[tristanj]

I find it amusing to read comments like these, because they remind me of the massive awareness gap between people who understand SpaceX's product line, and those who don't.

In your world, you only see and interpret SpaceX's existing products. You then see SpaceX's eye-watering valuation, and then are confused where this comes from.

Meanwhile, people who understand SpaceX's product line, and the implications these products in five or ten years, can analyze the situation more accurately.

I can tell you are in the unaware group, since you don't mention nor analyze two of SpaceX's world-changing products (Starship and Starlink Mobile).

[bryanlarsen]

Rocket launch ex-Starlink is a small $N-billion market; a few dozen flights at $50M per flight. Starship is revolutionary and I can easily believe that it will expand the market by a remarkable order of magnitude. Multiple tens of billions. How does that justify a valuation over $1T?

Starlink Mobile is more significant, but it's still unlikely to double Starlink revenue -- most mobile traffic will always be transited by local cell phone towers.

P.S. I think somebody is going to make a lot of money from Starship. The money in space is not from launch but from the services it enables. Starlink >> Falcon9. But I don't think SpaceX is going to be the ones to find the next Starlink. It's much more likely to be a third party who launches on multiple providers to keep costs down.

[aurareturn]

I'd love to know what your analysis. This is a genuine request. No snark. I'm genuinely curious of other view points.

[tristanj]

I'll mention the ones no one else is talking about.

The Golden Dome buildout will deliver $200-300 billion in revenue to SpaceX through 2040 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dome_(missile_defense_s... . Golden Dome is only viable with low-cost Starship, and SpaceX will build the satellites housing the radars, IR detectors, interceptors, and backbone communications network. The interceptors themselves will likely be built by existing players i.e. Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. SpaceX revenue here is astronomical, potentially $500+ billion if a full buildout occurs.

Starlink Mobile is atrociously underestimated, with Starlink V3/V4 satellites and the $17 billion Echostar spectrum, Starlink will deliver 4G speeds direct to cellphone for thousands of customers per cell across the globe. It will never match the bandwidth throughput of terrestrial towers but will be extremely cost competitive in rural areas. A single cellular tower costs ~$250k to build and tens of thousands per year to maintain. It will be far cheaper for mobile operators to partner with SpaceX than do their own costly buildout. Assuming quick adoption, revenue will be $50-100 billion per year by 2040, with high margins.

Not to mention Starship, which in its incomplete form of V3 already has the lowest cost-to-orbit of any launch vehicle ever, will usher in a wave of space exploration. The moat is huge, Starship is 15 years ahead of the competition.

[aurareturn]

Cool. If it drops, I might buy a few shares.

[emj]

Isn't Spaceship an requirement to make starlink profitable?

[tristanj]

You mean Starship. And not it's not, Starlink is already extremely profitable, currently running at a 60% profit margin.

[Gomotono]

Srsly?

Just to be very clear about Starship: We have a very limited amount of payload we are sending up in space every year.

The biggest jump in payload is starlink itself. Starlink though doesn't scale very well. V2 can only handle a certain amount of customers and has only a lifetime of 5 years.

Space-X has to build Starship to even being able to send v3 up to increase the margin of this setup. But even then, every 5 years that thing has to be replaced and new build.

Every mobile tower, fiber cable etc. underground has a lot higher lifetime than that.

Starlink also has the issue of latency handover. Every few minutes you have to do a handover which leads to package loss. I can't do a Teams Call through Starlink fyi.

And Starlink already exists and is relativly affordable despite that, they only have 9-10 Million customers and they had to increase the price.

And while all of this 'magic no one gets' is happening, Starship hasn't profen non leo orbit with proper payload AND reusability. Without reusability, they will not get the costs down that much anymore. Its already relativly cheap.

And in parallel all of this 'trillion dollar future margin magic' gets opposition by other companies like eutelsat and Amazon.

Ah yes the world changing product of starlink mobile. Which doesn't get booked in the USA, is slow and needs a lot of energy. Whatever you think this is, 500km mobile range is 500km and this on a planet were normal people already have a very very well working mobile setup for at least 10 years by now.

Is space-x some kind of business gap? yes sure. Will they make billions with this? Depending on other companes, yeah sure. Is it a trillion dollar business? No

Yes yes i'm fully unaware of this.

Btw. Musk def sells you the story of Mars and dyson sphere and stuff to keep the magic but while he does all of this, he rents out colossus 1 and 2 to his competitors because he is unable to sell his OWN AI product.

[ImPostingOnHN]

'If you don't agree with me it's because you don't understand' is such a tired, boring trope.

Do you have anything to add to that sentiment? Maybe a pro-forma, rather than feelings?

[SlinkyOnStairs]

"You just don't understand bro" has been the trite handwaving of criticism for a over decade now. It already wore out when the bitcoin bros kept saying it to all their critics.

> I can tell you are in the unaware group, since you don't mention nor analyze two of SpaceX's world-changing products (Starship and Starlink Mobile).

Just because I did not mention Starship by name does not mean it's not in the reply.

And Starlink Mobile is still an ISP. "It's worth a trillion dollars because it's mobile!" Haven't heard that one since the Dotcom bubble.

But more to the point:

> Meanwhile, people who understand SpaceX's product line, and the implications these products in five or ten years, can analyze the situation more accurately.

They are looking 10 years forwards. I am looking 10 years back.

This exact same "just you wait, in 5 years there'll be a miracle technology that generates infinite profit" rhetoric has been used for those 10 years.

Still waiting on the miracle self-driving that was supposed to justify Tesla's $1.6 trillion.

[tristanj]

> They are looking 10 years forwards. I am looking 10 years back.

And that's your flaw. Companies are priced by looking ahead and projecting future revenue and earnings, not by looking 10 years into past. Your analysis is fundamentally flawed for this reason. Neither of SpaceX's major future revenue drivers (Starship and Starlink) existed a decade ago. This explains your confusion regarding SpaceX's valuation.

[mavhc]

Self driving is already here, so far the remaining bugs are pretty much just noticing thin objects and parking in restricted spaces

[chinathrow]

Enlighten us then, please. What are we missing?