[fblp]

Great comment on hardware and maintenance costs, and in comparison Elon wrote "My estimate is that within 2 to 3 years, the lowest cost way to generate AI compute will be in space." It's a pity this reads like the entire acquisition of xAi is based on "Elon's napkin math" (maybe he checked it with Grok)

[SilverElfin]

The deal they made values xAI at $230 Billion. It’s a made up number, with no trustworthy financial justification to back it up. It is set to provide a certain return to xAI’s investors (the valuation decides the amount you get per share), who in turn are bailing out the earlier acquisition of X (Twitter). All of this is basically a shell game where Elon is using one company to bail out another. It’s a way of reducing the risk of new ventures by spreading them out between his companies. It’s also really bad for SpaceX employees and investors, who are basically subsidizing other companies.

The thing is, everyone knows Elon is not a real CEO of any of these companies. There isn’t enough time to even be the CEO of one company and a parent. This guy has 10 companies and 10 children. He’s just holding the position and preventing others from being in that position, so he can enact changes like this. And his boards are all stacked with family members, close friends, and sycophants who won’t oppose his agenda.

[miohtama]

As both are private companies none of this matters if the investors of both companies are happy.

[SilverElfin]

Most of the investors don’t even have a choice. Nor do all the other shareholders like employees. And the boards of Musk companies are stacked with his yes men.

[miohtama]

This was well known before the investments were made. If the investors were not happy with this they would not have invested.

[rf15]

Ah yes, my favourite kind of engineering: financial engineering

[breakyerself]

He's bailing out one of his failing ventures with one of his so far successful ones. The BS napkin math isn't the reason he's doing it. It's the excuse for doing it.

[bigbuppo]

Or he's having another mental break because he knocked up yet another woman and is going to have yet another kid he can't remember the name of.

[titzer]

Can you provide a link for that quote, because that quote is absolute stupidity.

[spenczar5]

It's in the article that you're commenting on, https://www.spacex.com/updates#xai-joins-spacex.

[titzer]

Oh, ffs.

[spikels]

Haha. It's less than 1,000 words that would take less than 5 minutes to read.

I bet much less than half of the hundreds of HN commenters here bother to read it. Many are clearly unfamiliar with its content.

[titzer]

I can't, I don't want it in my head :/