[horsawlarway]

Yeah, I also don't want to eat a tasty morsel if you roll it around in the dirt and serve it up covered in bugs and hair.

And that's basically what SpaceX is right now after you account for xAI and twitter in the mix.

So I'd love to own a piece of the SpaceX from a decade ago - but the current offering smells pretty bad.

Combined with the fact that at this point, Musk clearly isn't opposed to running a business with dramatically inflated valuations based on vaporware, lies, & hype (cough - Tesla - cough) it just makes me far more skeptical than I might otherwise be.

I think caution is warranted here.

Essentially - I want to own the SpaceX that could have been if we didn't end up with the shoddy k-hole version of musk in charge of things.

[hparadiz]

The current SpaceX is in a far better financial and operational position than 10 years ago. By an order of magnitude. 90% of all payload to orbit right now is SpaceX alone. Starlink is profitable all on it's own. Right now. And they are just now picking up steam. American Airlines just signed onto Starlink just last week. This company is most likely gonna be the Coca-Cola of transportation between celestial bodies in solar system for the next 500 years but people on here are arguing over peanuts. On HN of all places.

[Root_Denied]

>The current SpaceX is in a far better financial and operational position than 10 years ago. By an order of magnitude. 90% of all payload to orbit right now is SpaceX alone. Starlink is profitable all on it's own. Right now.

I don't think anyone is really arguing these particular points.

>And they are just now picking up steam. American Airlines just signed onto Starlink just last week. This company is most likely gonna be the Coca-Cola of transportation between celestial bodies in solar system for the next 500 years but people on here are arguing over peanuts. On HN of all places.

This is speculation based on SpaceX's trajectory to this point, however we've seen Musk make some decisions that bring the long term future prospects of SpaceX into question. While Musk remains unbeholden to anyone else, which an IPO doesn't change, he's the biggest risk factor in the equation - and that's not speculation, it's an objective assessment of what's possible within the corporate structure of SpaceX.

What's subjective is whether you anticipate Musk will add more trash to the pile. Was the Twitter/xAI acquisition by SpaceX, with it's stupidly obvious fraudulent valuations, an outlier of some kind? Or was it a predictor of future actions that put similar economic strain on SpaceX, and would affect it's future stability and economic viability? Since Musk is capable of crashing and burning the whole of SpaceX by himself, without anyone legally capable of vetoing his decisions, it's a valid line of questioning.

Personally I feel I've seen enough of how Musk operates that I can be confident he'll make similar decisions in the future, and that makes me consider SpaceX a high risk investment. I'm also far from alone in this assessment, and there's a valid concern from investors of those index funds about being railroaded into adding SpaceX to their mix.

[horsawlarway]

I guess I don't consider leadership integrity and honesty to be "peanuts".

If anything - as an investor I'd call those core concerns about how I'll make my money back.

Further... this company isn't actually making ANY DAMN MONEY. Of the bundled orgs, only Starlink is profitable, and not profitable enough to offset the losses on spaceX and xAI/Grok. (starlink +4b, spacex -700mm, xAI -6b = -2.7b..., with 30b in debt).

So... no... right now this company is not "Coca-Cola". And that delusional comparison is part of why I think it's correct to be wary right now. On a scale between Enron and Coke... I'd wager we're closer to Enron.

I'll pick up some shares by default given the ETFs I'm in anyways, and that's enough for me...

[Danox]

SpaceX is completely dependent upon the government. If said government decides to move on then what long-term and they will move on because of China, Russia and the EU but mostly because of China.

This brief dalliance in private enterprise in space will not last long-term.

[capitainenemo]

Only a fifth of spacex revenue is currently from government contracts, a percentage that they forecast will continue to trend downwards.

(not to say that isn't a huge risk if it disappeared, it's just far from "completely dependent")

[mrhottakes]

How much of their projected revenue is from AI that will never materialize?

[capitainenemo]

shrug not interested in stock market speculation. That ⅕th figure is from 2025 actual revenue figures. The government percentage had dropped from 2024 where it was ¼.

It's variable though, and if DoD decides it wants a bunch of spy satellites or whatnot in orbit, you could see the percentage growing, along with their total revenue ofc.

It's just far from "completely dependent" which was my only objection.

Starlink obviously a huge part - $11½b revenue in 2025.