[el_nahual]

SpaceX makes 16B in revenue per year, with 7B in ebitda (which doesn't account for the cost of rockets)... so assume what, 3B in free cash flow per year? And that's being generous.

That's about what Google creates in free cash every 2 weeks.

[randerson]

SpaceX can also raise their prices for government launches to pretty much anything and still get business, because they are essentially a monopoly.

[hamandcheese]

So why haven't they already?

[randerson]

I can think of a many possible reasons offhand:

1. They've been in Growth mode, where it's common for companies to prioritize capturing the market over being profitable.

2. They've had no problems with money since proving their effectiveness. They can raise capital at favorable valuations (and hold secondary sales) whenever they want. It has been one of the hottest private stocks that people clamor to own.

3. As a private company whose dominant shareholder is the CEO, nobody can pressure them to raise prices. This typically changes after an IPO.

4. Previous government administrations would likely have resisted paying them much more than they charge the private sector or other governments. The new administration has proven they will do favors for companies that are friendly to them.

5. For awhile it seemed they might soon have viable competition for manned space flight (e.g. Starliner) but only in 2024 did we see how bad those are.

6. The low cost is a point of pride for Musk who liked to prove how much more efficiently he could do spaceflight than NASA.