SpaceX Valuation Climbs to $180B | Hacker News Reader

SpaceX Valuation Climbs to $180B

cnbc.com

28 pointsjdmark28 comments

We should ask ourselves why other launch providers have not done this? Why have we been told by BMW, Mercedes, Lexus "this is all there is", "people will only buy so many $100k cars per year". Then Tesla came an squeezed $1tn valuation into a niche we've been told does not exist. Or is impossible, unprofittable and we don't need that much innovation. Should we immediately fire all other CEOs?

In the end Musk hires the same people from the same planet, uses the same raw materials, banks and same customers.

What value was created? Car sales have not exactly exploded. [1]

[1] https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/global-car-sa...

The value is this magic building: you put metal sheets & plastic granulate in one door and cars come the other door.

Most other vendord are only a marketing shell whereas everything is outsourced to a galaxy of suppliers. Tesla has full vertical integration and captures value of the whole chain including dealerships. Plus Teslas are have performance of supercar and can demand much higher margins.

I am not sure about the other companies, but Tesla has no plan to ever pay dividends to stock holders so (buyout aside) the only "rational" value for the stock is 0 independently of its valutation.

The dividend strategy of a company has, or should have, minimal if any influence over the valuation of the company. Capital appreciation alone is sufficient. Indeed, in theory any issued dividend is merely a planned dilution of value.

I am not talking about the valutatio of the company but about the price of the stock.

The valutation of a company is meaningful for loans and investments, but not directly for retail trading.

If the stock pays 0 dividends then the only value it can have must be that of finding a greater fool to sell it to.

> If the stock pays 0 dividends then the only value it can have must be that of finding a greater fool to sell it to.

A share is what it says, a 1/x stake in ownership of the company.

What are you actually saying?, that a share in tesla has no value because no dividents?

I am talking about what is a reasonable price for something vs its market price.

As far as I know a stock has three useful uses:

- you can sell it to someone

- you can collect dividends

- if the company is sold you get a fraction of the sale

- if it is a voting share you can influence the company

For a company like Tesla only the first one applies and a tiny bit of the last one (by selling it you influence the price).

I am not sure about this but there might be cases were because of financing/loans/internal politics someone might want to have X% of the shares regardless of other benefits.

What I am saying is that for almost every retail investor the only value of Tesla's stock is that probably in the future other might want to buy it for more as the only thing you can do it to exchange it back for the currency you bought it for[0]. So the only "rational"[1] price should be (close to) 0.

[0] There might also be fiscal benefits, but I do not think they matter here/

[1] The market if often "irrational" and that is not a bad thing per se. It just means that sometimes prices are more driven by hype.

You’re completely right. The end goal of a company should be to provide some sort of dividend to the people that own the company. I understand if the company is new and still straddling R&D debt or getting market share. If the goal is to never provide dividends, the game is to pass the buck to another investor.

I actually believe that a company can and should have drives other than making money for the shareholders.

I would prefer if more companies had objectives like "make quality products affordable" or "cultivate and respect customer goodwill".

From this point of view I can imagine that some people bought Tesla stocks because they just want to help the company and I see no problem with that.

Yeah, this is it.

People get confused about dividends all the time, but they are essentially just a forced sale of your shares. Which is also a taxable event, and many try to avoid dividends for that reason.

I know this is what they teach in the 15th minute of a stock valuation class, but do you actually believe stocks like BRK and AMZN have no value despite never paying a dividend?

I know it’s because of profitability but it still blows my mind that Meta, which has pretty much single-handedly damaged the global psyche, is valued at almost 6x a company that launches rockets into space.

At this moment, the company that launches rockets into space is planning to gain the majority of its income by providing high-speed Internet access… so customers can access communications services like Meta.

Not just that, more rockets and mass to space than most spacefaring countries. With more every year.

It is not that mind blowing if we are talking about “evaluation” How many people care launching a satellite tomorrow more than chatting with a girl/man on Facebook? I think it is quite obvious.

Come on. Damaged global psyche? Seems a bit hyperbolic and unsupported by evidence.

The addressable market of rockets is considerably smaller than the addressable market selling ads... So there you go.

There is a growing body of evidence that high levels of engagement with social media is linked with an increase in risks for multiple types of psychological ailments.

Singling out Facebook is a tad unfair and causality still needs proving, but I don't think it can be called either hyperbolic or unsupported.

Any web search for 'social media mental health study' will provide as much evidence as one could possibly expect for that statement.

I'm just waiting for the pun headlines about SpaceX Mooning after announcing a Lunar mission

Can somebody name the names behind SpaceX success story. Not Elon obviously. So who manages the whole endeavor?

Gwen Shotsell, Tom Mueller, Hans Koenigsmann to name a few. But someone still had to hire this crew.

More than hiring: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/eviden...

> Gwen Shotsell

Gwynne Shotwell

Whoops that’s embarrassing.

Do people have to have an argument every single thread about whether SpaceX is successful "in spite of" Elon Musk?

If every discussion has to have people singing his praise? Then yes, every discussion should also have that being questioned.

The Gwyneth Paltrow lady at SpaceX.

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