[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.

[ben_w]

No chargrin.

All Musk's valuations are based on his visions for what could be. It's just that for SpaceX, unlike for X and Tesla, "what could be" still seems plausible.

For Tesla… there is the argument that while "what could be" is very unlikely, if he pulls it off then it is also very valuable. But I not only don't think he can pull it off at all, even if he could don't think he will have market dominance sufficient to justify the price.

SpaceX… may have similar risks, depending IMO more on Chinese companies thinking "Great idea, let's do that but better" than e.g. European companies doing that. But even with that, 27x for current launches, and an additional 3x combined with that for other constellations plausibly gets them to around x80 even if Starship continues to not be reusable.

Starship is a big question mark for me. Assume it works: Would it be cheap enough to induce demand? Dunno. Not implausible, but I really don't know, and that is needed to get up to 700x.

[Zigurd]

Sure. 80X. I'd even agree to that. Which is a bit over 10% of what Elon thinks SpaceX is worth.

[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.)