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by l23k4 20 hours ago
Who is being scammed? A very significant chunk of retail investors are buying into this stuff knowing it costs more than it's worth.

Gamestop wasn't a scam either, even if the buyers have been irrational.

3 comments

My absolutely normal and financially based reply to you, is getting automatically flagged so its clear some of the YC people who got SpaceX pre-IPO shares ( yes its true...) dont want this discussed.
I have had some completely innocuous messages (not SpaceX related) automatically flagged. There is some kind of bug here.
“Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.”

(Not a condemnation. But an explanation for flagging.)

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Automatic flagging is an algorithm, not the same as voting.
Buyers know it’s overpriced" would excuse every scammer on Earth (and Mars...)

Every pump scheme works because buyers think they can exit before the collapse. The core is insiders and banks converting asymmetric information and a sci-fi narrative control into exit liquidity.

GameStop was a public market mania. In an IPO insiders and banks package the story, control disclosure, set allocation, collect fees, and dump risk onto later buyers. Calling this voluntary overpayment ignores the mechanism of exit liquidity.

"Buyers know it’s overpriced" would excuse every scammer on Earth (and Mars...)

Every pump scheme works because buyers think they can exit before the collapse. The core is insiders and banks converting asymmetric information and a sci-fi narrative control into exit liquidity.

GameStop was a public market mania. In an IPO insiders and banks package the story, control disclosure, set allocation, collect fees, and dump risk onto later buyers. Calling this voluntary overpayment ignores the mechanism of exit liquidity.

>"Buyers know it’s overpriced" would excuse every scammer on Earth (and Mars...)

I don't think so https://archive.fo/zcVCZ

You've got people all over the place saying things like this:

>Bryan Mitchell, in Indianapolis, is among those planning to buy. The 48-year-old marketing executive intends to invest several thousand dollars in the IPO. He has also poured tens of thousands into Baron Partners Fund, which holds a stake in SpaceX.

>“This feels like the appetizer. You have to believe in Elon,” he said. “I’m willing to overpay for it just to say I’m part of the thing.”

Bryan isn't being scammed, Bryan just wants to feel like he's a part of something greater and is willing to pay for that. It's not surprising that space travel would be the thing to inspire vast amounts of retail investors to behave in that manner.

>GameStop was a public market mania.

Was?

>In an IPO insiders and banks package the story

This is only true at a very theoretical level.

> Bryan isn't being scammed, Bryan just wants to feel like he's a part of something greater and is willing to pay for that. It's not surprising that space travel would be the thing to inspire vast amounts of retail investors to behave in that manner.

Heck, some centuries ago you could buy indulgences to fund the building of St. Peter's Basilica. Maybe the feeling is real, maybe it's to justify the greed to one's self (like you seem to be doing), but just like the Church was selling the idea of a great eternal afterlife to rob you, this company is selling the idea of an interstellar future to do the same.

The church had to actively nag for those indulgences, with SpaceX people have been desperate to get their money in for years and years without SpaceX even asking for it.

> Maybe the feeling is real, maybe it's to justify the greed to one's self (like you seem to be doing)

For what it's worth, I do not own any spcx shares. I just think there's something fascinating happening here, and dismissing it as a mere scam because we dislike Elon Musk would be silly.

> this company is selling the idea of an interstellar future to do the same

It is also, perhaps, one of the easiest and more effective ways in which an individual can vote for such a future.

Geez, you still sound like a Catholic who believes in the idea of heaven, proud to say there's a couple of billion people just like you.

SpaceX will get us the interstellar future just as much as the Pope will get us to heaven... just put more faith in it!!!

I don’t believe in either of those things, I simply respect others’ right to do so.
And the pump and dump never stops. Next step, stave what would the inevitable bankruptcy of Tesla:

"SpaceX COO Shotwell says Tesla tie-up ‘might make Elon’s life a little easier’" - https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/12/spacex-coo-shotwell-tesla-de...

If only space travel wasn't almost a footnote to SpaceX's IPO. "The thing" Bryan is a part of is the worst and most controversial (and that's quite an accomplishment) of the frontier lab AIs.