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#Starships #path #reusability #murky #SpaceXs #TechCrunchElon Musk,SpaceX,Starlink,Starship">
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#Starships #path #reusability #murky #SpaceXs #TechCrunchElon Musk,SpaceX,Starlink,Starship">
Tech-news
SpaceX’s recent IPO and Starship rocket test flight delivered two big data points that offer a realistic vision for the coming years — and one that may disappoint both the company’s boosters and its critics.
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#Starships #path #reusability #murky #SpaceXs #TechCrunchElon Musk,SpaceX,Starlink,Starship">Starship’s path to reusability looks murky after SpaceX’s S-1 | TechCrunchSpaceX’s recent IPO and Starship rocket test flight delivered two big data points that offer a realistic vision for the coming years — and one that may disappoint both the company’s boosters and its critics.
Hidden behind the fantastic expectations for AI enterprise profits and plans for a moon base is a more grounded reality: An expendable Starship could keep SpaceX in business, but doesn’t achieve the cost reductions — or frontier business models — Elon Musk is betting on.
SpaceX is many businesses, but right now only one is producing significant revenue. Starlink, its satellite communications network, is the tent pole of the firm’s public offering. The top line is fairly incredible; SpaceX’s connectivity business generated $11.4 billion in revenue last year, the bulk of the company’s earnings.
But underneath, you can see the capital expenditure treadmill that scared previous entrepreneurs away from this model. SpaceX needs to replace about a fifth of its satellites every year just to maintain its current level of service. It has invested more in its satellite business ($11.4 billion) since the beginning of 2023 than it has building Starship and its launch infrastructure ($8.4 billion).
SpaceX’s S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission predicts costs will continue growing, but expects that improvements to its technology will allow it to reduce them as a percentage of its revenue.
Musk has said that Starship is the key to keeping Starlink’s costs under control, even saying that SpaceX could go bankrupt without the vehicle’s ability to replace those satellites cheaply. In that context, a note that stood out in SpaceX’s S-1 was the first acknowledgment that full reusability of Starship isn’t necessary to launch the new generation of Starlink satellites. But without full reusability, the cost will go up, making the business less attractive.
“If this reusability is not achieved then the cost of launch on Starship may not be much lower than Falcon 9, even if the full 100 ton capability is realized (which is by no means a foregone conclusion),” satellite market analyst Tim Farrar wrote in a note to clients last week. “The cost per launch may be as much as $100M (i.e. $1000 per kg) while tempo remains constrained by the rate at which second stages can be manufactured and first stages can be refurbished.”
Last week’s test flight of the third version of Starship and its booster bore those concerns out. The newest rocket’s maiden flight saw issues with a key capability for reusability — relighting the Raptor rocket engines on both the booster and Starship in order to make a controlled return to Earth. Starship did, however, deploy a set of dummy satellites and two test vehicles in space.
That helps square SpaceX’s prediction that it will begin launching a new generation of higher-throughput Starlink satellites 60 at a time, a twentyfold increase in capacity compared to a single Falcon 9 launch, later this year. At first glance a classic example of Musk’s timelines, it may actually be an expectation that initial launches will expend the Starship. If so, SpaceX might not be able to count on as much free satellite cash as expected, and its plans to launch space data centers will become untenable until the rocket is reusable.
Starlink growth slows
At the same time, SpaceX’s S-1 shows that Starlink’s growth is slowing.
SpaceX’s total addressable market calculation is based on its ability to offer service to every fixed-broadband subscriber or mobile handset in the world. That’s unlikely, though, because Starlink isn’t competing on price with terrestrial fiber. The rest of the document suggests SpaceX continues to see direct-to-device as a complement, rather than a replacement, for terrestrial mobile providers.
Starlink has just over 10 million subscribers, more than any other satellite communications network. But Farrar notes the rate of user growth fell over the course of the first quarter of 2026. Quilty Space, a space consulting firm, projected earlier this year that SpaceX would end the year with 16.8 million subscribers. That would require the company’s quarterly growth rate to roughly double from where it is now, which may be difficult after recent price increases.
Growth matters for SpaceX because its new Starlink users are paying less than previous ones. Starlink’s average revenue per user has fallen from $99 in 2023 to $66 in the first quarter of 2026 — a change propelled by its expansion into new international markets where it can’t charge as much as it does in developed economies. Without a fast-growing user base, each new satellite launched is making less money.
Increased competition also threatens Starlink. Amazon’s Leo network is approaching the scale required to put pressure on SpaceX, although it is waiting for the Federal Communications Commission to extend a deadline that requires it to launch 1,600 internet satellites by July.
Data in the SpaceX filing presents a gloomy growth forecast for the company as well as rivals like Blue Origin. Farrar says that if SpaceX — much further ahead than any other company — is seeing slowing demand, that may signal the market for space broadband is smaller than the players anticipated.
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#Starships #path #reusability #murky #SpaceXs #TechCrunchElon Musk,SpaceX,Starlink,StarshipSpaceX’s recent IPO and Starship rocket test flight delivered two big data points that offer…
For months, rumors have swirled that SpaceX was preparing a historic market debut, with whispers of a $1.75 trillion valuation and a record-shattering $75 billion raise. Now that the paperwork is public, we finally have our first real look at the financials behind the company that normalized reusable rockets, built a space internet monopoly, and absorbed Musk’s xAI and the dredges of Twitter into its orbit.
Several of our anticipated market opportunities, including certain AI, orbital, lunar, and interplanetary transportation and industrial activities, are still emerging and evolving or do not currently exist, and such markets may not develop as we expect, or at all.
It also says its “substantial level of indebtedness could materially adversely affect our financial condition.”
According to the WSJ, Musk’s supervoting shares will give him 85 percent control over the company. In addition to Musk, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell, and CFO Bret Johnson, the SEC filing lists several other members of SpaceX’s board of directors, including Google executive Donald Harrison, Tesla board member Ira Ehrenpreis, as well as investors Randy Glein, Antonio Gracias, Steve Jurvetson, and Luke Nosek.
SpaceX describes its mission to investors as:
Our mission is to build the systems and technologies necessary to make life multiplanetary, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars. To do this, we have formed the most ambitious, vertically integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth with unmatched capabilities to rapidly manufacture and launch space-based communications that connect the world, to harness the Sun to power a truth-seeking artificial intelligence that advances scientific discovery, and ultimately to build a base on the Moon and cities on other planets.
SpaceX currently leads the industry in commercial space launches, with its massive Starship V3 rocket scheduled for flight on Thursday following a delay. The document repeatedly brings up establishing “orbital AI compute” by putting servers in space as a massive opportunity for revenue and one that it is uniquely positioned to deliver. In January, SpaceX asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to launch one million data center satellites into space to support a growing AI buildout.
It’s telling investors that SpaceX believes it has “identified the largest actionable total addressable market (TAM) in human history,” potentially worth $28.5 trillion, with $370 billion from space, $1.6 trillion in connectivity with Starlink Broadband and Starlink Mobile, and $26.5 trillion in AI, which includes AI infrastructure, subscriptions, advertising, and $22.7 trillion in enterprise applications.
Tech-news
SpaceX generated $18.67 billion in revenue in 2025, driven largely by its Starlink satellite internet service, which brought in more than $11 billion, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. The company lost over $4.9 billion last year, with capital expenditures soaring to $20.7 billion last year, a leap from $11.2 billion in 2024, as reported by The New York Times. xAI, which recently merged with SpaceX, lost billions last year, while growing revenue by 22 percent, according to TechCrunch.
For months, rumors have swirled that SpaceX was preparing a historic market debut, with whispers of a $1.75 trillion valuation and a record-shattering $75 billion raise. Now that the paperwork is public, we finally have our first real look at the financials behind the company that normalized reusable rockets, built a space internet monopoly, and absorbed Musk’s xAI and the dredges of Twitter into its orbit.
Several of our anticipated market opportunities, including certain AI, orbital, lunar, and interplanetary transportation and industrial activities, are still emerging and evolving or do not currently exist, and such markets may not develop as we expect, or at all.
It also says its “substantial level of indebtedness could materially adversely affect our financial condition.”
According to the WSJ, Musk’s supervoting shares will give him 85 percent control over the company. In addition to Musk, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell, and CFO Bret Johnson, the SEC filing lists several other members of SpaceX’s board of directors, including Google executive Donald Harrison, Tesla board member Ira Ehrenpreis, as well as investors Randy Glein, Antonio Gracias, Steve Jurvetson, and Luke Nosek.
SpaceX describes its mission to investors as:
Our mission is to build the systems and technologies necessary to make life multiplanetary, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars. To do this, we have formed the most ambitious, vertically integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth with unmatched capabilities to rapidly manufacture and launch space-based communications that connect the world, to harness the Sun to power a truth-seeking artificial intelligence that advances scientific discovery, and ultimately to build a base on the Moon and cities on other planets.
SpaceX currently leads the industry in commercial space launches, with its massive Starship V3 rocket scheduled for flight on Thursday following a delay. The document repeatedly brings up establishing “orbital AI compute” by putting servers in space as a massive opportunity for revenue and one that it is uniquely positioned to deliver. In January, SpaceX asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to launch one million data center satellites into space to support a growing AI buildout.
It’s telling investors that SpaceX believes it has “identified the largest actionable total addressable market (TAM) in human history,” potentially worth $28.5 trillion, with $370 billion from space, $1.6 trillion in connectivity with Starlink Broadband and Starlink Mobile, and $26.5 trillion in AI, which includes AI infrastructure, subscriptions, advertising, and $22.7 trillion in enterprise applications.
SpaceX generated $18.67 billion in revenue in 2025, driven largely by its Starlink satellite internet service, which brought in more than $11 billion, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. The company lost over $4.9 billion last year, with capital expenditures soaring to $20.7 billion last year, a leap from $11.2 billion in 2024, as reported by The New York Times. xAI, which recently merged with SpaceX, lost billions last year, while growing revenue by 22 percent, according to TechCrunch.
For months, rumors have swirled that SpaceX was preparing a historic market debut, with whispers of a $1.75 trillion valuation and a record-shattering $75 billion raise. Now that the paperwork is public, we finally have our first real look at the financials behind the company that normalized reusable rockets, built a space internet monopoly, and absorbed Musk’s xAI and the dredges of Twitter into its orbit.
Several of our anticipated market opportunities, including certain AI, orbital, lunar, and interplanetary transportation and industrial activities, are still emerging and evolving or do not currently exist, and such markets may not develop as we expect, or at all.
It also says its “substantial level of indebtedness could materially adversely affect our financial condition.”
According to the WSJ, Musk’s supervoting shares will give him 85 percent control over the company. In addition to Musk, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell, and CFO Bret Johnson, the SEC filing lists several other members of SpaceX’s board of directors, including Google executive Donald Harrison, Tesla board member Ira Ehrenpreis, as well as investors Randy Glein, Antonio Gracias, Steve Jurvetson, and Luke Nosek.
SpaceX describes its mission to investors as:
Our mission is to build the systems and technologies necessary to make life multiplanetary, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars. To do this, we have formed the most ambitious, vertically integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth with unmatched capabilities to rapidly manufacture and launch space-based communications that connect the world, to harness the Sun to power a truth-seeking artificial intelligence that advances scientific discovery, and ultimately to build a base on the Moon and cities on other planets.
SpaceX currently leads the industry in commercial space launches, with its massive Starship V3 rocket scheduled for flight on Thursday following a delay. The document repeatedly brings up establishing “orbital AI compute” by putting servers in space as a massive opportunity for revenue and one that it is uniquely positioned to deliver. In January, SpaceX asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to launch one million data center satellites into space to support a growing AI buildout.
It’s telling investors that SpaceX believes it has “identified the largest actionable total addressable market (TAM) in human history,” potentially worth $28.5 trillion, with $370 billion from space, $1.6 trillion in connectivity with Starlink Broadband and Starlink Mobile, and $26.5 trillion in AI, which includes AI infrastructure, subscriptions, advertising, and $22.7 trillion in enterprise applications.
SpaceX generated $18.67 billion in revenue in 2025, driven largely by its Starlink satellite internet…
hollywood copy - alina watson
Jimmy Kimmel Tells Elon Musk to ‘Stay in Your Lane’ After Meltdown Over Lupita Nyong’o’s ‘Odyssey’ Casting | Video
Jimmy Kimmel torched Elon Musk after the Tesla CEO had a meltdown over Christopher Nolan…
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#Elon #Musk #Sam #Altman #stole #nonprofit #trial #showed #similar #aims #TechCrunchElon Musk,OpenAI,sam altman,Tesla">
Tech-news
The jury’s speedy decision to reject Elon Musk’s lawsuit against the other founders of OpenAI and Microsoft confirmed what we saw in the courtroom: Musk’s case was a weak one, in part because he waited so long to file it.
Watching the closing arguments last week, OpenAI’s attorneys detailed point-by-point how the law was on their client’s side, while the plaintiffs team focused on Sam Altman’s apparent lack of credibility and expressed disbelief that anyone would disagree with Musk’s accusations.
The final effect was that, after the verdict, some found it hard to believe Musk had lost — including the man himself. In a post he later deleted, Musk called Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers a “terrible activist Oakland judge,” then announced his plans to appeal, declaring “there is no question to anyone following the case in detail that Altman & Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity.”
But Altman and Brockman weren’t the only figures who benefitted from OpenAI’s non-profit investments. As much as Musk and his legal team tried to make the trial about Altman, the proceedings revealed just as much about Musk himself.
One incident that came out in court showed Musk benefiting from OpenAI in an uncomfortably familiar way. Greg Brockman testified that in 2017, Musk asked him to bring a team of OpenAI researchers down to Tesla’s headquarters to help with the autopilot team for a few weeks. “It was pretty clear that was not something we could say no to,” Brockman said.
Brockman described taking a team of leading scientists, including Andrej Karpathy, Ilya Sutskever, and Scott Grey, to consult with the “demoralized” Tesla workers. They helped come up with ideas to improve the vehicle’s self-driving technology, with Sutskever telling the team that if they could find 10,000 images of a tricky corner case, they would be able to fix their software. Musk even asked Brockman to recommend employees to fire, which he declined to do.
Another person familiar with the episode confirmed Brockman’s account, and said Tesla did not reimburse OpenAI for the time and effort of its employees. Musk’s family office, Excession, didn’t reply to a request for comment.
The heart of Musk’s case is that Altman, Brockman and OpenAI committed a “breach of charitable trust” — that Musk donated funds for a specific charitable purpose, and his cofounders instead used them for something else. He also accuses them of “unjust enrichment” due stock and other benefits from OpenAI’s for-profit.
In the case of the OpenAI scientists parachuting into Tesla, Musk’s charitable donations were intended to hire scientists focused on securing the benefits of AGI. Instead, he had them work for free at his for-profit company.
Dorothy Lund, a Columbia Law School professor and the co-host of the Beyond Unprecedented podcast, told TechCrunch that this arrangement wouldn’t be legal, calling it “a bit rich for Musk to be suing for breach of a charitable trust, when he appears to have been redirecting assets in a way that was inconsistent with that mission.”
It’s true that the self-driving work involved artificial intelligence, but witnesses for Musk emphasized that Tesla’s self-driving project was very different from OpenAI’s research agenda. That’s in part because Karpathy left OpenAI for Tesla shortly after this incident. OpenAI’s attorneys portrayed the departure as Musk violating his duty to the lab, where he was co-chair of the board, by recruiting one of its key researchers to his own company.
The other fact that no doubt influenced the jury was the amount of time Musk spent trying to gain sole control of a potential OpenAI for-profit affiliate in 2017. Musk deployed good cop, bad cop tactics in an attempt to convince his cofounders to let him have total control of OpenAI’s for-profit affiliate — giving them free Teslas, and threatening to withhold his donations.
His efforts put his attorneys in a tricky spot, facing a need to convince the jury there was a significant difference between what Musk envisioned, and the for-profit that was ultimately created. They suggested a “small adjunct” for-profit would be permissible, though OpenAI’s witnesses showed non-profits with large commercial arms are common.
Indeed, there’s a very plausible counter-factual where Musk took one of the offers his cofounders made to split their equity more evenly, and finds himself today as one of OpenAI’s largest shareholders — just not the controlling one. But several times during the trial, Musk’s associates testified that he refuses to invest in any business he could have sole control over.
The failure of Musk’s claims because he filed them too late has been cited as a technicality, but the statute of limitations has substance behind it: People and businesses make important decisions and spend resources based on their understanding that what they are doing is permissible. If someone like Musk waits too long to sue, then the cost of unravelling all those decisions can outweigh a just reimbursement.
No members of the jury have spoken about how they arrived at their verdict. However, they were asked to consider if, before Aug. 5, 2021, Musk should have known that OpenAI was spending resources outside its mission or launching for-profit affiliate. The answer to that is clear: Musk himself was doing those things.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
#Elon #Musk #Sam #Altman #stole #nonprofit #trial #showed #similar #aims #TechCrunchElon Musk,OpenAI,sam altman,Tesla">Elon Musk said Sam Altman “stole” a non-profit — but the trial showed he had similar aims | TechCrunchThe jury’s speedy decision to reject Elon Musk’s lawsuit against the other founders of OpenAI and Microsoft confirmed what we saw in the courtroom: Musk’s case was a weak one, in part because he waited so long to file it.
Watching the closing arguments last week, OpenAI’s attorneys detailed point-by-point how the law was on their client’s side, while the plaintiffs team focused on Sam Altman’s apparent lack of credibility and expressed disbelief that anyone would disagree with Musk’s accusations.
The final effect was that, after the verdict, some found it hard to believe Musk had lost — including the man himself. In a post he later deleted, Musk called Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers a “terrible activist Oakland judge,” then announced his plans to appeal, declaring “there is no question to anyone following the case in detail that Altman & Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity.”
But Altman and Brockman weren’t the only figures who benefitted from OpenAI’s non-profit investments. As much as Musk and his legal team tried to make the trial about Altman, the proceedings revealed just as much about Musk himself.
One incident that came out in court showed Musk benefiting from OpenAI in an uncomfortably familiar way. Greg Brockman testified that in 2017, Musk asked him to bring a team of OpenAI researchers down to Tesla’s headquarters to help with the autopilot team for a few weeks. “It was pretty clear that was not something we could say no to,” Brockman said.
Brockman described taking a team of leading scientists, including Andrej Karpathy, Ilya Sutskever, and Scott Grey, to consult with the “demoralized” Tesla workers. They helped come up with ideas to improve the vehicle’s self-driving technology, with Sutskever telling the team that if they could find 10,000 images of a tricky corner case, they would be able to fix their software. Musk even asked Brockman to recommend employees to fire, which he declined to do.
Another person familiar with the episode confirmed Brockman’s account, and said Tesla did not reimburse OpenAI for the time and effort of its employees. Musk’s family office, Excession, didn’t reply to a request for comment.
The heart of Musk’s case is that Altman, Brockman and OpenAI committed a “breach of charitable trust” — that Musk donated funds for a specific charitable purpose, and his cofounders instead used them for something else. He also accuses them of “unjust enrichment” due stock and other benefits from OpenAI’s for-profit.
In the case of the OpenAI scientists parachuting into Tesla, Musk’s charitable donations were intended to hire scientists focused on securing the benefits of AGI. Instead, he had them work for free at his for-profit company.
Dorothy Lund, a Columbia Law School professor and the co-host of the Beyond Unprecedented podcast, told TechCrunch that this arrangement wouldn’t be legal, calling it “a bit rich for Musk to be suing for breach of a charitable trust, when he appears to have been redirecting assets in a way that was inconsistent with that mission.”
It’s true that the self-driving work involved artificial intelligence, but witnesses for Musk emphasized that Tesla’s self-driving project was very different from OpenAI’s research agenda. That’s in part because Karpathy left OpenAI for Tesla shortly after this incident. OpenAI’s attorneys portrayed the departure as Musk violating his duty to the lab, where he was co-chair of the board, by recruiting one of its key researchers to his own company.
The other fact that no doubt influenced the jury was the amount of time Musk spent trying to gain sole control of a potential OpenAI for-profit affiliate in 2017. Musk deployed good cop, bad cop tactics in an attempt to convince his cofounders to let him have total control of OpenAI’s for-profit affiliate — giving them free Teslas, and threatening to withhold his donations.
His efforts put his attorneys in a tricky spot, facing a need to convince the jury there was a significant difference between what Musk envisioned, and the for-profit that was ultimately created. They suggested a “small adjunct” for-profit would be permissible, though OpenAI’s witnesses showed non-profits with large commercial arms are common.
Indeed, there’s a very plausible counter-factual where Musk took one of the offers his cofounders made to split their equity more evenly, and finds himself today as one of OpenAI’s largest shareholders — just not the controlling one. But several times during the trial, Musk’s associates testified that he refuses to invest in any business he could have sole control over.
The failure of Musk’s claims because he filed them too late has been cited as a technicality, but the statute of limitations has substance behind it: People and businesses make important decisions and spend resources based on their understanding that what they are doing is permissible. If someone like Musk waits too long to sue, then the cost of unravelling all those decisions can outweigh a just reimbursement.
No members of the jury have spoken about how they arrived at their verdict. However, they were asked to consider if, before Aug. 5, 2021, Musk should have known that OpenAI was spending resources outside its mission or launching for-profit affiliate. The answer to that is clear: Musk himself was doing those things.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
#Elon #Musk #Sam #Altman #stole #nonprofit #trial #showed #similar #aims #TechCrunchElon Musk,OpenAI,sam altman,TeslaThe jury’s speedy decision to reject Elon Musk’s lawsuit against the other founders of OpenAI…
![Elon Musk Explains Why the SpaceX Board Must Be Powerless to Fire Him
In an X post on Friday, Elon Musk warned future shareholders that while returns could be massive eventually, those who invest in SpaceX should not “expect entirely smooth sailing along the way,” and that he must be allowed to focus on his mission of making human life “multiplanetary.” I’m thinking you should heed is warning. After all, if you’re considering buying SpaceX stock, what do you think will happen at SpaceX after the expected IPO next month? You can’t be picturing SpaceX becoming some boring pillar of economic stability like AT&T, can you? Speaking to his employees in February, Musk described his dream for the future of SpaceX as one full of space catapults, a Dyson sphere around the sun, and AI that feeds on secret knowledge previously known only to long-dead aliens.
In other words, if you’re imagining good old fashioned American capitalist enterprise with healthy profits, dividends, and market-friendly competition, like something from a 1940s propaganda film, you’re investing in the wrong company. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFvOPpBVff0[/embed] To wit: SpaceX’s corporate governance regime will be set up in such a way that the CEO and chairman cannot be fired, according to a report last month from Reuters. SpaceX will have different classes of stock with different power levels. Class A for pension funds and Robinhood users—plebs, in other words—and Class B for people who matter. Class B stock will carry ten times the voting power of Class A stock, and Musk will control the Class B stock.
The IPO filing, part of which is excerpted in the Reuters article, spells this out. Musk “can only be removed from our board or these positions by the vote of Class B holders.” If Musk “retains a significant portion of his holdings of Class B common stock for an extended period of time, he could continue to control the election and removal of a majority of our board.” Basically, Musk stays in both positions as long as he wants, and can easily veto any effort to fire him. Common shares without voting power aren’t rare these days, but a powerless board is. As a Harvard corporate governance expert named Lucian Bebchuk explained to Reuters, “Usually removal of the CEO is a decision left to the board, and controllers rely on their power to replace the board.”
So if you own stock in SpaceX, you’re just along for the ride. On Friday, in response to a Financial Times article about SpaceX’s draconian governance scheme, Musk explained himself. Sort of: Yes, I need to make sure SpaceX stays focused on making life multiplanetary and extending consciousness to the stars, not pandering to someone’s bullshit quarterly earnings bonus! Obviously, IF SpaceX succeeds in this absurdly difficult goal, it will be worth many orders of… — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 15, 2026 “I need to make sure SpaceX stays focused on making life multiplanetary and extending consciousness to the stars,” he wrote. He often does this. In response to criticism—or just as often in response to fans shielding him from criticism—he would say some variation on if people are mean to me, humanity will never be multiplanetary.
For instance, when CleanTechnica leapt to his defense after Bernie Sanders criticized him over income inequality in 2021, he replied, “I am accumulating resources to help make life multiplanetary & extend the light of consciousness to the stars.” That same year, in response to handwringing from European finance ministers about his potential monopoly over satellite launches, he posted, “SpaceX is developing rockets needed to make life multiplanetary — full & rapid reusability at large scale.” Also in 2021, when the FAA expressed concern that SpaceX had overstepped his clearance from the federal government, he wrote about how much he hated the FAA’s space division, saying, “Their rules are meant for a handful of expendable launches per year from a few government facilities. Under those rules, humanity will never get to Mars.” Some are predicting shortly after the IPO, the accompanying increase in SpaceX’s valuation will cause Musk’s net worth to cross the trillion-dollar threshold. This isn’t a trivial side effect. Elon Musk is more or less signaling that he is the protagonist of humanity’s future, and everyone else is an NPC. Do you believe that? Then by all means buy the stock (This is not financial advice). #Elon #Musk #Explains #SpaceX #Board #Powerless #FireElon Musk,ipo,SPACEX](https://i1.wp.com/gizmodo.com/app/uploads/2026/03/elon-musk-laughing-1-1280x897.jpeg?ssl=1 "Elon Musk Explains Why the SpaceX Board Must Be Powerless to Fire Him
In an X post on Friday, Elon Musk warned future shareholders that while returns could be massive eventually, those who invest in SpaceX should not “expect entirely smooth sailing along the way,” and that he must be allowed to focus on his mission of making human life “multiplanetary.” I’m thinking you should heed is warning. After all, if you’re considering buying SpaceX stock, what do you think will happen at SpaceX after the expected IPO next month? You can’t be picturing SpaceX becoming some boring pillar of economic stability like AT&T, can you? Speaking to his employees in February, Musk described his dream for the future of SpaceX as one full of space catapults, a Dyson sphere around the sun, and AI that feeds on secret knowledge previously known only to long-dead aliens.
In other words, if you’re imagining good old fashioned American capitalist enterprise with healthy profits, dividends, and market-friendly competition, like something from a 1940s propaganda film, you’re investing in the wrong company. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFvOPpBVff0[/embed] To wit: SpaceX’s corporate governance regime will be set up in such a way that the CEO and chairman cannot be fired, according to a report last month from Reuters. SpaceX will have different classes of stock with different power levels. Class A for pension funds and Robinhood users—plebs, in other words—and Class B for people who matter. Class B stock will carry ten times the voting power of Class A stock, and Musk will control the Class B stock.
The IPO filing, part of which is excerpted in the Reuters article, spells this out. Musk “can only be removed from our board or these positions by the vote of Class B holders.” If Musk “retains a significant portion of his holdings of Class B common stock for an extended period of time, he could continue to control the election and removal of a majority of our board.” Basically, Musk stays in both positions as long as he wants, and can easily veto any effort to fire him. Common shares without voting power aren’t rare these days, but a powerless board is. As a Harvard corporate governance expert named Lucian Bebchuk explained to Reuters, “Usually removal of the CEO is a decision left to the board, and controllers rely on their power to replace the board.”
So if you own stock in SpaceX, you’re just along for the ride. On Friday, in response to a Financial Times article about SpaceX’s draconian governance scheme, Musk explained himself. Sort of: Yes, I need to make sure SpaceX stays focused on making life multiplanetary and extending consciousness to the stars, not pandering to someone’s bullshit quarterly earnings bonus! Obviously, IF SpaceX succeeds in this absurdly difficult goal, it will be worth many orders of… — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 15, 2026 “I need to make sure SpaceX stays focused on making life multiplanetary and extending consciousness to the stars,” he wrote. He often does this. In response to criticism—or just as often in response to fans shielding him from criticism—he would say some variation on if people are mean to me, humanity will never be multiplanetary.
For instance, when CleanTechnica leapt to his defense after Bernie Sanders criticized him over income inequality in 2021, he replied, “I am accumulating resources to help make life multiplanetary & extend the light of consciousness to the stars.” That same year, in response to handwringing from European finance ministers about his potential monopoly over satellite launches, he posted, “SpaceX is developing rockets needed to make life multiplanetary — full & rapid reusability at large scale.” Also in 2021, when the FAA expressed concern that SpaceX had overstepped his clearance from the federal government, he wrote about how much he hated the FAA’s space division, saying, “Their rules are meant for a handful of expendable launches per year from a few government facilities. Under those rules, humanity will never get to Mars.” Some are predicting shortly after the IPO, the accompanying increase in SpaceX’s valuation will cause Musk’s net worth to cross the trillion-dollar threshold. This isn’t a trivial side effect. Elon Musk is more or less signaling that he is the protagonist of humanity’s future, and everyone else is an NPC. Do you believe that? Then by all means buy the stock (This is not financial advice). #Elon #Musk #Explains #SpaceX #Board #Powerless #FireElon Musk,ipo,SPACEX")
![Elon Musk Explains Why the SpaceX Board Must Be Powerless to Fire Him
In an X post on Friday, Elon Musk warned future shareholders that while returns could be massive eventually, those who invest in SpaceX should not “expect entirely smooth sailing along the way,” and that he must be allowed to focus on his mission of making human life “multiplanetary.” I’m thinking you should heed is warning. After all, if you’re considering buying SpaceX stock, what do you think will happen at SpaceX after the expected IPO next month? You can’t be picturing SpaceX becoming some boring pillar of economic stability like AT&T, can you? Speaking to his employees in February, Musk described his dream for the future of SpaceX as one full of space catapults, a Dyson sphere around the sun, and AI that feeds on secret knowledge previously known only to long-dead aliens.
In other words, if you’re imagining good old fashioned American capitalist enterprise with healthy profits, dividends, and market-friendly competition, like something from a 1940s propaganda film, you’re investing in the wrong company. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFvOPpBVff0[/embed] To wit: SpaceX’s corporate governance regime will be set up in such a way that the CEO and chairman cannot be fired, according to a report last month from Reuters. SpaceX will have different classes of stock with different power levels. Class A for pension funds and Robinhood users—plebs, in other words—and Class B for people who matter. Class B stock will carry ten times the voting power of Class A stock, and Musk will control the Class B stock.
The IPO filing, part of which is excerpted in the Reuters article, spells this out. Musk “can only be removed from our board or these positions by the vote of Class B holders.” If Musk “retains a significant portion of his holdings of Class B common stock for an extended period of time, he could continue to control the election and removal of a majority of our board.” Basically, Musk stays in both positions as long as he wants, and can easily veto any effort to fire him. Common shares without voting power aren’t rare these days, but a powerless board is. As a Harvard corporate governance expert named Lucian Bebchuk explained to Reuters, “Usually removal of the CEO is a decision left to the board, and controllers rely on their power to replace the board.”
So if you own stock in SpaceX, you’re just along for the ride. On Friday, in response to a Financial Times article about SpaceX’s draconian governance scheme, Musk explained himself. Sort of: Yes, I need to make sure SpaceX stays focused on making life multiplanetary and extending consciousness to the stars, not pandering to someone’s bullshit quarterly earnings bonus! Obviously, IF SpaceX succeeds in this absurdly difficult goal, it will be worth many orders of… — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 15, 2026 “I need to make sure SpaceX stays focused on making life multiplanetary and extending consciousness to the stars,” he wrote. He often does this. In response to criticism—or just as often in response to fans shielding him from criticism—he would say some variation on if people are mean to me, humanity will never be multiplanetary.
For instance, when CleanTechnica leapt to his defense after Bernie Sanders criticized him over income inequality in 2021, he replied, “I am accumulating resources to help make life multiplanetary & extend the light of consciousness to the stars.” That same year, in response to handwringing from European finance ministers about his potential monopoly over satellite launches, he posted, “SpaceX is developing rockets needed to make life multiplanetary — full & rapid reusability at large scale.” Also in 2021, when the FAA expressed concern that SpaceX had overstepped his clearance from the federal government, he wrote about how much he hated the FAA’s space division, saying, “Their rules are meant for a handful of expendable launches per year from a few government facilities. Under those rules, humanity will never get to Mars.” Some are predicting shortly after the IPO, the accompanying increase in SpaceX’s valuation will cause Musk’s net worth to cross the trillion-dollar threshold. This isn’t a trivial side effect. Elon Musk is more or less signaling that he is the protagonist of humanity’s future, and everyone else is an NPC. Do you believe that? Then by all means buy the stock (This is not financial advice). #Elon #Musk #Explains #SpaceX #Board #Powerless #FireElon Musk,ipo,SPACEX](https://gizmodo.com/app/uploads/2026/03/elon-musk-laughing-1-1280x897.jpeg "Elon Musk Explains Why the SpaceX Board Must Be Powerless to Fire Him
In an X post on Friday, Elon Musk warned future shareholders that while returns could be massive eventually, those who invest in SpaceX should not “expect entirely smooth sailing along the way,” and that he must be allowed to focus on his mission of making human life “multiplanetary.” I’m thinking you should heed is warning. After all, if you’re considering buying SpaceX stock, what do you think will happen at SpaceX after the expected IPO next month? You can’t be picturing SpaceX becoming some boring pillar of economic stability like AT&T, can you? Speaking to his employees in February, Musk described his dream for the future of SpaceX as one full of space catapults, a Dyson sphere around the sun, and AI that feeds on secret knowledge previously known only to long-dead aliens.
In other words, if you’re imagining good old fashioned American capitalist enterprise with healthy profits, dividends, and market-friendly competition, like something from a 1940s propaganda film, you’re investing in the wrong company. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFvOPpBVff0[/embed] To wit: SpaceX’s corporate governance regime will be set up in such a way that the CEO and chairman cannot be fired, according to a report last month from Reuters. SpaceX will have different classes of stock with different power levels. Class A for pension funds and Robinhood users—plebs, in other words—and Class B for people who matter. Class B stock will carry ten times the voting power of Class A stock, and Musk will control the Class B stock.
The IPO filing, part of which is excerpted in the Reuters article, spells this out. Musk “can only be removed from our board or these positions by the vote of Class B holders.” If Musk “retains a significant portion of his holdings of Class B common stock for an extended period of time, he could continue to control the election and removal of a majority of our board.” Basically, Musk stays in both positions as long as he wants, and can easily veto any effort to fire him. Common shares without voting power aren’t rare these days, but a powerless board is. As a Harvard corporate governance expert named Lucian Bebchuk explained to Reuters, “Usually removal of the CEO is a decision left to the board, and controllers rely on their power to replace the board.”
So if you own stock in SpaceX, you’re just along for the ride. On Friday, in response to a Financial Times article about SpaceX’s draconian governance scheme, Musk explained himself. Sort of: Yes, I need to make sure SpaceX stays focused on making life multiplanetary and extending consciousness to the stars, not pandering to someone’s bullshit quarterly earnings bonus! Obviously, IF SpaceX succeeds in this absurdly difficult goal, it will be worth many orders of… — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 15, 2026 “I need to make sure SpaceX stays focused on making life multiplanetary and extending consciousness to the stars,” he wrote. He often does this. In response to criticism—or just as often in response to fans shielding him from criticism—he would say some variation on if people are mean to me, humanity will never be multiplanetary.
For instance, when CleanTechnica leapt to his defense after Bernie Sanders criticized him over income inequality in 2021, he replied, “I am accumulating resources to help make life multiplanetary & extend the light of consciousness to the stars.” That same year, in response to handwringing from European finance ministers about his potential monopoly over satellite launches, he posted, “SpaceX is developing rockets needed to make life multiplanetary — full & rapid reusability at large scale.” Also in 2021, when the FAA expressed concern that SpaceX had overstepped his clearance from the federal government, he wrote about how much he hated the FAA’s space division, saying, “Their rules are meant for a handful of expendable launches per year from a few government facilities. Under those rules, humanity will never get to Mars.” Some are predicting shortly after the IPO, the accompanying increase in SpaceX’s valuation will cause Musk’s net worth to cross the trillion-dollar threshold. This isn’t a trivial side effect. Elon Musk is more or less signaling that he is the protagonist of humanity’s future, and everyone else is an NPC. Do you believe that? Then by all means buy the stock (This is not financial advice). #Elon #Musk #Explains #SpaceX #Board #Powerless #FireElon Musk,ipo,SPACEX")
