Starlink’s expansion faces growing geopolitical pressure. The global internet service market is not a unified market that a single company can easily swallow. xAI has already fallen behind in the competition. Space-based data centers cannot solve the fundamental problems of radiation and heat dissipation in orbit, and the practical obstacles are substantial: launch costs, maintenance difficulty, thermal management, radiation damage, orbital replacement, data-transmission latency, ground-station bandwidth, insurance costs, space-debris risks, regulation, and militarization.
Over the long run, SpaceX’s space technologies will also face intense competition from China. Its real barriers to entry are not as high as the market narrative suggests.
That is why I strongly agree with the view that SpaceX’s real value is being amplified by the Musk myth, the Trump trade, the AI narrative, the fantasy of space colonization, and index-fund-driven capital flows. On top of a real asset, the market has layered a huge mythological premium.
Regarding "the fantasy of space colonization," the terraforming of Mars is practically impossible because there is not enough CO2 to generate a breathable oxygen atmosphere by photosynthesis.
Setting aside the fact that Musk is an exceptionally silly man, does anyone know the long term effects of ketamine?
Aye, it looks like clinical use of ketamine combined with psychotherapeutic guidance effectively takes advantage of its dissociative properties to break through "stuck" emotional states. (The psychotherapy is to help you establish an alternative to PTSD, OCD, severe depression or whatever reinforcement loop you suffer from.)
It says something about investors that they heard some guy railing about colonizing Mars and instead of having him escorted out of the building for being a bona fide crazy person, they gave him a trillion dollars.
Ditto the AI bros and "this technology will end white-collar work."
He's spent decades pumping up the stock value with constant lies about what his companies are going to do and when they are going to do it.
If we had a country where white collar crimes were actually prosecuted, he would be in jail. With crooks like Musk and Trump, most Americans think it's legal to manipulate markets.
I mean my comment is much more about what investors consider a "selling point."
For instance, if I had a million dollars to invest and some guy were telling me that his technology would be used to colonize Mars I would tell him "you're fucking stupid, that's impossible and a waste of money even if it were." If some guy were telling me that his technology would unemploy millions of white-collar workers, I would tell him he's evil and that's a really stupid idea even if his technology could do that. If some guy were telling me his technology would make cars drive themselves, I would tell him that's not a laudable goal.
Fuck these investors and their belief systems. The big problem is how many of these investors hate humanity and want to render everybody obsolete and poor so that they can make billions of dollars.
You may be right about what the billionaires think, yet that thought is wrong. Generating wealth requires creating a large middle class to buy whatever the billionaires are selling. That, in turn, requires a truly prosperous middle class.
Your logic is unassailable, Skian, and certainly applies to run-of-the-mill millionaires. What about mega-millionaires and billionaires, though? Many have reached the point that they and their families will never spend all the money they have now. IOW, if they make tangible products, they don't need to ever sell anything else. Granted, many of the uber-wealthy either inherited their money or they make it through finance, one way or another. But the Waltons, for instance, could liquidate merchandise at fire-sale prices, close all their stores and sell the properties, and retire from business entirely. To be wealthy beyond calculation for the rest of their lives, they don’t need the middle class.
I suspect that's the mindset that at least some of the 1% are adopting.
From everything I’ve observed, you seem to be absolutely correct about how billionaires make money. That is why I have trouble understanding the “thinking” of the AI billionaires who say AI will eliminate many middle class workers. That is just an empty dream they are selling to businesses that want to reduce their work force. We have already seen many businesses fire hundreds of employees in order to purchase AI systems.
As someone whose car got slammed (totaled) by a human-driven car blowing through a stop sign, I find I am relieved when the other "driver" is Waymo. Of course, human liability systems are such that autonomous vehicles have to be far, far safer than human-driven vehicles for people to accept them.
Attempts to create reliable autonomous driving are yielding excellent assistive systems. Recently on a highway, a muscle car passed me at over 100 mph (based on my speed and sense of how quickly it passed me). It almost hit me, but an assistive system yanked me out of its way instead.
I get the sense that if/when there is a Democrat in the White House, they will be elected by voters who are absolutely out for blood against these fucks.
There is a reason why Peter Thiel has decamped to Argentina.
What's more: the amount of criminal exposure that Musk has in Europe, particularly France and the UK, is underrated. Think Keir Starmer really has any reason not to prosecute Musk for inciting race riots in Belfast?
Reposting this comment from last week as it shows what a scam artist Musk is...
In October 2016, Elon Musk promised that by the end of 2017, a Tesla would be able to drive autonomously from Los Angeles to New York City without the need for a single touch. Musk stated that the car would operate fully autonomously, covering the coast-to-coast route without any human intervention, including automatic charging along the route. He added that this capability would be "replicable by every car Tesla makes" from that point forward.
It is almost ten years later now, and this feat is still nowhere near possible. Anybody got a bridge to sell? Anyone wanna buy some tulips?
And yet, despite Musk's many shortcomings - along with his despicable nature - people still "worship" him, Wall Street still believes in him, and women are still having his babies! How to explain this?
There are the fanbois who think he is a forward-thinking genius, and then there is the standard crowd of people who admire and fawn over insane amounts of wealth.
In addition to Mars having almost no atmosphere - its surface pressure is equivalent to Earth's atmosphere at an altitude of 30 - 60 km. - Mars has very low gravity, 38% of that on Earth, and is exposed to much higher levels of cosmic radiation.
Colonizing Mars means living in hellish conditions - a pressurized chamber at low gravity - permanently.
Market bubbles are essentially fads. The cool kids get in early and out quickly. The not-so-cool kids arrive late to the party, buy high and take the fall... It would, however be quite satisfying to see Elon lynched by a mob of his shareholders.
At this point almost everyone with an index fund or a pension is a shareholder. Musk and his cronies and pals have been able to manipulate the index fund system to prop up the stock price at levels completely disconnected from the underlying company value. Sure, there are Musk fanboys who will buy at any price. But their investments are a drop in the bucket compared to the index funds.
SpaceX is a symptom of the elites control of the narrative and the brainwashing power of social and mass media. Elon, Zuckerberg, the Murdochs, the Ellison's and other right-wing oligarchs completely control the minds of the masses. We can scream all we want on liberal media about the stupidity and hypocrisy but nothing written here will change a single thing. It's like watching a horror movie, no amount of screaming at the screen will change the outcome. Until the left has a trillionaire champion countering the ownership of our social media and mass media, we are a dying voice in the wind.
And this is exacerbated by the manosphere. So, so, so many young men, really men of any age who follow the junk, buy into the hype of gaming a system, get rich quick schemes, etc. I sub in a high school. I am shocked by the number of high school boys who are on their phones or computers watching some high risk stock. Another teacher and I tried to explain to a group of them how that risk works. They would not believe us. They kept bringing up different influencers who “know” differently. They idolize these people. It’s really just laziness and gambling, not to mention illegal, as my experience would assume most kids do so without supervision.
Those young men are under a lot of pressure by mass media to compete by being ripped and wealthy to get the girl they they've been influenced to desire. They are just as manipulated as the girl who wants plastic surgery in high school. We as a society are supposed to regulate against this type of thing hurting our children, hence the social media ban for those under 16 in the UK. Unfortunately, that kind of regulation will never happen here again due to the capture of our government by the oligarchs that can only be countered by an equal amount of wealth and power working for the common good - which is hard to do when the wealth created that caused the corruption is due to corruption, so we are trapped without a means of countering corruption without matching the rule breaking of the corrupt. It takes a dictatorship to kill a dictatorship. Once a democracy is corrupted, you can't vote to fix it.
It all started to go downhill with mobile phones, social media, and then Citizens United. If any commenter on this forum is constantly on their phones and/or social media, then they are also enabling this horror show.
It probably started when Og's son decided he wanted to make spears instead of clubs. Roman philosophers were complaining about the younger generation 2,000 years ago.
AND exactly why critical thinking, + a moral compass, is indelibly important (noting moral compasses are not equal). Whatever critical thinking exists will soon be diluted with LLM "ai" models who can choose who & what to persuasively message. THIS is the inherent danger.
Yup. Are you saying tailored AI messaging is the biggest threat? If so yeah absolutely I agree. Even smart educated progressives are at risk of manipulation imo. Austin Texas is a good example of that dynamic in that the local messaging is liberal greenwash BS, but the super rich are most definitely driving the bus. Too little room here to illustrate.
Credit where credit is due. Indices that changed rules to allow early incorporation of Space-X are playing a large role in valuation. This from people who do know better and are aiding and abetting. Musk/Trump are never doing it alone; there are many enablers and facilitators.
That calculator was pretty questionable. Different index funds have different rules. If you own the S&P 500 you have no exposure for at least a year. If you own QQQ you have a lot of exposure. If you own VTI you have mid-level exposure.
The NYT had an article a few days ago with a small calculator. If one has 1.5 million invested in indexed stocks, your exposure to Space X is a little over $1,000. Not as bad as I feared.
"Growing geopolitical pressure" is a polite euphemism for Trump administration destroying allied confidence in US tech. We are already seeing plans: The European Union has launched the development of a competing satellite service. Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and France are phasing out use of Microsoft Office in the public service. Ultimately, this devastate US defense and aerospace industries.
They are doing this mainly because the U.S. just passed a law requiring companies to turn over any data they hold upon request. This resulted in one country being forced to release personal information about two of their attorneys, resulting in the U.S. being able to sanction them (though it's not clear that the DOJ has acted on the info yet). Office isn't the only Microsoft product European countries are abandoning. They're replacing Windows O/S with Linux as rapidly as they can.
As for the defense manufacturers, the Iranian fiasco has depleted our stocks so badly that European countries have been notified that deliveries of items already purchased will be delayed for at least two years. Sales of the Phalanx systems have cratered; France and Germany have teamed up to develop a replacement system. Reliability of the F35 is so poor that contracts for those are being cancelled. Other reasons for the cancellations are the fact that the U.S. retains the right to block software (effectively grounding other countries' fighters if DJT has a bad dream). The U.S. also retains the right to tell the F35 owners what they can use them for and who they can sell them to. SAAB and Bombardier are making headlines now by competing with Lockheed and Boeing. South Korea is stepping up as a big provider of ground-based weapons, though Germany's Leopard still holds the heavyweight tank title (despite U.S. claims for the Abrams).
That list of obstacles to orbiting data centers is so exhaustive it makes me wonder how ANY amount of hucksterism could sell it. So I will just stick with my “people are idiots” theory; it holds up well…
Add to SpaceX hype the forced investment thru retirement portfolios, pension funds and individual conservative index investors have their money in SpaceX because by "new criteria" SpaceX is instantly (for all practical purposes) added to index funds below.
MSCI Standard and Large-Cap Indexes: Effective June 29, 2026. Nasdaq-100 Index: Expected around July 6, 2026, following Nasdaq's rule change to allow mega-caps in after just 15 trading days. FTSE Russell US Indices: Expected to enter the Russell 1000 in September 2026, with an expected entry into the Russell 1000 Growth in December. Morningstar CRSP Indexes: Expected to be added after just five trading days
There's a great book that explains all the issues with trying to colonize Mars. All the problems you mention and more. Like, human procreation in space, construction, medical care on a faraway planet, oxygen and food supplies, etc. "A City On Mars" by Weinersmith. Yet, dopey fans fawn over this drug addled shyster and willingly give him their money.
I've seen reports where Starlink has been cutting prices for some time in anticipation of the IPO to pump up sales. Don't be surprised if eventually prices go back up and results start to stagnate.
SpaceX has over 10,000 satellites in orbit. They may know more about the issues of heat dissipation, radiation dangers and the other issues you mention than anyone else on the planet. And the fully reusable Starship, which is coming along nicely, will give them very low launch costs. Meanwhile resistance to ground based data centers, a trillion dollar business, is increasing rapidly.
(Cottected) A Starlink satellite (edge router) has very little in common (apart from being a satellite) with the proposed compute and data communications hub of a data center. Starlinks use passive thermal management. The data center will require (very heavy) pumps and condensers to actively dissipate heat. A current generation Starlink weighs 0.5 metric tons. The data center (essentially one data rack plus the active cooling) will weigh maybe 10 times that.
Low launch costs? SpaceX’s Human Landing System (HLS) will require between 10 to 20 Starship launches to execute a single lunar mission. Because of the massive size of the spacecraft, a single rocket cannot carry enough fuel, meaning it must be repeatedly refueled in Earth orbit before heading to the Moon
Executing a single Moon trip requires:
1 specialized Starship: The Human Landing System (HLS) that actually travels to the Moon.
10 to 19 tanker or propellant depot launches: Flights designed specifically to ferry and transfer fuel into the lunar lander while in Earth orbit
Let me also just point out that the amount of money being thrown at space exploration is incredibly stupid and a sign that our modern oligarchs watched way too much Star Trek in their youth.
So Musk has understood that selling hope (belief, illusion) is more profitable than selling cars or rockets. The catholic church has known this for over thousand years.
Right, though the Catholic church is not the first to control politics and our leaders that emerged during the Neolithic Revolution, the Catholic church certainly refined the practice and created great wealth from it. In the earliest states like Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, political leaders claimed dual roles as political and spiritual authorities. Rulers justified their right to collect taxes, make laws, and wage war by claiming they were chosen, favored, or directly descended from the gods. Similar to today, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Other "religions" were ahead of the Catholics by millennia: c.f. Pharaonic Egypt, ancient Babylon, classical Rome, ancient Greece and Hinduism. They all had well structured "theopolies" in their respective cultures. The "church of Rome" was a real "late starter".
and don't forget Judaism. Those money-changers that Christ threw out of the temple were there to provide change for those worshipers who brought more than enough for their offering.
He really lucked out when Obama issued those green energy subsidies. TE卐LA was spiraling down the drain, and the green subsidies rescued it. Naturally, Mu卐krat took all the credit, but if it weren't for those subsidies, nobody would have ever even heard of Mu卐krat - he'd be a nobody.
The fault rests solely with the gullible people who buy into personality cults. Those Obama era green subsidies resulted in the previous owner of our house installing roof top solar, the benefits of which we now enjoy while other people’s electrical bills have become unaffordable.
Yes, absolutely. I'm not blaming Obama. Quite the contrary, he did the right thing.
I'm just pointing out that Mu卐krat took advantage of those subsidies, which in turn boosted the TE卐LA brand, and Mu卐krat's profile. Otherwise, he'd be a nobody.
Maybe not. In 2025, 85% of US and roughly half of global satellite launches were all by SpaceX. That's gotta count for something. Especially in light of Bezos's rocket company's failures.
It counted for $19 billion in revenue in 2025. Normal companies don't trade at over 100X revenues. SpaceX rockets have also blown up, even if they call it a rapid unplanned disassembly.
The “rapid unplanned disassembly” of Musk’s rockets is also a cost to the public—an externality—that he doesn’t clean up himself. A Pigouvisn tax is in order.
Economists call that cost an "externality". It is an externality because the cost is external to the market. That is, the cost is not paid by those engaged in the business activity (and as a private company, SpaceX is engaged in private business activity). Externalities are inefficient, from an economic perspective; all costs of business activity must be paid by the participants in that activity, so that market signals work (does the market want more or less of this activity?) and the nation obtains maximum economic welfare. The cost to the environment should be paid by the polluter, according to the "polluter pays" principle. A.C. Pigou (of whom most people have never heard) figured this out in his book *Economic Welfare*, published in 1921.
I think the business operations of SpaceX are mostly being used as a pretext to sell stock. There's a line in an Anthony Trollope novel about a railway fraud, where he says, something about how though no one said it out loud, all of the directors knew that it wouldn't matter if the railway was ever built or not. The situation's the same with the million orbiting satellites that are supposedly going to do AI computations.
The weirdest thing to me about Musk is that he's capable of building something like SpaceX (or Tesla before it), and then putting it at the center of such a scheme. He does beautiful things, and then uses them as pretexts for whatever you want to call what's going on now.
Astronomers are worried about something called Kessler's syndrome. When two satellites collide it produces lots of debris, which stays in orbit and can collide with other satellites, producing more debris. If you put up too many satellites it can cause a chain reaction, in which more and more debris makes it harder and harder for humans to operate in space. Starlink's constellation is already so big that they have to manually steer satellites almost every day to prevent collisions, though so far they've been doing it. Musk is talking about increasing the size of his constellations by orders of magnitude.
Developments in technology have out-paced political progress that should have ensued with the fall of the iron curtain. Who is going to regulate space? The idea that a techno-cowboy can put anything he wants in space is part of the SpaceX hype. A very dangerous part.
Next thing you know, he’ll start inventing dangerous Rube Goldberg ideas for “fixing” global warming by launching experiments into orbit to manipulate the atmosphere, creating a demand (that will never exist) for colonizing Mars. If only he would colonize it himself…. I’d definitely invest in that!
It’s definitely a cult of personality situation. Is he as “popular” elsewhere? I don’t think so right? But America loves wealth and celebrity and anyone who makes it look easy. Musk, himself, has not really created anything. He is more of an investor type who does have out of the box thinking (these days too far out of the box!) and isn’t afraid to take risks. We’ve had people like this throughout history, and they’ve done amazing things. Tesla moving the needle on EVs is great. But if it hadn’t been Tesla, it would have been someone else like Rivian. Musk has gone way past quirky and daring. He came from a messed up back ground so has probably always been unstable, but he is a megalomaniac now. No one seems to put him in his place. Quite the opposite. That makes him extremely dangerous.
I think there is a class of young people spread around the world (China for sure) that idolizes Musk as much some in the US because he has been successful in marketing himself as the genial entrepreneur. To this class success is everything.
“But if it hadn’t been Tesla, it would have been someone else like Rivian.”
This is what the John Galt fanboys don’t understand. There are many inventors who like to wrestle with problems. A lot of them aren’t in it for money and power, either.
Musk is a genius at one thing, hyping Musk as a genius. He has never invented or originated anything - Paypal, Tesla, Xitter, SpaceX - all started/invented by others who foolishly let Musk in to take all the credit and run away with the big bucks. He's a walking, talking Ponzi scheme that would make Ponzi blush. And it will all come crashing down, sooner than anyone thinks.
And it seems that started early on. There is an Elon-Meme that says he sold a game he wrote as a kid to a computer journal for 500 Dollar. The purported source code circulates on the internet. It's not really a working game, basically it is couple of sprites pushed around in a loop and really the kind of thing you would find in the manual for your home computer at the time to demonstrate basic programming concepts. If he had managed to sell this for any kind of money that would actually be impressive, but what is more astounding is that people celebrate a few lines Basic that probably half of Musks age cohort typed down at some point as a sign of early genius. I guess you can't really fool people who do not actively want to be fooled, but that still leaves a substantial population.
And off that list, PayPal... was revolutionary how, exactly? Tesla ultimately got surpassed because Elon took control and decided to (a) make the cars unusable as actual drivable cars in the pursuit of full self-driving (a very stupid thing to throw money at if there ever was one) and (b) went with unprofitable nonsense like the Cybertruck. He completely wrecked Twitter and the Twitter guys just built Bluesky as a functional replacemennt. SpaceX... whatever, if you're into space shit, that's your thing but I find it a waste of everyone's money.
I avoid fossil fuels, guns,the magnificent seven and anything that remotely stinks of grift,greed or destruction of life on our planet. That is my investment strategy. Investing in renewables and other stocks that are positive for the planet. Less money,better sleeping.
I'm holding my assets (other than my home) in money market and foreign funds, via my employer-sponsored plan and the guidance of my retired second husband. I parted ways with a maga-friendly investor. I'm sleeping well (sort of) and liking the portfolio results too.
Along with all the other necessary actions needed to take back the promise of America, we'll need to nationalize SpaceX/Starlink and other companies crucial to national security. After that, boot Musk out of the country or better yet out of this world.
Thank you for this. I am an emeritus professor of Mechanical Engineering. I find it seriously disappointing that the press and politicians celebrate Musk as a wunderkind of engineering. He’s a poor engineer because, as you say, he lacks the capacity to think critically or analitically about any of his “visions”. Hyperloop is an excellent example. Musk is highly talented, though, at talking others out of their money. Give credit where it is due.
I recently took an Uber to the airport. The driver showed up with a Tesla. He told me the Tesla was made in China with Chinese parts. I suspect if we took apart a SpaceX satellite we would also find it was made with Chinese parts.
There will be more losers as well... those who have money in index funds that will be required to acquire SpaceX stock, transferring their retirement savings into Musk and other insiders pockets. The fact that Musk manipulated the holdout time for new companies and shortened the time for insiders to sell demonstrates that they know this is a massive grift.
Tens of thousands of investors will buy into Space-X with the hope that they will become wealthy. They will buy Space-X on margin and when it drops they will receive a margin call and their investment will be gone.
We have all seen the interviews of Trump currency investors who bragged about how they bought into his currency scam. And many of those people lost their life savings while Trump has made billions.
As is the case for EVs, AI, robotics, brain implants, the Chinese are miles ahead of Musk...both technically, environmentally, and cost-wise.
The tech media is largely comprised of Musk cultists, but those who are truly independent point out the many technical deficiencies with Starkink.
When/if Chinese satellites are widely adopted as countries move away from Musk and the US, this one narrow profitable sector underpinning the SpaceX IPO will evaporate.
Are Americans uniquely vulnerable to conmen? They made 1 a president (based on a promise of no wars and instant price deflation) and another the wealthiest man in the world (based on a literally insane prospectus of saving civilization).
U.S. citizens probably *are* uniquely vulnerable to con men. This morning I read that a company in Tennessee is making Ivermectin pills and marketing them as a cure-all. The Legislature there passed a law making it legal for pharmacies to sell them over the counter. About five other States are considering similar laws. When I'm searching YouTube, I frequently see marketing scams trying to convince me to use lemons for foot fungus, claiming that taking Gabapentin will make it necessary to amputate my feet, that peanut butter is bad for dogs, etc..
The irony of decades of propaganda calling Iran a 3rd world country...meanwhile they have universal education and universal healthcare.
The literacy rate of Iranians is over twice that of Americans.
Their negotiation team was filled with tactician amd PhDs...the US had 2 corrupt real estate goons.
I don't think Americans will change until they're personally impacted by relentless eroding of civil rights, layoffs, a stock market propelled by bubbles, decimated entitlements, and/or the rollback of regulatory protections on food, water, air and drugs causes serious illness and death.
Denial on both sides of the aisle is strong, but the parallels to history are clear to those who want to see.
In thirty years as a patent lawyer I’ve seen this script play out multiple times. You have a hype cycle that begins with a technology that has some potential but soon gets hijacked by financial types seeing an opportunity for riches, distorting investment way out of proportion to the actual merit of the technology. The problem with any new technology is that the limitations get ignored until late into the cycle, when people with limited information get sucked in. Musk is a master of exploiting this, probably because he’s created a cult of personality due to his psychopathic ability to take risks. There are some positive aspects to that risk taking but Musk typically offloads his own personal risk on to others (the government, shareholders, mothers of his various children).
Any success that is so blatantly tied to Donald Trump is bound to go belly up. Personally , this looked like the biggest pump and dump we’ve seen yet. Besides, whatever Musk does China is proving it can do faster, cheaper, and better. I personally can’t get past the man’s character . Same for Trump. It’s all ill gotten gains .
Yeah, character! I see you, Paul. Musk as well as Trump completely lack empathy. The monsters are out from under the bed and they are sitting on the throne
It seems that the more closely Musk is involved in a project, the less likely it is to succeed. The Tesla models mostly before he came on board have been/are successful; the Cybertruck, his baby, on the other hand...
Most Americans don't own stocks. They don't even have a 401k. And managers of large institutional investors don't fool around with IPOs. Those who bought in to SpaceX have money to burn. They come from that 1 top percentile of the wealth distribution. For them, banking on this fantastic business is a form of amusement; like going to a casino and playing black jack. People who need money do not invest in "meme stocks". This includes those who invest for returns. Only those with more money than they know what to do with.
55-60 % of Americans have assets in 401k or 403b. If they hold a NASDAQ 100 or FTSE Russell, MSCI or CRSP Total Market index funds the institutional managers actively changed their investment policy to allow SpaceX into their portfolios. Collectively, that is not peanuts.
Hopefully SpaceX will flare out before other fund managers adopt changes to their IPS to remove the guardrail which is supposed to protect small investors in mutual funds. Retirement plan have long had a prohibition from investing in new stock issues for damn good reasons ... this is it.
I know young men far out here in Turkey that have purchased SpaceX stock. As they don't have much money, perhaps it is just a 200-300 USD investment. Their alternative investments are cryptocurrencies or betting on football World Cup matches. For sure a very very minor effect compared with the billionaires having money to burn, but it shows how successful media hype can be.
I think this is right. The US seems to have passed the point where there is a critical mass of people with a critical amount of wealth so that almost anything with a plausible story about an insanely optimistic product would get the necessary investment without any questions being asked or the investors themselves really caring much if it failed. Theranos was a case in point.
Speaking of critical mass, it has from time to time occurred to me that beyond a certain point, if one has a certain amount of money, it is just impossible not to keep amassing more, unless one deliberately sets about disposing of it. There is a tipping point beyond which wealth becomes a black hole, drawing in more. (Until something goes "boom", given that as often observed some investors in the market become so big they ARE the market.)
Where does such a person or thi g go wuth their money ? What is there left fircthem to put ut in to ?
I don’t think anyone can do this. The media seems particularly willing to fawn over tech bros and macho types. I can’t imagine a woman getting away with what Musk has.
Starlink’s expansion faces growing geopolitical pressure. The global internet service market is not a unified market that a single company can easily swallow. xAI has already fallen behind in the competition. Space-based data centers cannot solve the fundamental problems of radiation and heat dissipation in orbit, and the practical obstacles are substantial: launch costs, maintenance difficulty, thermal management, radiation damage, orbital replacement, data-transmission latency, ground-station bandwidth, insurance costs, space-debris risks, regulation, and militarization.
Over the long run, SpaceX’s space technologies will also face intense competition from China. Its real barriers to entry are not as high as the market narrative suggests.
That is why I strongly agree with the view that SpaceX’s real value is being amplified by the Musk myth, the Trump trade, the AI narrative, the fantasy of space colonization, and index-fund-driven capital flows. On top of a real asset, the market has layered a huge mythological premium.
Regarding "the fantasy of space colonization," the terraforming of Mars is practically impossible because there is not enough CO2 to generate a breathable oxygen atmosphere by photosynthesis.
Setting aside the fact that Musk is an exceptionally silly man, does anyone know the long term effects of ketamine?
Case Study: "Leon"
1. Volatile temperament
2. Erratic behavior
3. Megalomania
4. Fantastical thinking
5. Irrational hostility
6. Performative cruelty
7. Hypersexuality
8. Grandiosity
...
Only one case, but highly suggestive that clinical uses of ketamine should weigh benefits against significant dangers
Of course, clinical dosages are far below what Mu卐krat is taking. And they're not combined with Ecstasy and Magic Mushrooms.
Aye, it looks like clinical use of ketamine combined with psychotherapeutic guidance effectively takes advantage of its dissociative properties to break through "stuck" emotional states. (The psychotherapy is to help you establish an alternative to PTSD, OCD, severe depression or whatever reinforcement loop you suffer from.)
It says something about investors that they heard some guy railing about colonizing Mars and instead of having him escorted out of the building for being a bona fide crazy person, they gave him a trillion dollars.
Ditto the AI bros and "this technology will end white-collar work."
He's spent decades pumping up the stock value with constant lies about what his companies are going to do and when they are going to do it.
If we had a country where white collar crimes were actually prosecuted, he would be in jail. With crooks like Musk and Trump, most Americans think it's legal to manipulate markets.
I mean my comment is much more about what investors consider a "selling point."
For instance, if I had a million dollars to invest and some guy were telling me that his technology would be used to colonize Mars I would tell him "you're fucking stupid, that's impossible and a waste of money even if it were." If some guy were telling me that his technology would unemploy millions of white-collar workers, I would tell him he's evil and that's a really stupid idea even if his technology could do that. If some guy were telling me his technology would make cars drive themselves, I would tell him that's not a laudable goal.
Fuck these investors and their belief systems. The big problem is how many of these investors hate humanity and want to render everybody obsolete and poor so that they can make billions of dollars.
You may be right about what the billionaires think, yet that thought is wrong. Generating wealth requires creating a large middle class to buy whatever the billionaires are selling. That, in turn, requires a truly prosperous middle class.
Your logic is unassailable, Skian, and certainly applies to run-of-the-mill millionaires. What about mega-millionaires and billionaires, though? Many have reached the point that they and their families will never spend all the money they have now. IOW, if they make tangible products, they don't need to ever sell anything else. Granted, many of the uber-wealthy either inherited their money or they make it through finance, one way or another. But the Waltons, for instance, could liquidate merchandise at fire-sale prices, close all their stores and sell the properties, and retire from business entirely. To be wealthy beyond calculation for the rest of their lives, they don’t need the middle class.
I suspect that's the mindset that at least some of the 1% are adopting.
From everything I’ve observed, you seem to be absolutely correct about how billionaires make money. That is why I have trouble understanding the “thinking” of the AI billionaires who say AI will eliminate many middle class workers. That is just an empty dream they are selling to businesses that want to reduce their work force. We have already seen many businesses fire hundreds of employees in order to purchase AI systems.
As someone whose car got slammed (totaled) by a human-driven car blowing through a stop sign, I find I am relieved when the other "driver" is Waymo. Of course, human liability systems are such that autonomous vehicles have to be far, far safer than human-driven vehicles for people to accept them.
Attempts to create reliable autonomous driving are yielding excellent assistive systems. Recently on a highway, a muscle car passed me at over 100 mph (based on my speed and sense of how quickly it passed me). It almost hit me, but an assistive system yanked me out of its way instead.
It is when DOJ wouldn't dream of prosecuting them.
I get the sense that if/when there is a Democrat in the White House, they will be elected by voters who are absolutely out for blood against these fucks.
There is a reason why Peter Thiel has decamped to Argentina.
What's more: the amount of criminal exposure that Musk has in Europe, particularly France and the UK, is underrated. Think Keir Starmer really has any reason not to prosecute Musk for inciting race riots in Belfast?
I agree… it will take years to reconstitute our DOJ. Maybe some kind of combined effort is in order… European prosecution and Argentine prison?
Thiel is a ·much· bigger fish in Argentina.
At this writing he is 119th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and ~45th richest in the US.
https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/
If only they knew about manipulation of elections. Perhaps they would have him tarred and feathered.
"A fool and his money ..."
Reposting this comment from last week as it shows what a scam artist Musk is...
In October 2016, Elon Musk promised that by the end of 2017, a Tesla would be able to drive autonomously from Los Angeles to New York City without the need for a single touch. Musk stated that the car would operate fully autonomously, covering the coast-to-coast route without any human intervention, including automatic charging along the route. He added that this capability would be "replicable by every car Tesla makes" from that point forward.
It is almost ten years later now, and this feat is still nowhere near possible. Anybody got a bridge to sell? Anyone wanna buy some tulips?
There’s a sucker born every minute.
And yet, despite Musk's many shortcomings - along with his despicable nature - people still "worship" him, Wall Street still believes in him, and women are still having his babies! How to explain this?
There are the fanbois who think he is a forward-thinking genius, and then there is the standard crowd of people who admire and fawn over insane amounts of wealth.
These are the same people who voted for Trumpkopf. The only explanation I can think of is that the average IQ in this country isn't brag worthy.
What he neglected to mention was that those fully autonomous Swastikars would crash into parked police cars all across the country.😂
In addition to Mars having almost no atmosphere - its surface pressure is equivalent to Earth's atmosphere at an altitude of 30 - 60 km. - Mars has very low gravity, 38% of that on Earth, and is exposed to much higher levels of cosmic radiation.
Colonizing Mars means living in hellish conditions - a pressurized chamber at low gravity - permanently.
Agree, going to Mars was what I thought was cool when I was 6 years old.
Mainly kidney problems, bladder issues, and abdominal pain. https://drugabuse.com/drugs/hallucinogens/ketamine/effects-use/
Market bubbles are essentially fads. The cool kids get in early and out quickly. The not-so-cool kids arrive late to the party, buy high and take the fall... It would, however be quite satisfying to see Elon lynched by a mob of his shareholders.
Or a mob of anybody for that matter.
At this point, a Musk shareholder is a cult member. Cults do not lynch their gods…
At this point almost everyone with an index fund or a pension is a shareholder. Musk and his cronies and pals have been able to manipulate the index fund system to prop up the stock price at levels completely disconnected from the underlying company value. Sure, there are Musk fanboys who will buy at any price. But their investments are a drop in the bucket compared to the index funds.
This is maybe not the best time for the financiers who want to control the world through money to remind everybody how imaginary money is.
Good one. People do forget that money is a substitute for actual things.
And time.
SpaceX is a symptom of the elites control of the narrative and the brainwashing power of social and mass media. Elon, Zuckerberg, the Murdochs, the Ellison's and other right-wing oligarchs completely control the minds of the masses. We can scream all we want on liberal media about the stupidity and hypocrisy but nothing written here will change a single thing. It's like watching a horror movie, no amount of screaming at the screen will change the outcome. Until the left has a trillionaire champion countering the ownership of our social media and mass media, we are a dying voice in the wind.
And this is exacerbated by the manosphere. So, so, so many young men, really men of any age who follow the junk, buy into the hype of gaming a system, get rich quick schemes, etc. I sub in a high school. I am shocked by the number of high school boys who are on their phones or computers watching some high risk stock. Another teacher and I tried to explain to a group of them how that risk works. They would not believe us. They kept bringing up different influencers who “know” differently. They idolize these people. It’s really just laziness and gambling, not to mention illegal, as my experience would assume most kids do so without supervision.
EXACTLY!! Not realizing, "there are NO free lunches". Perhaps we need to start Statistics classes much earlier.
"There are lies, damn lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain
Those young men are under a lot of pressure by mass media to compete by being ripped and wealthy to get the girl they they've been influenced to desire. They are just as manipulated as the girl who wants plastic surgery in high school. We as a society are supposed to regulate against this type of thing hurting our children, hence the social media ban for those under 16 in the UK. Unfortunately, that kind of regulation will never happen here again due to the capture of our government by the oligarchs that can only be countered by an equal amount of wealth and power working for the common good - which is hard to do when the wealth created that caused the corruption is due to corruption, so we are trapped without a means of countering corruption without matching the rule breaking of the corrupt. It takes a dictatorship to kill a dictatorship. Once a democracy is corrupted, you can't vote to fix it.
It all started to go downhill with mobile phones, social media, and then Citizens United. If any commenter on this forum is constantly on their phones and/or social media, then they are also enabling this horror show.
It probably started when Og's son decided he wanted to make spears instead of clubs. Roman philosophers were complaining about the younger generation 2,000 years ago.
AND exactly why critical thinking, + a moral compass, is indelibly important (noting moral compasses are not equal). Whatever critical thinking exists will soon be diluted with LLM "ai" models who can choose who & what to persuasively message. THIS is the inherent danger.
Yup. Are you saying tailored AI messaging is the biggest threat? If so yeah absolutely I agree. Even smart educated progressives are at risk of manipulation imo. Austin Texas is a good example of that dynamic in that the local messaging is liberal greenwash BS, but the super rich are most definitely driving the bus. Too little room here to illustrate.
Credit where credit is due. Indices that changed rules to allow early incorporation of Space-X are playing a large role in valuation. This from people who do know better and are aiding and abetting. Musk/Trump are never doing it alone; there are many enablers and facilitators.
That calculator was pretty questionable. Different index funds have different rules. If you own the S&P 500 you have no exposure for at least a year. If you own QQQ you have a lot of exposure. If you own VTI you have mid-level exposure.
The NYT had an article a few days ago with a small calculator. If one has 1.5 million invested in indexed stocks, your exposure to Space X is a little over $1,000. Not as bad as I feared.
"Growing geopolitical pressure" is a polite euphemism for Trump administration destroying allied confidence in US tech. We are already seeing plans: The European Union has launched the development of a competing satellite service. Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and France are phasing out use of Microsoft Office in the public service. Ultimately, this devastate US defense and aerospace industries.
They are doing this mainly because the U.S. just passed a law requiring companies to turn over any data they hold upon request. This resulted in one country being forced to release personal information about two of their attorneys, resulting in the U.S. being able to sanction them (though it's not clear that the DOJ has acted on the info yet). Office isn't the only Microsoft product European countries are abandoning. They're replacing Windows O/S with Linux as rapidly as they can.
As for the defense manufacturers, the Iranian fiasco has depleted our stocks so badly that European countries have been notified that deliveries of items already purchased will be delayed for at least two years. Sales of the Phalanx systems have cratered; France and Germany have teamed up to develop a replacement system. Reliability of the F35 is so poor that contracts for those are being cancelled. Other reasons for the cancellations are the fact that the U.S. retains the right to block software (effectively grounding other countries' fighters if DJT has a bad dream). The U.S. also retains the right to tell the F35 owners what they can use them for and who they can sell them to. SAAB and Bombardier are making headlines now by competing with Lockheed and Boeing. South Korea is stepping up as a big provider of ground-based weapons, though Germany's Leopard still holds the heavyweight tank title (despite U.S. claims for the Abrams).
That list of obstacles to orbiting data centers is so exhaustive it makes me wonder how ANY amount of hucksterism could sell it. So I will just stick with my “people are idiots” theory; it holds up well…
Add to SpaceX hype the forced investment thru retirement portfolios, pension funds and individual conservative index investors have their money in SpaceX because by "new criteria" SpaceX is instantly (for all practical purposes) added to index funds below.
MSCI Standard and Large-Cap Indexes: Effective June 29, 2026. Nasdaq-100 Index: Expected around July 6, 2026, following Nasdaq's rule change to allow mega-caps in after just 15 trading days. FTSE Russell US Indices: Expected to enter the Russell 1000 in September 2026, with an expected entry into the Russell 1000 Growth in December. Morningstar CRSP Indexes: Expected to be added after just five trading days
There's a great book that explains all the issues with trying to colonize Mars. All the problems you mention and more. Like, human procreation in space, construction, medical care on a faraway planet, oxygen and food supplies, etc. "A City On Mars" by Weinersmith. Yet, dopey fans fawn over this drug addled shyster and willingly give him their money.
I've seen reports where Starlink has been cutting prices for some time in anticipation of the IPO to pump up sales. Don't be surprised if eventually prices go back up and results start to stagnate.
SpaceX has over 10,000 satellites in orbit. They may know more about the issues of heat dissipation, radiation dangers and the other issues you mention than anyone else on the planet. And the fully reusable Starship, which is coming along nicely, will give them very low launch costs. Meanwhile resistance to ground based data centers, a trillion dollar business, is increasing rapidly.
(Cottected) A Starlink satellite (edge router) has very little in common (apart from being a satellite) with the proposed compute and data communications hub of a data center. Starlinks use passive thermal management. The data center will require (very heavy) pumps and condensers to actively dissipate heat. A current generation Starlink weighs 0.5 metric tons. The data center (essentially one data rack plus the active cooling) will weigh maybe 10 times that.
Low launch costs? SpaceX’s Human Landing System (HLS) will require between 10 to 20 Starship launches to execute a single lunar mission. Because of the massive size of the spacecraft, a single rocket cannot carry enough fuel, meaning it must be repeatedly refueled in Earth orbit before heading to the Moon
Executing a single Moon trip requires:
1 specialized Starship: The Human Landing System (HLS) that actually travels to the Moon.
10 to 19 tanker or propellant depot launches: Flights designed specifically to ferry and transfer fuel into the lunar lander while in Earth orbit
Let me also just point out that the amount of money being thrown at space exploration is incredibly stupid and a sign that our modern oligarchs watched way too much Star Trek in their youth.
Fundamental problem of heat dissipation in orbit — good point!
Great comment Leon
So Musk has understood that selling hope (belief, illusion) is more profitable than selling cars or rockets. The catholic church has known this for over thousand years.
I would add other religions too.
Catholic church was the first to make it a business.
Right, though the Catholic church is not the first to control politics and our leaders that emerged during the Neolithic Revolution, the Catholic church certainly refined the practice and created great wealth from it. In the earliest states like Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, political leaders claimed dual roles as political and spiritual authorities. Rulers justified their right to collect taxes, make laws, and wage war by claiming they were chosen, favored, or directly descended from the gods. Similar to today, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
only in your own memory - religion has been a part of group thought/cults since humans left Africa eons ago
There was an un-reason for that. I don't know what part of the brain complex compels it, but people do it all the time.
Especially for you, Gordon Berry: The catholic church with its current structure, with the Pope at its head, took shape in the eleventh century.
Other "religions" were ahead of the Catholics by millennia: c.f. Pharaonic Egypt, ancient Babylon, classical Rome, ancient Greece and Hinduism. They all had well structured "theopolies" in their respective cultures. The "church of Rome" was a real "late starter".
and don't forget Judaism. Those money-changers that Christ threw out of the temple were there to provide change for those worshipers who brought more than enough for their offering.
Sure, Islam (or the marketeers of it) is telling men that beautiful virgins are waiting for them in Heaven. Tough luck for women.
You seem to forget that Musk's early launches were failures as well.
I didn't intend to write his bio.
Yikes! My comment was intended for a different thread. My apologies.
No problem. 😊
He really lucked out when Obama issued those green energy subsidies. TE卐LA was spiraling down the drain, and the green subsidies rescued it. Naturally, Mu卐krat took all the credit, but if it weren't for those subsidies, nobody would have ever even heard of Mu卐krat - he'd be a nobody.
The fault rests solely with the gullible people who buy into personality cults. Those Obama era green subsidies resulted in the previous owner of our house installing roof top solar, the benefits of which we now enjoy while other people’s electrical bills have become unaffordable.
Yes, absolutely. I'm not blaming Obama. Quite the contrary, he did the right thing.
I'm just pointing out that Mu卐krat took advantage of those subsidies, which in turn boosted the TE卐LA brand, and Mu卐krat's profile. Otherwise, he'd be a nobody.
The other common theme is pedophilia.
Malignant narcissism, which makes the pedophilia and bigotry more likely.
Jesus Christ, Inc. is alive and well.
Maybe it's because people need hope so badly. Isn't that why lying Trump was elected?
I would hope that Hope has a better body
'The only winners will be those who got in early....' and those that didn’t fall for the hype in the first place
To be a winner they will need to sell early.
Hopefully they all will - the sooner the better
Maybe not. In 2025, 85% of US and roughly half of global satellite launches were all by SpaceX. That's gotta count for something. Especially in light of Bezos's rocket company's failures.
It counted for $19 billion in revenue in 2025. Normal companies don't trade at over 100X revenues. SpaceX rockets have also blown up, even if they call it a rapid unplanned disassembly.
The “rapid unplanned disassembly” of Musk’s rockets is also a cost to the public—an externality—that he doesn’t clean up himself. A Pigouvisn tax is in order.
Also a cost to the environment.
Economists call that cost an "externality". It is an externality because the cost is external to the market. That is, the cost is not paid by those engaged in the business activity (and as a private company, SpaceX is engaged in private business activity). Externalities are inefficient, from an economic perspective; all costs of business activity must be paid by the participants in that activity, so that market signals work (does the market want more or less of this activity?) and the nation obtains maximum economic welfare. The cost to the environment should be paid by the polluter, according to the "polluter pays" principle. A.C. Pigou (of whom most people have never heard) figured this out in his book *Economic Welfare*, published in 1921.
If you think there's some value in satellite launches, sure.
I think the business operations of SpaceX are mostly being used as a pretext to sell stock. There's a line in an Anthony Trollope novel about a railway fraud, where he says, something about how though no one said it out loud, all of the directors knew that it wouldn't matter if the railway was ever built or not. The situation's the same with the million orbiting satellites that are supposedly going to do AI computations.
The weirdest thing to me about Musk is that he's capable of building something like SpaceX (or Tesla before it), and then putting it at the center of such a scheme. He does beautiful things, and then uses them as pretexts for whatever you want to call what's going on now.
Astronomers are worried about something called Kessler's syndrome. When two satellites collide it produces lots of debris, which stays in orbit and can collide with other satellites, producing more debris. If you put up too many satellites it can cause a chain reaction, in which more and more debris makes it harder and harder for humans to operate in space. Starlink's constellation is already so big that they have to manually steer satellites almost every day to prevent collisions, though so far they've been doing it. Musk is talking about increasing the size of his constellations by orders of magnitude.
It really seems like everyone's lost their minds.
Kessler’s syndrome - interesting. Thank you.
Developments in technology have out-paced political progress that should have ensued with the fall of the iron curtain. Who is going to regulate space? The idea that a techno-cowboy can put anything he wants in space is part of the SpaceX hype. A very dangerous part.
Next thing you know, he’ll start inventing dangerous Rube Goldberg ideas for “fixing” global warming by launching experiments into orbit to manipulate the atmosphere, creating a demand (that will never exist) for colonizing Mars. If only he would colonize it himself…. I’d definitely invest in that!
It’s definitely a cult of personality situation. Is he as “popular” elsewhere? I don’t think so right? But America loves wealth and celebrity and anyone who makes it look easy. Musk, himself, has not really created anything. He is more of an investor type who does have out of the box thinking (these days too far out of the box!) and isn’t afraid to take risks. We’ve had people like this throughout history, and they’ve done amazing things. Tesla moving the needle on EVs is great. But if it hadn’t been Tesla, it would have been someone else like Rivian. Musk has gone way past quirky and daring. He came from a messed up back ground so has probably always been unstable, but he is a megalomaniac now. No one seems to put him in his place. Quite the opposite. That makes him extremely dangerous.
I think there is a class of young people spread around the world (China for sure) that idolizes Musk as much some in the US because he has been successful in marketing himself as the genial entrepreneur. To this class success is everything.
“But if it hadn’t been Tesla, it would have been someone else like Rivian.”
This is what the John Galt fanboys don’t understand. There are many inventors who like to wrestle with problems. A lot of them aren’t in it for money and power, either.
Except that he personally hasn't actually built anything.
Musk is a genius at one thing, hyping Musk as a genius. He has never invented or originated anything - Paypal, Tesla, Xitter, SpaceX - all started/invented by others who foolishly let Musk in to take all the credit and run away with the big bucks. He's a walking, talking Ponzi scheme that would make Ponzi blush. And it will all come crashing down, sooner than anyone thinks.
Hope your prediction proves true.
And it seems that started early on. There is an Elon-Meme that says he sold a game he wrote as a kid to a computer journal for 500 Dollar. The purported source code circulates on the internet. It's not really a working game, basically it is couple of sprites pushed around in a loop and really the kind of thing you would find in the manual for your home computer at the time to demonstrate basic programming concepts. If he had managed to sell this for any kind of money that would actually be impressive, but what is more astounding is that people celebrate a few lines Basic that probably half of Musks age cohort typed down at some point as a sign of early genius. I guess you can't really fool people who do not actively want to be fooled, but that still leaves a substantial population.
Here's hoping!
And off that list, PayPal... was revolutionary how, exactly? Tesla ultimately got surpassed because Elon took control and decided to (a) make the cars unusable as actual drivable cars in the pursuit of full self-driving (a very stupid thing to throw money at if there ever was one) and (b) went with unprofitable nonsense like the Cybertruck. He completely wrecked Twitter and the Twitter guys just built Bluesky as a functional replacemennt. SpaceX... whatever, if you're into space shit, that's your thing but I find it a waste of everyone's money.
I avoid fossil fuels, guns,the magnificent seven and anything that remotely stinks of grift,greed or destruction of life on our planet. That is my investment strategy. Investing in renewables and other stocks that are positive for the planet. Less money,better sleeping.
I'm holding my assets (other than my home) in money market and foreign funds, via my employer-sponsored plan and the guidance of my retired second husband. I parted ways with a maga-friendly investor. I'm sleeping well (sort of) and liking the portfolio results too.
Along with all the other necessary actions needed to take back the promise of America, we'll need to nationalize SpaceX/Starlink and other companies crucial to national security. After that, boot Musk out of the country or better yet out of this world.
Out of this world? Ah, yes. The Homelander solution.
Why not just put them out of business? And I would settle for letting Musk spend his days in Supermax.
Thank you for this. I am an emeritus professor of Mechanical Engineering. I find it seriously disappointing that the press and politicians celebrate Musk as a wunderkind of engineering. He’s a poor engineer because, as you say, he lacks the capacity to think critically or analitically about any of his “visions”. Hyperloop is an excellent example. Musk is highly talented, though, at talking others out of their money. Give credit where it is due.
I recently took an Uber to the airport. The driver showed up with a Tesla. He told me the Tesla was made in China with Chinese parts. I suspect if we took apart a SpaceX satellite we would also find it was made with Chinese parts.
Musk has a factory in Shanghai. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigafactory_Shanghai
There will be more losers as well... those who have money in index funds that will be required to acquire SpaceX stock, transferring their retirement savings into Musk and other insiders pockets. The fact that Musk manipulated the holdout time for new companies and shortened the time for insiders to sell demonstrates that they know this is a massive grift.
Fortunately it’s just a minuscule proportion of any index funds. But the principle of even including it at all is offensive.
Yes, yes, yes! We are ALL captive investors!
Musk does not have the power to “manipulate” the indexes. Investment bankers cajoled them into it.
Correct… I should have said Musk and his cronies…
Tens of thousands of investors will buy into Space-X with the hope that they will become wealthy. They will buy Space-X on margin and when it drops they will receive a margin call and their investment will be gone.
We have all seen the interviews of Trump currency investors who bragged about how they bought into his currency scam. And many of those people lost their life savings while Trump has made billions.
PT Barnum was so right.
As is the case for EVs, AI, robotics, brain implants, the Chinese are miles ahead of Musk...both technically, environmentally, and cost-wise.
The tech media is largely comprised of Musk cultists, but those who are truly independent point out the many technical deficiencies with Starkink.
When/if Chinese satellites are widely adopted as countries move away from Musk and the US, this one narrow profitable sector underpinning the SpaceX IPO will evaporate.
Are Americans uniquely vulnerable to conmen? They made 1 a president (based on a promise of no wars and instant price deflation) and another the wealthiest man in the world (based on a literally insane prospectus of saving civilization).
U.S. citizens probably *are* uniquely vulnerable to con men. This morning I read that a company in Tennessee is making Ivermectin pills and marketing them as a cure-all. The Legislature there passed a law making it legal for pharmacies to sell them over the counter. About five other States are considering similar laws. When I'm searching YouTube, I frequently see marketing scams trying to convince me to use lemons for foot fungus, claiming that taking Gabapentin will make it necessary to amputate my feet, that peanut butter is bad for dogs, etc..
Another example:
The irony of decades of propaganda calling Iran a 3rd world country...meanwhile they have universal education and universal healthcare.
The literacy rate of Iranians is over twice that of Americans.
Their negotiation team was filled with tactician amd PhDs...the US had 2 corrupt real estate goons.
I don't think Americans will change until they're personally impacted by relentless eroding of civil rights, layoffs, a stock market propelled by bubbles, decimated entitlements, and/or the rollback of regulatory protections on food, water, air and drugs causes serious illness and death.
Denial on both sides of the aisle is strong, but the parallels to history are clear to those who want to see.
In thirty years as a patent lawyer I’ve seen this script play out multiple times. You have a hype cycle that begins with a technology that has some potential but soon gets hijacked by financial types seeing an opportunity for riches, distorting investment way out of proportion to the actual merit of the technology. The problem with any new technology is that the limitations get ignored until late into the cycle, when people with limited information get sucked in. Musk is a master of exploiting this, probably because he’s created a cult of personality due to his psychopathic ability to take risks. There are some positive aspects to that risk taking but Musk typically offloads his own personal risk on to others (the government, shareholders, mothers of his various children).
Spot on.
Any success that is so blatantly tied to Donald Trump is bound to go belly up. Personally , this looked like the biggest pump and dump we’ve seen yet. Besides, whatever Musk does China is proving it can do faster, cheaper, and better. I personally can’t get past the man’s character . Same for Trump. It’s all ill gotten gains .
Yeah, character! I see you, Paul. Musk as well as Trump completely lack empathy. The monsters are out from under the bed and they are sitting on the throne
Character counts, as we see demonstrated again snd again and again.
It seems that the more closely Musk is involved in a project, the less likely it is to succeed. The Tesla models mostly before he came on board have been/are successful; the Cybertruck, his baby, on the other hand...
and don't forget the DOGE efficiency buzzsaw!
Smoke and mirrors. As for the markets…..TIMBER! Although I have been saying that for over a year!
People have forecast nine of the last five collapses.
Elon Musk tells me my investment in SpaceX will be fully self-driving in 6 months if I buy the premium package today!
Musk is happy. The World bought the con and paid him upfront for his latest vaporware.
Here is my plausible explanation.
Most Americans don't own stocks. They don't even have a 401k. And managers of large institutional investors don't fool around with IPOs. Those who bought in to SpaceX have money to burn. They come from that 1 top percentile of the wealth distribution. For them, banking on this fantastic business is a form of amusement; like going to a casino and playing black jack. People who need money do not invest in "meme stocks". This includes those who invest for returns. Only those with more money than they know what to do with.
55-60 % of Americans have assets in 401k or 403b. If they hold a NASDAQ 100 or FTSE Russell, MSCI or CRSP Total Market index funds the institutional managers actively changed their investment policy to allow SpaceX into their portfolios. Collectively, that is not peanuts.
Hopefully SpaceX will flare out before other fund managers adopt changes to their IPS to remove the guardrail which is supposed to protect small investors in mutual funds. Retirement plan have long had a prohibition from investing in new stock issues for damn good reasons ... this is it.
From what I read 60% have a 401k, IRA or similar account.
I know young men far out here in Turkey that have purchased SpaceX stock. As they don't have much money, perhaps it is just a 200-300 USD investment. Their alternative investments are cryptocurrencies or betting on football World Cup matches. For sure a very very minor effect compared with the billionaires having money to burn, but it shows how successful media hype can be.
I think this is right. The US seems to have passed the point where there is a critical mass of people with a critical amount of wealth so that almost anything with a plausible story about an insanely optimistic product would get the necessary investment without any questions being asked or the investors themselves really caring much if it failed. Theranos was a case in point.
Speaking of critical mass, it has from time to time occurred to me that beyond a certain point, if one has a certain amount of money, it is just impossible not to keep amassing more, unless one deliberately sets about disposing of it. There is a tipping point beyond which wealth becomes a black hole, drawing in more. (Until something goes "boom", given that as often observed some investors in the market become so big they ARE the market.)
Where does such a person or thi g go wuth their money ? What is there left fircthem to put ut in to ?
I don’t think anyone can do this. The media seems particularly willing to fawn over tech bros and macho types. I can’t imagine a woman getting away with what Musk has.