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Some owners of private companies don't see the goal of the company as profit maximization - eg SpaceX.

With a public company there's always going to be a shareholder to sue you for not maximizing profit.

https://www.litigationandtrial.com/2010/09/articles/series/s...

SpaceX is somewhat expected to produce profit at some point, else it would have been registered as a non-profit

SpaceX definitely wants to make a profit. I don't think building a city on Mars is profit maximization though and this is Elon's explicit reason for not taking SpaceX public.

> According to the company, the short-term demands of shareholders conflict with his long-term ambitions.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/121515/will-el...

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