Short sellers notch $8.7B profit as SpaceX shares dip to IPO price

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/short-sellers-rack-up-87-bln-profit-spacex-slips-below-ipo-price-ortex-2026-07-16/

by 1vuio0pswjnm7 • 5 days ago

168 186 5 days ago

reuters.com

ChrisArchitect• 5 days ago

[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48938001

WalterGR• 5 days ago

Also, highly related with significant discussion in the past 2 days:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48933344 - "SpaceX stock erases all its gains and slides below IPO price in intraday trading" - latimes.com | 306 points | 1 day ago | 281 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48920181 - "SpaceX bond worth 10% less than issue price – heading for junk bond status" - ft.com | 561 points | 2 days ago | 603 comments

W-Stool• 5 days ago

If you make money shorting a stock, who do you make money from?

Analemma_• 5 days ago

The person you sold it to after borrowing it, who paid for it at the elevated price.

vibcdingenjoyer• 5 days ago

Someone who bought and expected to make a profit, but reached a point where they hit their stop loss or just wanted to get out the trade at any cost and couldn’t bear to wait longer. Quite possible a redditor who frequents r/wallstreetbets and YOLOed in.

rtkwe5• 5 days ago

They're not really making any money when they close out their short position. The money came when they first opened the short position and sold the shares. When they close they just lock in how much they're going to net off the position.

solumunus• 5 days ago

Whether you buy or sell in the market you’re almost certainly trading with a market maker, not some other individual.

tomasphan• 5 days ago

The buyer of your short sale would lose money to you. Remember options are contracts between two parties.

Shorters are selling to willing buyers at the current fair market price. So that they may survive.

Windchaser• 5 days ago

It's still just "buy low, sell high". You make the money from the same folks you normally would, only the order of when you buy and sell is swapped.

bwfan123• 5 days ago

who do you make money from?

When you own stock at a broker in a margin account, you may sign an agreement to allow the broker to lend out your stock to someone else. For lending your stock, you are entitled to a stock-borrow fee which usually is quite small say 0.25%, and paid by the borrower (short-seller). The borrower then sells the stock to someone else. At a later point, the short seller closes their position by buying it back, and returning it to you. This is roughly the mechanics of it. So, to answer your question, the short seller makes money from folks who buy high and sell low. In this specific example, the stock-borrow fee say was 5% because, the float is still low, and if the short seller borrowed at $165 after the IPO and sold it, and then bought it back at $135 and closed their position, they made money from folks who bought at $165 and sold at $135.

t1234s• 5 days ago

You can also sell in the money call options in anticipation the stock will go down. You keep the premium the call buyer pays.

binyu5• 5 days ago

The market just redistributes wealth from less informed players to more sophisticated/informed ones.

kibwen4• 5 days ago

I wouldn't quite go that far. The fact that markets can remain irrational longer than participants can remain solvent means that participants with deeper pockets have an inherent advantage, even if they have less information. How quickly a random walk will take you to zero depends on how far above the baseline you start.

quickthrowman2• 5 days ago

When you short a stock, you borrow shares from someone who is holding that stock and their broker gets money for lending the shares and sometimes the holder of the shares lent out gets money. You sell the shares, probably to a market maker. The cash is credited to your account and held as collateral.

Sometime later, the stock has fallen and you decide to close the position. You buy back the shares with the borrowed money probably from a market maker and close your position. You give the shares you borrowed back to the lender. Your net profit is sell_price - buy_price - borrow_fees, anything left is your profit.

Stocks are not zero sum like options or futures, they also have no expiration date (unlike derivatives), it’s possible a short seller sold shares to someone who later profited, and then it’s also possible to buy the shares from someone who profited, even if you made a profit on shorting the stock.

So the answer is “other market participants” who also may have profited on their buy or sell.

Bitcario• 5 days ago

Alice holds SpaceX stock and believes it will rise. Bob believes the stock will fall. Alice and Bob reach an agreement for Alice to "lend" their SpaceX stock to Bob for a small "fee". Bob immediately sells the SpaceX stock at the current market value. After some time Bob will buy back the sold SpaceX stock at the current market value (hopefully less than Bob sold it for) and return the "borrowed" SpaceX stock to Alice thereby fulfilling the original contract.

It's also possible Bob's thesis on SpaceX could have been wrong and the shares could skyrocket. There's usually a provision in the contract for Alice to recall the shares she lent to Bob. In this case, Bob would be forced to buy SpaceX stock at the current market value and likely lose money on the overall trade.

To answer your specific question, "Who do you make money from?" It's actually not clear. Bob selling-high and buying-low doesn't necessarily mean whom Bob sells-to and whom he buys-from are on losing sides of the trade despite Bob making a profit. E.g. the buyer of Bob's short-sell could write calls and the stock could close pass the strike on expiration and turn a small profit as well.

jakequist• 5 days ago

It’s also not always the case that Alice is the loser. If SpaceX stock jumps up again after the position closes, then Alice is making money and both parties are winners.

yieldcrv• 5 days ago

you borrow shares from a permabull and immediately sell them to whatever is buying

all you owe is the number of shares you sold, the original owner doesnt care what happened as long as they get identical ones back eventually. In the meantime, you pay interest on the initial value of what you borrowed and sold

You just sit on the cash

later when the shares are cheaper, you buy shares on the open market and give them back to the person you borrowed from

whatever cash is leftover from rebuying is your profit

ratelimitsteve• 5 days ago

1) borrow the stock

2) sell it

3) rebuy it at the lower price (assuming you're right)

4) give it back to whomever you borrowed it from plus a consideration for letting you hold what's theirs for a bit

Whatever's left after you return the stock and pay the interest is your profit, which comes from the people who bought it from you in step 2. If you're wrong, and the price goes up, you have to replace the stock you borrowed at a higher price than you got for it and that's your loss (which could potentially be infinite, as opposed to long positions where you can only lose what you initially invested)

Metricon• 5 days ago

Keep in mind that unlike purchasing a stock where the most amount of money you can lose is the amount of money you spend buying the stock (assuming you didn't buy it on margin), if you directly short a stock, there's technically no limit to the amount of money you could lose. If a stock goes up 1000% after you short it, then you could lose far more money than you put into it.

dyauspitr4• 5 days ago

You can always hedge your shorts and limit your downside. It’s not a huge issue unless you have absolutely no idea what you are doing.

mahkeiro• 5 days ago

From people who bought the stock when you started to short.

paxys3• 5 days ago

Normal sale - buy low, sell high, pocket the difference

Short selling - sell high, buy low, pocket the difference.

The money is coming from the same place in both cases - other people in the market.

rtkwe5• 5 days ago

You're missing the cost to borrow on the stock which is a daily fee to continue borrowing the stock.

rtkwe5• 5 days ago

They're selling a borrowed stock, so any buyer on the market when you open the short position is where the money comes from. Short sellers get the money immediately and then pay fees to the people they borrowed from until they close the short position.

inigyou4• 5 days ago

Exactly the same people you'd make money from if you sold the stock high and bought it low (ending up with the same amount of the stock)

xutopia• 5 days ago

You essentially purchase a share into the stock from a random person and sell it immediately on the market at the current price with a promise to sell it future value in the future.

You don't actually take the money right away but a broker holds it for you.

Say Acme is worth 100$ today and you think it'll go down to 80$ in a week. You give the broker a small betting fee. So you give him 101$, he makes the purchase and holds the "position" for you.

During that week the price could do 2 things.

The Good Scenario: Price goes down to 80$. Broker buys the stock at 80$ and pockets a nice shiny 1$. You pocket 20$.

The Bad Scenario: Price goes up to 120$. Broker buys the stock at 120$ and pockets a nice shiny 1$. You owe broker 21$.

I say 1$ but it's actually more complicated than that. Some brokers allow you to do short positions only if you have other stock with them as collateral which they would sell to pay for whatever loss you might have. Shorting is a risky business because shares could go up to infinity and you could lose everything with these positions.

When people say they're "long on this stock" means they think it'll go up in price. "short on this stock" means they think it'll godown in price. It's lingo they love to use.

So the people you make it from are from people betting the opposite as you. Another person could make the opposite bet as you and end up losing their money that you pocket.

KaiserPro• 5 days ago

The key word is "fungibility"

as in, you give back _a_ share not the same share.

So you buy a bunch of shares at x price, you agree to hand them back in n days time.

You make money by selling the shares immediately and then you buy shares later at a lower price, then when you hand back the shares, the profit is the difference between ho much you sold them for, and how much you bought them back again.

The risk is, you _have_ to give the shares back usually at a fixed point in time. So if the price rises, you have to pay the difference. (there is normally a fee as well, to borrow the shares.)

icelancer2• 5 days ago

This is actually a very good question.

The funniest and simplest answer is that you make money off yourself.

cherryteastain• 5 days ago

Options/futures market makers

laughing_man• 5 days ago

When you open a short position you borrow shares from your broker's other customers. Your broker then sells those shares on the exchange. When you close your short position, your broker buys shares in that same stock from the exchange at the current price. So the people losing money are the people who bought when the market was high and sold when it was low, as always.

There are two big issues with shorting a stock. One, your downside is infinite, whereas your upside is only the size of your position. If you short a medical stock worth ten cents and it zooms up to $1000 because the company discovers a cure for cancer, that's going to cost you $999.90 for every share you shorted at ten cents. If the company goes bankrupt instead, you make... ten cents for every share. If you get unlucky a single short position will wipe out all the money you made or will make shorting stocks for the next three generations.

The second problem is you don't completely control your position. If you buy a stock to hold, it's yours until you decide to sell. But when you short a stock and enough the people at your brokerage holding shares in a company you shorted decide to sell, your broker will summarily close your position at the current market price because there aren't enough remaining shares for you to keep borrowing. That can be very frustrating if the stock is at a temporary peak, especially if it proceeds to go down to a price for which you would have closed at a profit.

EDIT: I suppose I should add a third problem to the list. If the cost of your short goes beyond a certain percentage of your account your broker will close your position to protect himself and his other customers. That usually happens if the stock is going up quickly. When your broker closes your position, he, along with all the other brokers closing short positions, needs to buy stock, which creates a positive feedback loop. That's called a "short squeeze". You can end up with prices shooting up to ridiculous levels because people have no choice but to buy.

deaton2• 5 days ago

Whoever lost money going long on it.

londons_explore• 5 days ago

Insiders who have locked up stocks but still want to sell could presumably just short the stock and take out a loan secured on the stock to get the financial effects of selling, without actually selling...

I wonder if that's what's happening with ~$1T of stocks currently locked up...

laluser• 5 days ago

That’s almost always prohibited.

meowkit• 5 days ago

Given the current administration’s recent market behavior I would not be shocked if people got away with exactly what OP described.

tehlike• 5 days ago

You don't "short the stock" by taking a loan secured by it.

dominotw• 5 days ago

That would be a crime.

Arodex• 5 days ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_granted_executi...

stymaar• 5 days ago

What happens if you get margin called in this scenario?

WarmWash• 5 days ago

If anyone knows of a broker who will let you withdraw the proceeds (cash) of a short sale, I will buy the name of the broker off you. I'll also let you know why I would pay for this (although you may already know anyway, hah).

I spent a week researching this talking to fidelity, schwab, IBKR, and Robinhood, none would allow it.

icelancer2• 5 days ago

I asked an adjacent question to a broker friend who flatly replied: "Not interested in being served a Wells Notice."

Which more or less answered the question for me, even if he was being a bit hyperbolic.

nutjob2• 5 days ago

Why would anyone let you do that? What's their incentive? I assume you're offering something as security for that money (shares?) but why would people complicate an already risky proposition further or go into the money lending business that they're not in?

jedberg• 5 days ago

Insiders aren't allowed to short a stock. It's against the law.

tonfa• 5 days ago

Against corporate policy, it's against the law only if they trade on material non public information.

Once the lockup expire they'll be able to trade (sometimes there's trading window but some tech company don't have any for lower level employees), and they'll still be insiders.

godwinson__4-82• 5 days ago

Interesting as some very prominent short sellers had publicly indicated they were not going to attempt this given the stock's "meme" potential and the "cult of Elon". Seems to have happened anyway. Good for those short sellers that committed. It's easy to speculate. Actually risking the bet when the market has a history of being highly irrational when it comes to Elon is another thing entirely. And the insiders haven't even been allowed to offload yet...

ck2• 5 days ago

it is just so weird to me that nearly $9 BILLION can be created out of nowhere for nothing

how can that be healthy for civilization

bgirard• 5 days ago

It's not created out of no where. It's traders saying that the stock is over priced and putting their money where their mouth is and taking on a big risk if they're wrong. They're extracting this money from folks that are putting upwards pressure on the stock saying it should be worth more. They're helping price the stock more efficiency and reducing index trader's expose to an overpriced stock e.g. retirement funds.

nairboon• 5 days ago

Those $9B are created the same way as when the stock would have risen. That's how most of the wealth in the stock market is created nowadays.

HEmanZ• 5 days ago

$9 Billion was not created, just exchanged, with some intermediary institutions and people making money for facilitating the transactions.

It's actually more like 1 trillion of value was "lost" when the stock dropped, and $9 billion was gained by some (and equivalently lost from others) for being right about the stock dropping.

Stock dropping is not literally a loss of any underlying good. It is a "assessment of how valuable something is". So when we say "omg we lost $1t in value" is not quite right. It's "we (everyone betting in the stock market) now collectively understand the value of this thing (company in this case) to be $1t less than assumed previously"

In this case, massive swings in value mean that the assessed value of a thing is very uncertain. I'd say this is extremely true for spacex, where in theory many people think it could be worth a fortune, or nothing, and no one can ever know the "true" value.

This is because there is not such thing as "absolute value" in the real world. And when it comes to things like stocks, "value" is just "hypothesized current value", which is a whole bunch of things combined: long term value of company, plus short term expected movement, even things like "who wants to own more of this this in the next few milliseconds", make up what a thing is estimated to be worth right now.

Assuming the stock market is some oracle of absolute value will make the world look insane. Seeing it as estimated value at one point in time in a very uncertain world where nothing has "true" value and all value is just relations between people and the things they want and the things they own and can exchange, is much closer to reality.

newfriend• 5 days ago

Ignorant yet loud opinions are even more unhealthy for civilization.

Ekaros• 5 days ago

It really is not from nothing. Someone just overpaid by 9 billion for bunch of stock certificate... Not exactly common scenario in other places but could happen on smaller scale.

Now debt is money from nothing...

jacobgold4• 5 days ago

I completely understood the idea of Starlink and expected that it would be successful and useful, which it is. I've worked in data centers for decades now, and I am incredibly skeptical of the "data centers in space" sales pitch. It seems like an actual scam.

Data centers submerged in the ocean or placed in the desert seem much more promising. But I have only an enthusiast's understanding of rockets and physics, so I'm genuinely open-minded to the possibility.

Is there anyone credible who thinks this is a plausible pathway for SpaceX to make huge amounts of profit?

chris_money2022• 5 days ago

Repairability and depreciation are the main problems. A earth data center can be repaired, depreciated, and recycled at EoL recovering some of the costs. SpaceX datacenters are a total write off from the moment they are launched.

jacobgold4• 5 days ago

That's actually not a concern I'd have, because hardware that has been sufficiently tested and burned in tends not to fail for a very long time.

I've done builds that ran for 5+ years with virtually no physical attention, just continual degradation as hardware is taken out of service. There's also not much money to recover from 5+ year-old hardware.

I used to run AI inference GPU servers in road vehicles, which is probably an even harsher environment than a single rocket launch, and the vibration problems are real but solvable.

vlovich1232• 5 days ago

The Microsoft design of filling an airtight submersible structure with argon and dropping it to the bottom of the ocean floor is the alternative design - you’re not looking to do repairs but amortize the low cost of failures across the value you extract.

The biggest issue with space is not repairability but heat - when you’re in a vacuum the only way to disperse heat is through black body radiation and that’s horribly slow compared with normal mechanisms. It means you need giant physical structures whose sole job is to accept heat from the processing core and radiate it away and have so much more material that you can radiate it at the speed you generate. It’s a huge unsolved physics problem which is why everyone is skeptical.

tqi2• 5 days ago

Isn't the problem also that because of radiation, processors in space either need to have larger feature sizes OR additional shielding / redundancy? Seems like a pretty high price to pay for slightly cheaper energy...

nickff• 5 days ago

SPCX is valued as an AI company; any and all issues you have with AI company valuations apply to to SPCX.

I too agree that SPCX’s space business is real and valuable, but it’s (almost completely) irrelevant here.

dragontamer• 5 days ago

Because SpaceX bought xAI/Twitter.

All of the losses are from the xAI/Twitter side of the house. And Elon Musk needs a flimsy story so that no one sues him. It doesnt have to be a believable story, it just needs to be enough so that no lawyer cares to bring a case in Texas vs SpaceX and Elon for breach of fiduciary duty.

The story did its job. Elon offloaded the money losing Twitter/xAI out of his personal wealth and onto the public through SpaceX. Done and done. SpaceX is now an AI company (or contains one) and needs to perform as such.

-------

It's literally the same story as Tesla/Solar City. Make up bullshit about solar panel synergy with EVs and buy out his cousins failing company. Make it TSLA shareholders problem for figuring out how to make a profit from the failing company, it's no longer Kimball Musks concern since the buyout

onli• 5 days ago

No. It really is a scam. Everyone with understanding of the physics involved wrote so. Heat dissipation + radiation + launch cost make it a no-go.

markasoftware• 5 days ago

Heat dissipation isn't as big a concern as it seems: the weight of the solar panels is significantly larger than that of the heatsinks you'd need per typical modern gpu

doctoboggan• 5 days ago

Is there anyone credible who thinks this is a plausible pathway for SpaceX to make huge amounts of profit?

Scott Manly (who I think is credible) has a video where he goes over the logistics of SpaceX's space based data centers. He seems to think its an idea worth pursuing, but its important to note that his expertise is space tech, and not business strategy.

jacobgold4• 5 days ago

Yeah, I have no doubt that it's possible to put GPU servers in space. The Starlink satellites are servers in space. The question is whether it's even remotely profitable to do this for AI training/inference servers.

RIMR2• 5 days ago

Let's just put it this way:

The ISS produces about 120 kilowatts of electricity.

An Nvidia Blackwell B200 GPU uses 1.2 kilowatts of electricity.

So, you would need a similar array of solar panels and radiators just to power 100 of them. You probably would need 2-3 launches for a satellite this big, and realistically, you would just make smaller satellites.

That's $4,000,000 worth of GPUs, A couple millon or more of RAM, SSDs, etc., a radiation-proof satellite housing to support all of that hardware, solar arrays, launch costs ($74M per Falcon launch), all for maintenance to be impossible and the hardware to become obsolete in a couple of years.

It's a delusion unless we invent some way to go to space for free.

LorenDB• 5 days ago

SpaceX would be launching these on Starship, which has a much lower targeted launch cost.

AnthonyMouse2• 5 days ago

I don't really get the obsolete argument.

The thing has two main parts. One, a bunch of solar panels, shielding and radiators. This the heavy / expensive to launch part, but should last for what, decades? Two, a bunch of GPUs/servers. These become obsolete, but so what? They're not that heavy, so every few years you send up another rocket and swap them out.

asadotzler2• 5 days ago

Launches are not $74M. That's retail pricing.

SpaceX's launch cost, the internal spend to put one Falcon 9 Starlink payload in orbit, with a return to launch site booster recovery, is about $15M.

If you're going to make such assertions, do the legwork to make sure your numerical claims aren't off by 500%.

leptons3• 5 days ago

The only way it makes sense is if you think the massive job losses due to AI will lead to people burning down datacenters on earth. An older spec'd and unmaintainable datacenter is worth way more than one in ashes.

pphysch2• 5 days ago

Datacenters in Antarctica or deep ocean also fulfill that.

onion2k• 5 days ago

Richard Campbell did a great talk at NDC a month about about this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo7MEPgWGic

tmp104232884422• 5 days ago

The ocean is worse than space from every perspective but cooling, radiation shielding, and cost/ease of installation. But that just highlights how bad of an idea space-based data centers are at this time.

metalliqaz2• 5 days ago

from every perspective but cooling, radiation shielding, and cost/ease of installation.

Oh is that all? Those are major data center concerns.

Don't forget the biggest one: an ocean-based system could be pulled up and serviced without the need for a human-rated rocket. Oh, and bandwidth/latency.

The ONLY benefit of space is that it doesn't require siting a major construction in a town full of angry residents, and it has abundant solar power. But given how much it costs to get the solar panels in orbit, that power sure ain't free.

WalterBright3• 5 days ago

Data centers submerged in the ocean

Sooner or later it's going to leak.

abfan1127• 5 days ago

I think corrosion is the big issue here. perhaps that is where the leak comes from.

deaton2• 5 days ago

To me it feels like a way for Musk to justify directing AI money towards his first true love, which was space.

FuckButtons• 5 days ago

The only barely sane rationale that I’ve heard for wanting datacenters in space is that they would give space-x low latency signal processing capacity it would need to turn Starlink into a real time Passive SAR constellation.

xtracto• 5 days ago

Too bad the things that really matter don't make "sense" (mostly people talk about economic sense when talking about this).

Increasing the temperature of the earth , and water usage are two things that using Space data centers will excel vs the alternatives. However society has just not been able to price that directly into these huge buildings.

Funny that I agree with EM idea on this, but the reasons are so far away.

paxys3• 5 days ago

For something to be a viable product it has to solve a problem. What problems are data centers in space solving? I can't think of a single one.

techgnosis• 5 days ago

No noise pollution or actual pollution from gas turbines. No using water in the desert. No angry communities.

tootie• 5 days ago

Like much new technology, it evades regulations. Hyperscalers are getting crushed by popular backlash and resource constraints. And like typically nerds they'd rather dream up a massively overengineered solution rather than face their responsibility as human beings.

esalman• 5 days ago

have only an enthusiast's understanding of rockets and physics, so I'm genuinely open-minded to the possibility.

I used to be open minded too but lost all sense of credibility in anything Elon Musk touches when he called nanotechnology a pseudoscience. Since then it's only been downhill. One does not have to be subject matter expert, even China is vertically landing rockets now.

tim3332• 5 days ago

Paul Graham has been positive about the YC startup doing data centers in space https://x.com/paulg/status/2009686627506065779

For the idea to make sense I think you have to project forward some years to launches being cheaper and compute demand outrunning the energy grid.

johneth• 5 days ago

What makes you think Paul Graham knows what he's talking about re: space, data centers, and the logistics of lifting data centers into space and the ongoing maintenance of them. I don't understand the deification his thoughts receive around here.

throwaway77832• 5 days ago

Does anyone think here shortselling should be banned?

ashtonshears• 5 days ago

No, nobody who has basic financial market literacy thinks that

throwaway77832• 5 days ago

Lots of downvotes and one condescending remark, but no knowledge shared :(

agustechbro• 5 days ago

okay, but shorts have to take profits sooner than latter, so upside is comming

zugi2• 5 days ago

SpaceX has accomplished spectacular things in reusable launch vehicles and space-based networking. It will soon restore the heavy launch capability that the US lost when it retired the Saturn V in the 1970s, but in an affordable and sustainable manner. SpaceX is almost single-handedly keeping the US ahead in space.

I'm bullish on SpaceX as a company in terms of technical accomplishment.

Buying SPCX would make sense at about 1/4 of its IPO price. The IPO price and subsequent rise was inflated via hype and artificial supply restriction, i.e. publicly selling just 4% of the total company ownership.

amanaplanacanal3• 5 days ago

Yes but... All the "value" in SpaceX is in AI. Actual space launches are a tiny part of the portfolio. Talking about launch capability is almost off topic when taking about SpaceX valuation.

nijave7• 5 days ago

When I checked, Starlink seemed somewhat valuable but highly questionable addressable market (limited growth)

amanaplanacanal3• 5 days ago

Not sure why anybody would downvote this, as this is exactly what the company claimed in their filing. Less than 10% was space launch and starlink. The rest was all AI.

nijave7• 5 days ago

but in an affordable and sustainable manner

Affordable is a bit questionable. It's heavily subsidized by Starlink and government.

Not completely clear what happens to price if SpaceX doesn't keep launch demand propped up with their own business.

zugi2• 4 days ago

SpaceX bids on competitive government space launch contracts and wins most of them because they're more reliable and often half the price of the competitors, or less. Government is now essentially subsidizing SpaceX's space launch competitors, giving them more expensive contracts on which they often fail to deliver, only because the government doesn't want to be dependent on a single space launch contractor. So complaints government subsidies seem misdirected.

Many companies have tried to launch LEO space-based communications constellations, starting with Iridium 30 years ago. Starlink is first and only so far to succeed at scale and provide truly global internet access. Indeed having the space launch and communications business joint has helped both of them. Indeed that helped SpaceX drive down launch costs, given their reusability and economies of scale. Having two very successful business lines integrated and synergistic seems like a massive plus, so I guess don't see the concern about the Starlink part of the business "propping up" the space launch part of the business.

sharts• 5 days ago

“SpaceX has created 8.7B of wealth and GDP growth within weeks!”

nikolay• 5 days ago

Well, that's a market economy, so deal with it!

mmooss• 5 days ago

Is disregarding laws, defrauding shareholders, and corruptly buying government contracts - as just a few examples - a 'market economy'? Is there a market for those government contracts, other than the market for the president's favor?

tsoukase• 5 days ago

I like Elon so much because of one reason: his multi trillion business adds completely new values without taking a single cent away from small retailers and owners, as new big corps do through various legit and not so ways. In contrast, Bezos has closed innumerable stores and every tech giant killed competition in online services. Name it socialism for the poor, but I don't care about his success as long as it doesn't interfere with other's business.

His EV was successful, his social media/AI OK but his space data center will fail and from now on he sells hype, a very fancy, trendy, sexy -name it- and expensive hype. Laws of physics don't allow it to be viable. We have a joke that originally applied to politicians and now to him: you can fool one for a long time, you can fool many for a short time, but you can't fool many for a long time.

Short sellers notch $8.7B profit as SpaceX shares dip to IPO price

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