SpaceX IPO

Altior

True, it's the nature of the forum that discussions go beyond simply answering a stated question.

That doesn't mean it is the correct way to behave, just as other people do it.

There are scenarios where we might want to protect an OP from doing something unintended, and drift off of the specific topic, but that doesn't appear to have happened here.

Reddit might be a more appropriate place to discuss the valuations of individual stocks (or indeed, potential IPOs), if a poster invites a discussion on it!

In addition to that, anything to do with Musk ends up being quasi political, which is overtly dissuaded by tptb.

QrizB

Elon intends to put the data centres in space to benefit from solar power and to radiate the heat into space

I trust you realise quite how ridiculous that statement is!

wmb194

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82010159#Comment_82010159

People are going to come along and ask about this and the title of the thread is generic enough to encompass most questions. I also don’t want to use Reddit and nothing political’s been brought up so far.

Altior

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82010202#Comment_82010202

Several posts have been deleted from the thread already. One calling Musk a raving lunatic.

It's literally pointless, unless you count the opportunity to flex virtue signalling. Who in their right mind thinks spacex will be valued based on fundamentals. This could go for many many existing equities currently traded, and digital currency for example. I'm not saying it's right, but we are in an era of sentiment driven investment, and not just retail investors.

EthicsGradient

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82010222#Comment_82010222

I wouldn't call it "pointless" - the questionable reliability of the owner of most of the voting stock, and his history of unmet goals, is important in that sentiment you point out. And when there were (unsourced) claims like "this could be worth $30 trillion in 10 years' time", it's good to look at actual discussion, and, as you say, point out that the fundamentals have no relation to the prices being talked about (I believe I was the first to mention AI, while another post before me had made it sound like this is the space-only business).

Digital currency is indeed a fighting topic here, and if someone asks "what's the best way to buy it?", they will get told to avoid it, since it's betting at best, a scam at worst.

On solar satellites and dumping the heat: getting rid of excess heat can be a problem in space, but solar power has one advantage - it has the considerable area in the shadow of the cells available for radiators. It's intercepting a large amount of solar energy, transforming some into electricity sent to the computing (or whatever) area, and then having to dump it as heat. So you need to circulate the heat back to the array of panels, and radiate it from behind them as best as you can.

There should be a fair amount of experience with this now, with all the different sizes of satellites up to the ISS, and proper engineers should have an idea of what scaling is practical. I just wouldn't take Musk's word for it (like everyone really knows his claims about Mars are ridiculous); find a proper engineer not being paid by him.

redux

Tesla seems to be valued on different basis than other car makers, so why wouldn't this be.

I'm not working to imply good or bad, just difficult to understand and not for everyone

Ciprico

Reality and fundamentals don't enter into it...

When Tesla entered the NASDAQ a few years ago it was deemed massively overvalued

It's gone up a bit since then.

From AI. ​This represents a staggering return of approximately 37,000% on the stock price alone. If you had purchased just $1,000 worth of TSLA stock on its first day on the NASDAQ, your position would be worth roughly $370,000 today.

Add to that the sexiness of rockets, satalites, AI, NASA etc and the uses for US military, it's a pretty heady mix.

Their AI is tuned for material and engineering deveopment, which could be more interesting than some of the other AIs that are still looking for a way to recover the enormous investments.

Altior

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82010237#Comment_82010237

It is pointless in my opinion, because what is 'under the hood' will have very little relation to the initial trading if the IPO progresses.

Even though it will be vastly overvalued on any reasonable measure, I doubt anyone on here will admit to shorting it.

Yes Musk is pivotal to the businesses he owns, and if he no longer owned them, for whatever reason, there would be a material difference in how the market prices them up. But palpably there is also a political element to the negativity, I don't really know why anyone would try to pretend that there isn't. I don't see any other mag 7 CEOs being called raving lunatics on what is ostensibly a sensible forum (as an example).

masonic

I have to agree with @Altior. In the early stages of this thread there were several posts pre-emptively insulting and baiting "the haters" of Musk, in addition to posts doing just that. So often entire threads get deleted due to this sort of tribal squabbling, taking the useful content with it. It may not fit the strict definition of "political", but the end effect is the same. About 10 posts in all had to be removed on Friday, halving the size of the thread at that time.

Altior

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82010263#Comment_82010263

The third or fourth post on the thread was a two liner, calling Musk a 'raving lunatic'.

Instead of responding on the thread, resulting in a continuation the off topic chat, I reported it almost straight away, and it was still there the next day.

I don't know the exact timeline, but I anticipate that a non Musk hater subsequently reported what I'd wrote in response, which was at least a day after if I recall correctly (which was responding to that original 'raving lunatic' post, since it appeared at that point to have passed the threshold test for forum moderation). Therefore the deletion of the 'raving lunatic' post might have become unavoidable, if my rather more placid and non personally targeted posts were going to be removed.

Anything that I posted that has been deleted certainly wasn't pre-emptive, quite the opposite. I did predict what might happen after the IPO, since that hasn't happened yet, I concede that element is unavoidably pre-emptive.

For the record, I'd much prefer to use words to call out something on the forum that I feel is incorrect, than utilise the report button. And, yes, sometimes I use moderate levity to help make my point, even if it results in only me being amused! However, sometimes it's not possible to win either way when the power is not at your own finger tips. The most egregious post on the thread has gone (which wasn't any of mine, in my opinion), so I'll take that as a minor win.