[gwerbin]

Aramark is a horrible company for comparison. Maybe the only thing they have in common with SpaceX is that they are publicly traded companies. I'm not saying that SpaceX is a good investment or that Musk isn't trying to run a scam on index investors. But we also shouldn't be surprised that the financials of an incompetent commercial food service provider are a little different from those of a spaceflight company / data center real estate conglomerate / whatever else has been rolled into it.

[nixon_why69]

Aramark is a specifically chosen insult for comparison. If spacex is less attractive than a mediocre food-service company (former employee for the record), what are they?

[oblio]

LOL. I'm not American, I chose Aramark at random because... <drumroll>... Aramark has the same revenue as SpaceX:

https://companiesmarketcap.com/largest-companies-by-revenue/...

You've just told me that "the financials of an incompetent commercial food service provider" are better than those of SpaceX.

Aramark is profitable and SpaceX is wildly unprofitable[1] :-)))

* * *

[1] Almost nothing SpaceX does points at SpaceX scaling to huge profitability. The rocket business is super capital intensive and losing money. And its biggest customer by far is Starlink. Starlink is profitable, but even so, if Starlink hiccups, SpaceX rocketry goes kaput. Oh, the second biggest customer is the US government, and you only need one hostile US administration for that business to go away. xAI is a 2-bit player in the AI space and it's losing money hand over fist.

[gwerbin]

Lol I meant "incumbent", that was a STT typo. But yes I get the point. My own point is that even a good-faith honest IPO for a spaceflight company probably won't look anything like Aramark. It's always going to be a bet on technology, not a share in the predictable profit stream of a boring company that serves pizza in school cafeterias.

[oblio]

I would <<definitely>> agree with you if about 90% of their valuation wouldn't be based on them selling themselves as primordially as an AI company. "$28tn total addressable market", "data centers in space", etc.

[jjav]

> Aramark is profitable and SpaceX is wildly unprofitable

Yes but TSLA will be self-driving in Mars soon and therefore.... profit!