[HN Gopher] SpaceX in Talks for Share Sale That Would Boost Valu...
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SpaceX in Talks for Share Sale That Would Boost Valuation to $800B
Author : bko
Score : 36 points
Date : 2025-12-05 18:49 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| mikkupikku wrote:
| If SpaceX doesn't get Starship operational soon, they're going to
| lose their advantage to Blue Origin and probably at least one of
| the several Chinese rocket companies.
| modeless wrote:
| Even without Starship Falcon Heavy is still competitive with
| New Glenn, and nobody is anywhere close to competing with
| Starlink (Amazon is still far behind, as is ASTS). And if
| Starship works SpaceX will still be in the lead for a long,
| long time.
|
| IMO the only remaining unanswered question for the Starship
| program is the reusability of the heat shield. There's no
| reason to believe any other part of it can't work.
| MichaelNolan wrote:
| I always had the impression that the propellant transfer was
| the harder question than the heat shield. They have done a
| transfer demo from one internal tank to another, but they
| still need to test from one ship to another ship.
|
| I only casually follow the news from r/spacex, but prop
| transfer is what I see generate the most discussion. It's a
| hard requirement for all deep space missions. Where the heat
| shield could be refurbished between launches.
| delichon wrote:
| The heat shield may be a "we don't know how to do the
| physics" problem, where propellant transfer is a "complex
| integration of well understood components" problem. If the
| heat shield requires per launch refurbishment it cripples
| the colonization dream.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| Propellant transfer isn't necessary for starlink launches.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| Deep space missions yes. But Starlink isn't deep space -
| and neither is the vast majority of commercial payloads.
|
| Propellant transfer is relevant because it's vital for
| sending entire Starships to Moon and Mars - which are the
| _exciting_ Starship missions. This includes Artemis. But
| commercially? Artemis contract isn 't even a large part of
| SpaceX's revenue.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Propellant transfer, with cryogenic propellants, can be
| done using cryocoolers. It's not too hard of a problem.
| Besides, Starship only needs prop transfer for Moon and
| Mars missions, but the later are fantasy and the former
| probably isn't going to happen either, and actually just
| regular LEO launches with a fully reusable rocket is where
| most of the money is anyway.
|
| The heat shield is a huge problem though. Without the heat
| shield, there's simply no way SpaceX can use Starship to
| make money.
| modeless wrote:
| Heat shield reuse is a big deal for orbital refueling too,
| because it requires 12+ launches in a short time frame. If
| you don't have heat shield reuse then you need 12+
| Starships and 12+ refurbishments per mission.
| eitau_1 wrote:
| New Glenn has an edge over Falcon Heavy and possibly over
| Starship when it comes to payload volume.
| standardUser wrote:
| China is currently building TWO competing starlink-type
| systems. Given the trajectory of China in recent years, I no
| longer say "nobody is anywhere close to competing with..."
| about pretty much anything.
| modeless wrote:
| China's constellations are roughly where Starlink was in
| early 2020, except that their launch costs remain much
| higher. Yes, they move fast, but SpaceX is one of the few
| US companies I'd bet on to compete with them.
|
| Also, I wonder how receptive the world will be to Chinese
| ISPs given their history of internet censorship at home.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Is that different from, say, a year ago? The Starship concept
| seems technically sound, and the doubt is about whether
| SpaceX can actually get there, given the rather slow
| (visible) pace of progress.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| I really want SpaceX to succeed, but the Starship heat shield
| situation seems quite fucked. I heard they're even
| reconsidering active cooling now. Maybe they'll figure
| something out but I don't consider that a foregone
| conclusion.
| htrp wrote:
| > IMO the only remaining unanswered question for the Starship
| program is the reusability of the heat shield. There's no
| reason to believe any other part of it can't work.
|
| Is there a tldr someone put together here ?
| firesteelrain wrote:
| I don't see how. SpaceX is still very agile and has the most
| reliable launch platform
| minetest2048 wrote:
| > several Chinese rocket companies
|
| As much as I want to fly with Chinese rocket to encourage
| launcher competition and redundancy, export controls prevent me
| from doing that.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Perhaps. But history suggests that "soon" will still be 6+
| years. Scaling up from the first few successful launches of a(n
| orbital) rocket, to high-frequency / high-reliability / low
| cost launches of that rocket, appears to be extremely
| difficult.
| garbawarb wrote:
| Given Musk's pay package that requires getting Tesla's valuation
| to $8 trillion, isn't it obvious that he should absorb all of his
| holdings (SpaceX, X, xAI) into Tesla?
| delichon wrote:
| That pay package was a reaction to the large problems he is
| having competing with ESG forces for control of the company.
| Keeping SpaceX private is another. He described it as trying to
| keep the robot army he is building out of enemy hands.
| fundad wrote:
| What does "ESG forces" add to the discussion other than
| culture-war flaming?
| gsibble wrote:
| The accuracy that people want to actively sabotage Elon's
| plans for Tesla.
| delichon wrote:
| It's a big reason why SpaceX is staying private. To
| understand this news it helps to know that Musk considers
| ESG to be the enemy.
| markdown wrote:
| And wtf is ESG?
| throwup238 wrote:
| Environmental, social, and governance: https://en.wikiped
| ia.org/wiki/Environmental,_social,_and_gov...
| bfeynman wrote:
| Would think that blue origin and project kuiper launching for
| amazon that would put downward pressure on SpaceX, as they are
| about to have a huge amount of competition for starlink, as
| Amazon has massive distribution advantages - wouldn't be
| surprised introductory bundling with Prime etc...
| saubeidl wrote:
| > as they are about to have a huge amount of competition for
| starlink
|
| Don't forget about IRIS2!
| gsibble wrote:
| What are you joking? Amazon is super far behind and unlikely to
| be able to launch its satellites in time to meet its FCC
| licensing requirements. They won't even be only for 24+ months.
| Meanwhile Starlink is growing very quickly.
|
| Amazon is not a competitor until they actually have a viable
| product which they may never achieve.
| standardUser wrote:
| China will match Starlink in ~5 years and will push adoption
| hard through it's Belt and Road initiative, just as it has
| with it's (admittedly superior) GPS system. Starlink may
| become the de facto option in the Western world, but it won't
| have a chance at a global monopoly.
| ben_w wrote:
| > Starlink may become the de facto option in the Western
| world, but it won't have a chance at a global monopoly.
|
| Well, the US sphere of influence, at least.
|
| Musk's aggravating enough of Europe that he may find that
| door is closing and locking.
| danny_codes wrote:
| Starlink is not going to be a monopoly. The other big
| countries won't allow it.
|
| Like Tesla, SpaceX was ahead of the game by making big bets
| on new technology. Over time, that lead erodes when other
| players start competing. Tesla is now a declining player in
| EVs rapidly falling behind market leaders in AV and battery
| tech. I suspect spaceX will have a similar trajectory
| spwa4 wrote:
| Probably a good idea to do it now, because Trump has made sure
| SpaceX is about to have yet another European, a Chinese and an
| Indian competitor soon. 2 out of 3 have already demonstrated
| landing a rocket, as has Blue origin in the US with the New Glenn
| launch + landing. Plus a few countries are thinking about it, at
| least Switzerland, South Korea and Israel if you can believe it.
|
| Also the EU has setup a working Starlink competitor (by approving
| the feature on "old" satellites), and China is already doing
| launches and theirs should be at least partially operational.
| Russia claims to have a working Starlink competitor and India is
| building one.
|
| Oh and as for profitability ... not that Starlink hasn't been
| tried 10 times before, with the most spectacular crash being
| Iridium, but that was far from the only attempt+bankruptcy
| building Space internet. Well, the economics are discussed in
| this video:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaUCDZ9d09Y
|
| TLDR: SpaceX is bankrupt, Starlink is a pets.com "We lose on
| every sale but make it up on volume" style move. So yes, high
| time to sell the stock indeed.
|
| Oh, and Blue Origin _has_ beat SpaceX to Mars and will be the
| first private company getting a payload to Mars soon (the
| "ESCAPADE" mission). As in payload is on the way and there's no
| way SpaceX can catch up anymore. In fact it's pretty tough
| finding another rocket manufacturer that has _not_ launched a
| mission to Mars. Boeing has launched payloads to Mars. Blue
| origin has. Arianespace has. Russia has. Not especially
| economically relevant* but worth mentioning. Economics are not
| what determines either rocket building or launches and hasn 't
| ever done so. Which means rocket launches are cheaper than they
| can be in private hands.
|
| * what is economically relevant though is that SpaceX is not even
| saving the US government money. The US government cannot risk
| having SpaceX as a single option to get to orbit, so it has no
| choice developing a publicly funded rocket program. Everyone
| always makes the point that SpaceX is cheaper than SLS. However
| ... this fails to correctly compare prices for the only options
| the US government has:
|
| Option 1: pay for SLS
|
| Option 2: pay for SLS _and_ SpaceX.
|
| So really the price of SpaceX rocket launches doesn't even
| matter, not using SpaceX will be the cheapest option because
| math.
| vardump wrote:
| > Plus Blue Origin has beat SpaceX to Mars
|
| What about that Tesla that regularly crosses Mars orbit? Ok,
| it's not on Mars, but it was just about calculating an orbit.
| They could have smashed it on Mars as well.
| spwa4 wrote:
| Nice, the wording of "smashed it". Because, the point of
| getting to Mars or Mars orbit is that you need rocket burns
| to insert and to land on Mars. Getting to places in space is
| a delta-V game and paying only half your delta-V costs
| doesn't count because it doesn't work.
| wat10000 wrote:
| If that's why it matters, then why are you crediting BO for
| that when they didn't have anything to do with the parts
| which will be performing those burns?
| notahacker wrote:
| Injecting a dummy payload into an eccentric helicentric orbit
| which periodically crosses' Mars' orbit /= a Mars mission.
| The complexity and relevance to future human presence on Mars
| isn't close
|
| (Though tbf the choice of launch vehicle isn't _that_
| relevant to whether the ESCAPADE mission succeeds, and
| missions involving Mars flybys like Hera which are lot more
| serious than the Tesla one have been launched on SpaceX
| rockets)
| wat10000 wrote:
| If injecting a payload into an eccentric heliocentric orbit
| doesn't count, then why does injecting a payload into MEO
| count, just because that payload is then capable of getting
| to Mars from there? BO didn't launch it to Mars, they
| launched it to orbit, and ESCAPADE is now getting itself to
| Mars.
| dgoodell wrote:
| Option 1 isn't really an option, unfortunately. There are no
| viable single launch options using it. So it's really SLS x 2.
| But building and launching one SLS at a time is almost too much
| as it is. If that's the only option, I think Artemis is dead
| and we should start over.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Every time someone mentions Eutelsat as a competitor I'm
| reminded that my own friend group has multiple people who can
| simply buy the entire company, which sort of describes how
| successful it is.
|
| Option 1 isn't an option, really. NSSL policy is to ensure that
| there are two independent providers so that Assured Access To
| Space can work.
| diamond559 wrote:
| Yep, he is desperate for cash, he is leveraged to the hilt on
| his shares which is why he desperately begs his fanboys for
| more. His empire is a house of cards.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Blue Origin has beat SpaceX to Mars_
|
| As you said, not especially relevant to a financial discussion.
|
| > _as for profitability_
|
| SpaceX is profitable.
|
| > _US government cannot risk having SpaceX as a single option
| to get to orbit, so it has no choice developing a publicly
| funded rocket program_
|
| Being the U.S. government's prime contractor while it keeps ULA
| on life support is a great deal. Same for Europe and
| Arianespace.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Ridiculous. SpaceX offers a product that costs far less than
| its competitors while being as good or better in most respects.
| Their profit margins on launches must be enormous at this
| point.
|
| That in turn enables Starlink. They can put up thousands of
| satellites very cheaply. Then they can turn around and sell
| subscriptions. Starlink has about 8 million active customers.
| At $40+/month, that's at least $4 billion/year in revenue.
| Probably a lot more. Given their launch costs, that's a ton of
| profit.
|
| "not that Starlink hasn't been tried 10 times before" is
| just... not true. Nothing like it was ever tried before.
| Iridium is the only one that came even vaguely close, and it
| was still a radically different type of service. Iridium was
| extremely low capacity phone service, then low-bandwidth (it
| made dialup look super fast by comparison) data, with a network
| of a few dozen satellites covering the globe. It could not
| support many customers because it had few satellites. It also
| had to pay for launches in the 1990s, so an order of magnitude
| or more costlier. That means that it was _enormously_
| expensive, for a product few people actually needed. Handsets
| cost thousands of dollars, then you got to pay several dollars
| _per minute_ on top of that.
|
| Iridium was basically space dialup, and extremely expensive
| space dialup at that. Starlink is space broadband, and their
| cheap launch costs and other technological advancements mean
| the service is profitable at a competitive price point.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Why not a $40T valuation? Let's really think big here. /s
| jjcm wrote:
| 800b valuation on 13b of revenue in 2024. That's a _61x
| multiple_.
|
| Boeing for comparison has a 2x multiple (65b rev with a 154b
| valuation).
| spongebobstoes wrote:
| SpaceX has hints of monopoly, has shown consistent innovation,
| and has an ambitious long term vision. Boeing lacks all of the
| above, so it's apples and oranges
| FatherOfCurses wrote:
| Boeing has an over 100 year history of consistently
| delivering products at all levels of its industry. SpaceX has
| .... good vibes?
| misiti3780 wrote:
| Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore beg to differ.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| > Boeing has an over 100 year history of consistently
| delivering products
|
| Like Starliner?
|
| > SpaceX has .... good vibes?
|
| ...if by "good vibes" you mean:
|
| - 138 rocket launches last year
|
| - Global low-latency internet
| cwillu wrote:
| Both "global" and "low-latency" are glossing over
| significant caveats.
| delichon wrote:
| I'm using their services to chat with you right now. You
| are correct, it's all done with good electromagnetic
| vibrations.
| bigyabai wrote:
| My experience was less good. Starlink suffered from
| intermittent outages, and enough bitrate jitter to make
| video calling a distraction. Latency was good but still
| higher than advertised, and the average download speed
| felt noticeably slower than wired broadband. It wasn't
| uncommon to see 50% dropped packets while playing a game
| or watching live content, which is more than I saw with
| Hughesnet.
|
| It's preferable to 3G or being stranded in the woods, but
| there are definitely points where I wondered if a 4G LTE
| hotspot would have been faster for home internet.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Is satellite internet advertised as being more capable
| than a 4G LTE hotspot?
|
| From my understanding, physics would not allow that (for
| a decent, not oversubscribed 4G LTE mobile connection and
| backhaul). But those parameters exist for satellite
| internet, too.
| ragebol wrote:
| And recently went off a cliff. Have you heard about the 737
| MAX, with not one but 2 crashes due to problems with it's
| control system?
| standardUser wrote:
| It's about growth potential. Boeing has all the excitement
| of a utility company, just with bigger publicity problems.
| SpaceX has the potential to forge whole new industries. If
| you're bullish on space tourism or asteroid mining, SpaceX
| is the best bet on the table right now.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If you 're bullish on space tourism or asteroid
| mining_
|
| You don't need either of these to justify the thesis.
| Just LEO constellations.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Starliner leaving astronauts stranded after first not
| making it to the space station.
|
| 737 MAX crashing and killing people due to slapped-together
| flight control integration.
|
| 737 MAX having windows blow out due to sheer manufacturing
| incompetence.
|
| KC-46 deliveries being rejected due to literal tools being
| found in fuel tanks.
|
| Boeing HAD an over 100 year history of delivering. You can
| build a thousand bridges. No one's calling you a
| bridgebuilder after you shag just one sheep.
| DarmokJalad1701 wrote:
| Ah yes. One of them got $2.6B for six flights. The other
| one got $4.2B for six flights.
|
| One of them flew six flights successfully, got contract
| extended further to 14 flights for a total of 4.93 billion.
| They also flew other paying customers seven times.
|
| In that time, the second one flew once with astronauts, and
| had so many problems that they ended up coming home on the
| first guy's spacecraft.
|
| I will let you figure out who is who.
|
| Consistent delivery at all levels indeed.
| danny_codes wrote:
| I don't know about that.
|
| Europe and China are both working on reusable rockets. Blue
| Origin is doing the same.
|
| Access to space is a national security thing so all big
| countries will fund their own alternatives.
|
| Assuming the US continues to alienate its allies, I assume
| spaceX will be limited to the domestic market in 5-10 years.
| Why buy from the US when you can buy from more reliable
| players
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Europe and China are both working on reusable rockets.
| Blue Origin is doing the same_
|
| China and Blue Origin are Europe may be funding the
| research, but Arianespace ensures it's more than a decade
| away from matching today's Falcon Heavy.
|
| > _Assuming the US continues to alienate its allies, I
| assume spaceX will be limited to the domestic market in
| 5-10 years. Why buy from the US when you can buy from more
| reliable players_
|
| Because it's cheaper and more frequent.
| general1465 wrote:
| > Because it's cheaper and more frequent.
|
| The thing is that you can't put a price tag on national
| security. For example Ukraine got F16s. Good plane.
| However after a spat between Zelensky a Trump, Ukrainian
| F16 got no new updates to their jammers, which
| temporarily degraded the plane performance and Ukrainians
| needed to pull them out of frontlines.
|
| Sometimes it is just better to fly on a plane which is
| not the top performer, but which you can control and
| manufacture or which a neighbor with same geopolitical
| problems like you can control and manufacture - i.e.
| Swedish SAAB JAS39
|
| Same with space launches. Furthermore SpaceX is US
| company, so US government will want to know everything
| about the payload, probably down to the schematics and
| software, which is a big no-no for national security, but
| even for IP protection - what is stopping US government
| to supplying your IP to your US competitor? Nothing.
| moogly wrote:
| JAS 39 Gripen is using a US engine with export controls,
| so they could stop that too if they wanted to...
| https://en.defence-
| ua.com/news/gripen_still_relies_on_us_eng...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _you can 't put a price tag on national security_
|
| Of course you can. It costs more, but a finite amount
| more.
|
| Your argument is it'sz worth paying that cost. I agree.
| But those cases are limited, both by the customer base
| and that additional cost.
|
| SpaceX is not launching non-U.S. national security
| payloads. That's not great for American power. But it's a
| rounding error for a launch provider putting mass in
| orbit over three times a week [1].
|
| [1] https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-
| spacecraft/...
| richard___ wrote:
| Ukraine has no money. Of course cost matters
| rayiner wrote:
| > Assuming the US continues to alienate its allies
|
| I wouldn't make business or investment decisions based on
| any assumptions about "alienation." I was just in Tokyo for
| a week of meetings with various business professionals, and
| there was zero sign of any "alienation." I was expecting to
| spend most of the time talking about tariffs and nobody
| even about them. Everyone instead was focused on the new
| Prime Minister's faux pas commenting on the security of
| Taiwan.
|
| Just one set of data points, of course, but consider
| whether this concept of alienation is real or a creation of
| US media.
| nightshift1 wrote:
| just another sign that the world does not revolve around
| the us anymore.
| diamond559 wrote:
| Fanboy detected. The only thing they are consistent on is
| blowing up taxpayer bought rockets.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| I have criticized Musk plenty and have been skeptical of
| the Starship timelines from the beginning, however, SpaceX
| has launched over 150 times this year. That's more than the
| entire rest of the world. Surely they must be doing
| something right?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_in_spaceflight
| DarmokJalad1701 wrote:
| > The only thing they are consistent on is blowing up
| taxpayer bought rockets.
|
| Weird. I must have been imagining the Falcon 9 launching
| more mass to orbit this year than the entirety of the rest
| of the planet. More than all the flights of the Space
| Shuttle program combined.
| teamonkey wrote:
| I think the era where a company's valuation is defined by its
| fundamentals is firmly behind us.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _800b valuation on 13b of revenue in 2024. That 's a 61x
| multiple_
|
| From about $9bn in 2023. 40%+ growth yields a PRG ratio
| (modified PEG [1]) of about 1.5x.
|
| Boeing managed to increase its revenue in 2025 about 10%,
| putting its similar ratio at around 0.2x. SpaceX trading around
| 7x where Boeing trades doesn't strike me, at first glance, as
| unreasonable.
|
| [1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/pegratio.asp
| antoniuschan99 wrote:
| Here's a good infographic on how dominant SpaceX is in the launch
| market
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1iarntp/orbit...
| thinkcontext wrote:
| I wonder if this has more to do with XAi than SpaceX. He recently
| had SpaceX invest $2B into XAi due to the AI arms race. If SpaceX
| had unneeded cash sitting around why raise money now?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _why raise money_
|
| "SpaceX is kicking off a secondary share sale." It isn't
| raising money, it's letting insiders sell. In the past, SpaceX
| has been a net _buyer_ of its shares in such tenders.
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