Charlie Stross

RE: https://mastodon.social/@blogdiva/116800702398076972

I remember this happening A LOT in 2020: overvalued prices at IPO followed by a brisk tumble and no recovery ever.

SpaceX has a viable rocket business (Kesseler syndrome permitting) but in no way was the IPO price justified and those shares are never going to recover this side of 2050.

Jun 23 at 7:18pmWeb
Show threadRick OwensJun 23
@cstross Well, I'm sure someone promised it would have a meteoric trajectory... ​
Show threadGeoff 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Jun 23
@rowens @cstross That's not a good one....
Show threadRick OwensJun 23
@_thegeoff @cstross A-yep - plenty of folks still talk about products/stocks/reputation of {pick whatever} having a 'meteoric rise' - which always makes me snicker.
Show threadlp0 on fire Jun 23
@_thegeoff @rowens @cstross, agreed. A lot of people who probably can't afford it are going to be impacted by this.
Show threadRalfMaximus5d ago

@lp0_on_fire

Hey now, my 401(k) is listening.

@_thegeoff @rowens @cstross

Show threadFrank Bennett 🇯🇵Jun 23
@cstross Insider shares begin unlocking later this year.
Show threadGabriel NJun 23
@cstross that valuation is out of this world, for sure.
Show threadHollieKJun 23

@cstross

Musk appears to have lost $240 billion in the last week, but he still needs to lose a bit more before he is no longer a trillionaire.

https://fortune.com/2026/06/23/spacex-share-fluctuation-elon-musk-net-worth-trillionaire/

SpaceX’s drop-off sees Elon Musk’s net worth fall $240 billion—roughly the same value as computing giant IBM

The fall in Tesla CEO Elon Musk's net worth over the course of a week is roughly the same value as IT giant IBM.

Fortune
Show threadadritheonlyJun 23
@cstross So does this mean Musk is still a trillionaire or has his portfolio just tanked?
Show threadCharlie StrossJun 23
@adritheonly At this rate he will cease to be a "trillionaire" within a few more days of trading losses. But it was fake from the start.
Show threadadritheonlyJun 23
@cstross [Beatific smile whilst contemplating this]
Show threadrandom thoughtsJun 23
@cstross @adritheonly
He's been selling significant amount of stock, he's banking it all in as fast as he can.
Show threadadritheonlyJun 23
@hittitezombie @cstross 😀
Show threadFookerJun 23
@cstross well, most of the price is based on a stupid AI part of the company. And an AI IPO just before the AI bubble burst is kinda not a great investment... It's less caveat emptor and more sucker/minute..
Show threadRaj 🇬🇧🇪🇺💻🖥(🌻🇺🇦;🇵🇸)Jun 23

@cstross As I said elsewhere, I hope the tumble finishes before the NASDAQ listing puts the shares into the mandatory buying zone.

Still money in the pocket for old Elon Mollusc.

Show threadDavid SJun 23
@realcainmosni @cstross well if he's dumping his shares as fast as possible then that might happen - still a week left I believe?
Show threadAria <3 Jun 23
@cstross pumpity dumpity!
Show threadNico…Jun 23
@cstross it’s actually back up a little bit today
Show threadElias ProbstJun 23
@cstross naaah, the shares are just using a gravity assist…
Show threadshadowsJun 23

@cstross he didn’t even seem to believe the rocket business was worth much in the overall IPO.

“The S-1 gave investors something to dream on: SpaceX claimed 93% of its total addressable market would be “in AI”—a figure roughly equivalent to U.S. annual GDP, or $26.5 trillion.”

(The S-1 is a document they have to file to IPO)

https://fortune.com/2026/06/15/spacex-valuation-2-trillion-how-much-ai-grok-elon-musk/

Top analyst: 71% of SpaceX’s $2 trillion value rests on AI. Grok’s numbers are ‘almost comical’ by comparison

Keith Snyder at CFRA can’t justify SpaceX’s $2 trillion post-IPO market cap without assuming growth that current Grok adoption data doesn’t support.

Fortune
Show threadRay McCarthyJun 23

@cstross
For the rockets that are proven to work, but hasn't even that been effectively subsidised?

The current "Starship" seems a flawed concept (and name).

Show threadCharlie StrossJun 23
@raymaccarthy Starship is probably going to work, but could have been working better and sooner if the'd kept Elon far away from the design process.
Show threadRay McCarthyJun 23
@cstross
Only as a major redesign.
Show threadCharlie StrossJun 23
@raymaccarthy It *is* on a major redesign—the last test flight was the first flight of version 3! (The reason it wasn't successful was that they flew with an all-new upgraded engine, and a couple of them malfunctioned: not enough to stop the mission, but enough that they need another test to qualify it.)
Show threadTim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPEJun 23

@cstross @raymaccarthy We are told that SpaceX had entire layers of management dedicated to stopping Musk breaking things.

Twitter didn't, which was why it was so much easier to break.

Show threadTim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPEJun 23

@cstross Yeah. The Falcon 9 and Starlink businesses seemed plausibly real, and the Starship business might have been an amusing home for some "let's take a wild punt" spare cash, enabling you to say "I did that!" whenever anything exciting happened.

But the rest of it??

Like the England Winners stamp, the best day to sell these shares was on the day of issue, it looks like.

Show threadJungYulKim Dotcom Free Press6d ago

@cstross

Just as a prospectus, what happens which causes this stock to go up?

Like a news report: "SpaceX announces _______, stock skyrockets."

What would it even be?

Show threadXCondE6d ago

@cstross I thought that the viable part of SpaceX was Starlink.

Their AI business is a cash burning machine, and the rockets rely on government money (which is ok but comes with inherent risk).

Show threadarrbee6d ago
@cstross
Starlink is the only part of the business that makes a profit, the rockets make a loss even after all the government subsidies (maybe they should charge Starlink more) and the AI part makes a huge loss which outweighs all the others combined, and will probably continue that way.
IIRC the IPO prospectus stated that the overall business did not make a profit and may never do so.
Show threadCharlie Stross6d ago

@rogerb Where do you get "the rockets make a loss"? Book cost of an F9 launch is about $70M but they're reusable and internal billing for a Starlink flight is $12M! That doesn't sound remotely like it's making a loss on commercial flights …

The real problem for the rockets is that SpaceX already stitched up 80% of the global commercial launch market. And that Musk tied an AI boat anchor to the biz in order to big up the market cap before a largely fraudulent IPO.

Show threadarrbee6d ago
@cstross
Every analysis I've seen of the SpaceX group before the IPO states that Starlink is the only part that is profitable and that "space launch" makes a loss (albeit nothing like as much as AI).
Commercial launches are only part of the space launch business, and as I say we dont know what they charge Starlink.
Show threadCharlie Stross6d ago
@rogerb Profitability, in business terms, is something you pay tax on. So businesses in industries with room for growth try to plough it all back into growth by investing. Usually they can flip a switch and show a profit within a quarter *if* they need to, to propitiate the investors. See also the history of Amazon.
Show threadRealGene ☣️6d ago
@cstross
Last week Wal-Mart was selling a StarLink Mini kit for $249 (60% off MSRP).
Someone was trying to boost subscription numbers (i.e. cash flow).