alt Hacker NewsThe datacenter thing is mostly just a meme that billionaires say because it makes them feel smart and gets them media attention, it doesn't seem to move stock significantly.
The actual distortion field is around Starlink. Which is the main product and the only one that's (nominally) profitable. It's the one all the hype centers around. xAI is barely even notable in the AI space.
This also makes it possible to judge the size of the distortion field, as Starlink is just an ISP, for which we have accurate valuations. And for what it concerns shareholders, a strictly worse one than a conventional ISP. Space infra is much more expenive than putting some glass in the ground, once.
Comcast is a behemoth of a company doing far more than just ISP. Worth a "mere" $90 billion. Charter Communications is a similarly sized "pure" telecom. Worth $20 billion.
Both of the above ISP companies have roughly 30 million subscribers. Starlink has 10 million. Yet they want $2 trillion at IPO.
A 20x to 100x overvaluation. And what do you get beyond an ISP?
* A private aerospace company that's not doing notably better than the space divisions of old aerospace. (Remember: Starlink is already accounted for so doesn't count here)
* An AI company that has so little demand it's currently handing a bunch of compute to Anthropic for such a deep discount the latter has claimed to become profitable.
* Twitter. Which is worth either $33b if you count Elon's internal buyout valuation, or $10b if you count realistic valuations.
While there is some hype around "The future of space!", the reality is that the long term growth for that is fairly dead in the current geopolitical climate. Nobody's saying it out loud yet but US Aerospace is being replaced. Fewer and fewer US launches will be bought. The EU is even building their own Starlink equivalent.
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> The datacenter thing is mostly just a meme that billionaires say because it makes them feel smart and gets them media attention, it doesn't seem to move stock significantly.
A significant portion of their valuation is based on this. The spacex private stock price moved significantly based on this data center narrative.
> And for what it concerns shareholders, a strictly worse one than a conventional ISP.
This is ignorance. There is absolutely zero meaningful competition to Starlink in the maritime, aviation, and remote internet markets. 150mbps down with <80ms latency isn’t impressive in a city but it’s mind blowing on an airplane 1000 miles from land.
> The EU is even building their own Starlink equivalent.
No they aren’t. The only somewhat credible competitor so far is Amazon Kuiper(Leo) and they are still nascent.
You also forgot starshield.
I find it amusing to read comments like these, because they remind me of the massive awareness gap between people who understand SpaceX's product line, and those who don't.
In your world, you only see and interpret SpaceX's existing products. You then see SpaceX's eye-watering valuation, and then are confused where this comes from.
Meanwhile, people who understand SpaceX's product line, and the implications these products in five or ten years, can analyze the situation more accurately.
I can tell you are in the unaware group, since you don't mention nor analyze two of SpaceX's world-changing products (Starship and Starlink Mobile).
Starship is going to make whole entire industries viable that were not viable previously. It might even take a significant chunk of air freight which is going to be a big deal with rising oil prices.