[adastra22]

The story here is even simpler. SpaceX is going public this year. Elon made a monumentally shitty investment in Twitter and then poured a stupid amount of money into xAI at the peak of the cycle. By having SpaceX buy xAI, he gets to swap worthless shares in that company for more SpaceX liquidity. Simple as that.

[mmustapic]

Exactly, and there needs to be some economic justification for a giant rocket. There is no money to be made by going to Mars, and AI data centers in space could attract investors (who are just riding the data center hype).

[fsloth]

> I data centers in space could attract investors (who are just riding the data center hype).

I find this to be the most obvious game plan here. Makes total sense from financial engineering point of view.

You _might_ get to develop nice tech/IP to enable other space based businesses at the same time. "we sold them on X but delivered Y". So it's a bit of a hail mary, but makes total sense to me if you want to have a large budget for inventing the future.

Once you can demonstrate even a fraction of this capability of operations ... I think you can sell a "space dominance" offering to Pentagon for example and just keep pedaling.

"We are going to build the perfect weapon" does not necessarily entice as large engineer population as "we are going to Star Trek".

Another thing - if Moon is going to be a thing, then _properties on Moon_ are going to be a thing.

In theories of value in post-ai societies scarce assets like land are going to become more valuable. So it's a long term plan that makes sense if you believe Moon will be a realestate market.

[rockemsockem]

Really seems silly to think that the guy with $800 billion is spending most of his time maximizing his money.

[tyg13]

Doesn't it just make sense though? How else would he have gotten 800 billion dollars?

[rockemsockem]

IDK people who like money a lot seem to try harder to preserve it vs taking large risks.

[adastra22]

Usually you preserve money by taking fewer risks.

[rockemsockem]

That's exactly my point. I wouldn't say that Elon avoids risk.

[jnsie]

Ah, this old fallacy. There are myriad examples of the rich striving to be richer and the powerful fighting to gain even more power. Why would it be any different with Musk? If anything I suspect (this is absolutely an unverifiable opinion; I am not stating it as fact) that Musk's driving force is to become the first trillionaire.

[kadoban]

Welcome to billionares. If they weren't obsessed with "number go up" over any other consideration, they wouldn't be billionares.

[nosianu]

Billionaire money is not like money for the normal person. It is a placeholder for how much influence you have on the economy - and even the state.

It is not just a number, as it is for people who just save a few dollars, for whom it really is just a number until they withdraw money to use it. The billionaire's money is not "money", it is actual working assets, and the abstraction of turning this into a number does a terrible job, the result now misunderstood by many. Assets being companies doing stuff mostly (holding non-control-giving paper assets is different and not what being a top capitalist is about, only used as an additional tool below the actual goal). Which they fully control (the small investor does not even have any control worth mentioning when they own shares of a public company).

They don't just play with money, they play with real things! And they want to play with ever bigger real things. They don't just want to improve some minor product. They want to control the fate of civilization.

OT:

I hate this money view with a passion, this is what too many people discussing wealth inequality issues get wrong. This is not Scrooge McDuck and his money pile. Money is an abstraction, and it is misused terribly, hiding what is actually going on for too many observers who then go on to discuss "numbers".

That is also why the idea to "just redistribute the money of the rich" is a failure. It isn't money! It is actual real complex organizations. And you can't just make everything into a public company, and also, even when they are, for better or worse owners don't lead like managers. Doing the socialism thing (I grew up in the GDR) where everybody owns a tiny bit of everything just does not work the same.

We will have to look at what those super-rich are actually doing, case by individual case of ownership, not just look at some abstract numbers. Sometimes concentrated control over a lot of assets is a good thing, and other times it is not. Ignoring the objection of "who would control that?", because right now they control themselves so it's never nobody.

[the_other]

I think you have read the "redistrubute the money" people wrong. They definitely, absolutely want to reduce the power the tiny minority hold over the many. That's the whole point. The money is a tool to get the work done.

[z3t4]

He probably have 700 billion in loans and need to pay rent