Space ecstasy
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What is SpaceX and why is it significant?
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Pushkin. Markets, ladies and gents, are heading into a new dimension. They are heading into space, led by that guy again, Elon Musk. Investing in space as a big theme has been around for a while, but Musk is really taking it up a notch because he's planning to list one of his companies, SpaceX, on the stock market in the States. And he reckons it's worth, get this, $1.75 trillion, trillion with a T, which would make it one of the most valuable companies on Earth and indeed in the known universe. Now, you take a little look at the electric vehicle slash robot maker Tesla, which is Musk's other big thing, and you wonder what gives him so much confidence in his ability. That stock's down by about 30% since November.
But the launch, get it, of SpaceX is happening. It will be impossible to avoid, and it will be a big test of whether investors are up for hype and promises and whether they really want more Elon Musk in their lives. Today on the show, will this thing fly? This is Unhedged, the markets and finance podcast from the Financial Times. I'm Pushkin. I'm Katie Martin, a markets columnist here at FT Towers in lovely sunny London. And I'm joined down the line from New York City by my usual fellow astronaut, Rob Armstrong. Rob, say hello.
Greetings from space.
But we also have, all the way from San Francisco, a genuine FT legend, a stalwart, Richard Waters, known affectionately around these parts as Muddy. You're a real authority on all things big tech and Silicon Valley, and it's very early over there. So, Richard, thank you so much for coming on today.
Well, it's very nice to be with you. And by the way, I should say, I'm not in San Francisco. I'm in San Diego today. I'm in the FT satellite office.
It's all about the satellites.
Richard, just to establish your bona fides, if that's how you pronounce it, in what year did your byline first appear in the Financial Times?
Well, Rob, it was a year when there was a stock market crash. I can tell you that much. And we're not talking 08. But I'll tell you what. But I will tell you, it was 1987. I was there a month before the 87 crash. You may not remember that one, but it was big at the time.
And when did you start covering tech for the FT?
Oh, I'm getting the whole personal grill here. So I was covering tech out of New York in the late 90s when tech, telecom, and media were going to emerge in some big thing, and it was part of the dot-com bubble.
Yeah. Boy, has that idea not worked over the last 30 years.
I've seen a few. But I've been in California since 2002, so I've seen a few cycles.
Right on.
Yeah.
How does Elon Musk's confidence affect SpaceX's valuation?
So, look, tell us, let's start from basics here. For normal people, what is SpaceX? Where does it fit in this grand Elon Musk universe where everything has an X in it?
I think the way we should think about SpaceX as a stock is it's going to be Elon Musk's kind of field of dreams part two. Tesla was an electric car company that turned into many other things. SpaceX is a rocket company that is turning into other things before our eyes. It started out as an incredibly successful, the first private company to put a rocket into orbit. It's an extraordinary thing. And Musk is ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station. Before that, the U.S. relied on Russian rockets. So Musk is the U.S. space program in many ways, or became it. And then, you know, through his Falcon rockets, he basically established this incredible lead and cost in getting payloads into orbit.
So he is the global workhorse for getting anything into orbit. Extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary.
So like SpaceX mushed together with XAI, which is his artificial intelligence grok thing.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is SpaceX and why is it significant?
0:00–3:29
2
How does Elon Musk's confidence affect SpaceX's valuation?
3:29–7:29
3
What makes SpaceX different from traditional IPOs?
7:29–16:51
4
How does SpaceX's business model impact its future?
16:51–22:13
5
What role does AI play in Elon Musk's vision for SpaceX?
22:13–24:23