And winning athletes and sports teams don't go to the white house due to 'scheduling conflicts'. And Amazon paid $75m for a Melania documentary because they saw real profit and need there. And Qatar bought Trump an airplane because it was important for his work. And everyone nominates him for a nobel prize because he ends wars and doesn't get into wars (we're just in a special military operation atm).
Also anecdotal evidence, I haven't been sick this whole past 12 months. Any change I made in the past 12 I could've contributed to this. Nothing particular comes to mind but there were lots of changes (e.g. work, home, diet). That's the issue.
You'd have to stop sauna for a while and see if it reverses to strengthen the anecdotal case I guess.
I think Musk definitely financed many of his ventures on his personal brand. The amount of capital he could raise because of his public persona as some kind of Tony Stark, made all the difference.
Same for Andreessen, a VC's success is built on his ability to raise capital and pick winners. His whole strategy, like Musk, was also on building a public persona to raise capital and get people to believe in his picks.
The question is what you think now of their old opinions. If you think the same, they have changed. If you think differently, you have changed.
If I look at Elon and Marc's interviews from 10-15 years ago I am still roughly 80% in agreement, 20% disagreement. I feel the same about what they used to say today, as I did back then.
Now I'm 20% in agreement (they definitely still have interesting thoughts) and 80% absolutely disgusted (with both, but particularly Musk).
> Now I'm 20% in agreement (they definitely still have interesting thoughts) and 80% absolutely disgusted (with both, but particularly Musk).
> So I genuinely think they changed in this regard
Everyone has changed. You, me, Musk, Andreesen. But in that time, the disparity between them and "us" in wealth and even more importantly, political power, has ballooned. Their increasing power has fueled their sense of infallibility and inevitability.
It's not yet clear what these changes will engender in us. We are more numerous and divergent in perspectives and interests.
But it's actual revenue was $10b in 2025 on 9m customers, so he's pretty much correct.
The point I have more issue with is that a 60 or 100 PE ratio only makes sense in a high-growth scenario. Telecoms are valued at 9x by comparison. 60 or 100 only makes sense if you expect it to grow by 10x from here, and face no competition and keep prices this high.
And that seems like a bit of a reach. The richest people on the planet live in urban environments in US/EU/Asia, with fast and widespread 5G.
Yes, rich people on boats in the pacific, hiking remote mountains, and researchers in Antartica exist, but they're not a market of 200 million people. And even if you get there, that's still just 120b, not 380b valuation.
1. Tesla was priced at $2.5b end of 2010.
2. Tesla started production that year of the model S, with nearly 500km range and 0-100 in 4.4 seconds, still competitive 16 years later. It was an obvious disruption of a proven market.
3. that car market was valued at half a trillion at the time.
So Tesla being valued at 0.5% of the market, with disruptive technology, seems fine. Of course it was a moonshot, but hindsight is 20/20.
But what is the total market here that it's stepping into? Seems like SpaceX is servicing the majority of the market for years, yet it just has 16 billion revenue. How that gets you to 1.75 trillion, I don't know.
Sure but this is a shrinking market population, right? We're not talking about 1 billion Chinese, as far as I know there's about 5000 people on Antartica at any point in time. Most of those are concentrated in the same areas meaning a connection can be shared. How that gets you to $300 billion valuation I don't know.
I mean if you value a company for its future cashflows, how long will Starlink be the only game in town? Will we not see other rockets/space-internet competitors in 2040 for example, in 15 years from now, from any other company (or even, any other state actor)? I think we will, and I think that timeline is generous. Without a monopoly you're competing the price towards marginal cost to cater to a tiny and shrinking fraction of the world that needs satelite internet. The vast majority of people live in urban environments, particularly among those who can afford internet in the first place, and it's only growing further in that direction.
I think Starlink is a wonderful product but there's a reason it has $10b revenue, while telecom companies around the world do more than $1.7 trillion in revenue.[0]
1. are your finances going to be screwed from overpaying for SpaceX IPO shares through your index fund? No because as you say, it's a small fraction of typical index funds.
2. Is this a form of financial malfeasance? I think yes. The average 401k has about $150k in it. Even if just 0.5% goes to SpaceX, that's $750 per American. That's a few hundred billion. It's serious cash. If that's going to overpaying Elon 3x or whatever it is for these shares, that's a travesty. Even if for each individual it's a tiny blip that doesn't show up in the annual ROI graphs, it's a form of corruption. Like the programmer infamous Salami slicing stories at banks.
If the SpaceX IPO is wildly overpriced, even if you have just 300k in your account, yo
It's 24 years old with 16 billion revenue. Suppose you had a warchest and had the option to buy SpaceX at 1750 billion, or to spend a fraction of that to replicate its technology. Could you?
I've seen estimates that SpaceX spent less than $50-60 billion in cash during its lifetime. That's in the range of its cumulative revenue + capital raised, too.
I just don't really see how this couldn't be replicated, if the market was big enough. But it seems to me that Space isn't that useful yet, and the market isn't that big yet, to the point that it doesn't warrant lots of competitors like the thinking on AI.
Even the SLS cost less than $50bn to develop, which is a lot, but only a fraction of what SpaceX is apparently worth.
Developing a new rocket like the Falcon 9, even a reusable one, would cost a private investor less than $10bn. It would take time, that is the hardest part. But in terms of cash, it is a fraction of this valuation.
Then a constellation like Starlink - again, we are talking $10-$15bn. Once you have the rocket, the satellite design is not going to cost much. The challenge is getting the regulatory approvals and getting the launch rate up.
Then developing something like Starship, again a few billions, certainly far less than $50 bn. A crew capsule too, that would be a few billion, but probable <$5 bn.
For a trillion dollars you could probably throw in a space station (the ISS was about $100bn), a few advanced orbiting telescopes, a human mission to Mars, and maybe an intensive exploration of Europa. Heck, why not land something on Pluto just for kicks.
I'd say don't let perfect be the enemy of good/better. Moving from US to EU is a move for the better. But EU isn't perfect, and there might be even better options available, but unless you have them, I'd recommend starting with the move to EU.
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