making large capital investments.

But for a few years, it didn’t. It was largely coasting. And in those years, up to now, it’s been cash-flow positive. It could have paid a dividend if it wanted.

[Zigurd]

Relatively recently Aerojet Rocketdyne valued ULA at about $2 billion. Do you think SpaceX is worth 10 times as much? That seems reasonable. How about 50 times as much? That's stretching it but, hey, it's Elon. 100 times as much? How about 700 times as much as ULA?

[ben_w]

Didn't ULA launch something like 75-90 tons to orbit last year, vs. 2400 tons for SpaceX?

So SpaceX would be worth 27x just from payload even if the profit margin was the same, even if they weren't the cheapest launch vehicle and therefore a natural provider for all the mega-constellations that want to compete with Starlink in coming years, and even if they didn't have this plausible (allbeit definitely work-in-progress) vision for their even better margin space truck that is Starship + Superheavy?

[Zigurd]

Somewhat to your chagrin, I think, I agree that 27X is a reasonable multiple. But I'm a generous guy I'd give them 50X. Do the math.

[JumpCrisscross]

ULA has zero growth prospects and no high-margin telecom business. I’m doubtful it would sell for even $2bn if auctioned off tomorrow.

More to the point: valuation is relatively independent of whether a business is cash-flow positive. (Totally independent in the case of practically-unlevered companies like SpaceX.)