For those paying attention, Elon's companies are running out of money and he's trying to save them by shifting cash from one to another. No doubt that Tesla will also be paying for 'Grok integration' into cars.
PS. For those about to write that Tesla has 30B in cash - it would be a very nice runaway for a small company, but when you are a carmaker employing 100k people and producing cars that are not selling, that cash pile burns really quickly.
The SpaceX investment is especially problematic as SpaceX has gotten $22bn government contract dollars. So depending on what money he is moving, taxpayers may be footing the bill for Grok development.
Really hard to know - as the numbers are not public, it's all guestimates.
Musk said in late 2023 that they achieved 'breakeven cash flow', but Bloomberg reported that they were actually loosing money on ground terminals.
It's also a lot of accounting game - Starlink satellites have a really short lifespan and will need to be replaced on a regular basis. SpaceX being a private company, there is no way to know how they account for that.
As for launches - most of their launches are for... themselves (Starlink) and quite a lot of the rest is for government / military - which are partly classified.
It will be as impressive as it is shortsighted if we throw away a strong lead in space (at least the US chunk of it) due at least partially to political feuding and populism.
I do wish the fellow had stuck with the boring (hah) business of space colonies and robot cars instead of getting sidetracked and baited with other stuff.
For those paying attention, Elon's companies are running out of money and he's trying to save them by shifting cash from one to another. No doubt that Tesla will also be paying for 'Grok integration' into cars.
PS. For those about to write that Tesla has 30B in cash - it would be a very nice runaway for a small company, but when you are a carmaker employing 100k people and producing cars that are not selling, that cash pile burns really quickly.
The SpaceX investment is especially problematic as SpaceX has gotten $22bn government contract dollars. So depending on what money he is moving, taxpayers may be footing the bill for Grok development.
They have also saved the govt over $100B compared to paying Russia and Boeing etc.
Is SX running out of money? They will be if they keep doing this, but I was under the impression they were still insanely profitable.
A few years ago, Musk said that if Starship isn't putting next generation Starlink satellites into orbit, SpaceX will go bankrupt.
5G FWA is eating away at the edges of Starlink's TAM, which makes delays even more expensive.
Really hard to know - as the numbers are not public, it's all guestimates.
Musk said in late 2023 that they achieved 'breakeven cash flow', but Bloomberg reported that they were actually loosing money on ground terminals.
It's also a lot of accounting game - Starlink satellites have a really short lifespan and will need to be replaced on a regular basis. SpaceX being a private company, there is no way to know how they account for that.
As for launches - most of their launches are for... themselves (Starlink) and quite a lot of the rest is for government / military - which are partly classified.
It will be as impressive as it is shortsighted if we throw away a strong lead in space (at least the US chunk of it) due at least partially to political feuding and populism.
I do wish the fellow had stuck with the boring (hah) business of space colonies and robot cars instead of getting sidetracked and baited with other stuff.
Thus undoing hundreds of billions of dollars vis-a-vis risk management in space.
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