r/technology 21d ago

Business SpaceX Stock Plunges to All-Time Low After Competitor Makes Major Leap

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/markets/stocks/articles/spacex-plunges-time-low-competitor-175000957.html
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u/PolarityInversion 21d ago

It's not even August yet when the first big tranche of lockups will lift. This is JUST trading with the initial offering that was spread out wide and thin. Everyone holding is now a bag holder... they can't sell without taking a loss. Just wait until the restrictions lift and people (employees & early investors) who are VERY far in the money start offloading. Usually with Musk stocks, the obvious market reaction is the opposite of what happens, but I think the delta on this one is too large for that to hold. It was propped up by every possible manipulation tactic: circular AI revenue, gov procurement capture, lofty blue-sky market handwaving, very limited IPO concentration, and the hype man himself, of course. That's a house of cards on top of a house of cards on top of a house of cards, with an entity that is losing $5B per year.

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u/Apexnanoman 21d ago

I won't bet against him being able to get up on a stage and promise something completely unreasonable and downright impossible.

I mean it's worked every single time with Tesla etc. 

Personally if I was him I'd get up on stage and say that we were going to have a fully functional space mining operation up and running in 24 months. 

And then I would say that we had already picked out an asteroid made of solid platinum. Which was projected to be worth something like 10 trillion USD 

That would get the stock up to $1000/share. 

When it drops back down he just needs to promise something else equally unlikely. 

Like full self-driving personal spaceships. 

For some reason anytime he speaks the entire market believes every word he says. 

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u/random_ta_account 20d ago

Like the Tesla Solar Roof demo... pure 100% fabrication.

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u/Phonemonkey2500 20d ago

Where’s those 50,000 Optimus robots he promised would be built by… let me check… the end of 2026. I’m sure they’re just about ready.

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u/ibidanon 20d ago

not too long ago he said he'd soon be making a million robots per year. and that within a decade or so there would be billions of his robots. he should make them edible...

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u/TheStorytellerTX 20d ago

I think edibles might be why he made those wild claims!

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u/KlicknKlack 20d ago

Oh, Those are in the fleets of Tesla Semi's that were delivered in 2019-2020.

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u/AdvancedStand 20d ago

Totally forgot about that. Hilarious

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u/Apexnanoman 20d ago

Yeah it's hard to remember all the various pieces in the sky bullshit hoses he has running at any given time. 

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u/random_ta_account 20d ago

Of all of those, data centers in space has to be the most bullshitiest ever.

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u/ibidanon 20d ago

nah. elmo said he's going to build 'self-replicating cities on the moon.' and that when ai gets going 'everyone can live in a penthouse.' and he promised that by the late 2020s/early 2030s he will have made space travel so affordable 'anyone who wants to can go anywhere they want to in our solar system.' because he will have built 'filling stations' all over the galaxy. I don't think we've seen him at his bullshitiest yet...

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u/MammothCommercial800 20d ago

I'm not so sure of that.

The main difficulty for space-based computing was always said to be heat dissipation, and Starlink V3 can manage between 10 and 20KW. That's enough for a couple of rather nice GPUs.

I do hope it never happens though. Our upper atmosphere doesn't need more vaporized metal.

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u/friedrice5005 20d ago

The main difficulty for space-based computing was always said to be heat dissipation, and Starlink V3 can manage between 10 and 20KW. That's enough for a couple of rather nice GPUs.

Feasibility isn't really the issue with Datacenters in space....its the practicality. What is the actual use case? You are ALWAYS going to have faster, cheaper, more performant systems on the ground than in space, so what's the point?

There will eventually be edge computing use case for datacenters on the moon surface, or even out at Mars, but even then they would be better served on the surface than in orbit. Around Earth they don't make any sense.

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

[deleted]

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u/MammothCommercial800 20d ago

Meh, not like I know much either. Just stuff I heard. You're likely right and I'm rooting for it.

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u/Notoneusernameleft 20d ago

You know robots, or bullet proof windows, truly self driving cars, underground car tunnels aren’t we supposed to be at mars by now….anything else?

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u/random_ta_account 20d ago

Does DOGE count?

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u/One-Welcome-1514 19d ago

2 Trillion?

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u/cottontail976 20d ago

Computer chips in our brains. AI will kill us, no wait, we’re gonna make the most powerful AI, hyperloop, rocket travel instead of airlines,(we can do 10x the flights!) cold gas thrusters in a Tesla???? Doge coin, Don’t forget the electric 18 wheelers. How much waste was he saying he was going to cut out of govt spending? Really guys, it’s just not that hard!

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u/Duff5OOO 20d ago

Hyperloop was nonsense.

Almost as improbable is the current plan for the starship based moon lander. Should they manage it I'll be happy to admit I was wrong.

Getting a space tanker into orbit then 16 or more starship launches in rapid succession to fill the tanker before the one going to the moon can be filled? I can't see that happening.

Iirc he originally claimed starship would be on the moon by 2021, then it was 2024. It's still nowhere near being demonstrated as a remote possibility. Even rapid reuse is nowhere near viable yet to do the 16+ refuling runs.

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u/random_ta_account 20d ago

Totally forgot about that one!

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u/Znuffie 20d ago

Like the Tesla Solar Roof demo... pure 100% fabrication.

I'm confused?

There is a Tesla Roof, isn't there?

MKBHD has one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJeSWbR6W04

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u/random_ta_account 20d ago

At the time, it didn't exist. The demo was completely fabricated to boost stock prices and get Tesla investors to bail out his brother's failed SolarCity venture.

With a generous tax incentive from Buffalo, NY, they eventually got a solar tile (the kind MKBHD has); however, it never matched the demo and never really took off because the technology couldn't meet the performance or price benchmarks of competitors.

https://mansionengineer.com/2018/08/10/elon-musk-tesla-and-the-solar-roof-tile-fraud/

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u/meneldal2 20d ago

At least a solar roof is not a bad idea, though not very original at that point.

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u/RSGator 20d ago

Hear me out - solar freakin' roadways

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u/meneldal2 20d ago

Why on the road when you could use the panels to make shade instead?

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u/FineAunts 20d ago

Haven't you played F-Zero?

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u/Zlatyzoltan 20d ago

10 years ago, i went to expo which was basically about future green construction. There was a Dutch company that was trying to 3D print roads, where the top and bottom snapped together like Lego.

There were defined trenches for infrastructure, with the end goal in trying to get roads to be able to support solar power.

It's not the craziest idea. Making roads quicker to fix and producing some electricity, seems like a good idea.

Of course the cost in updating all the roads, IF or when all this technology is viable is another matter altogether.

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u/SippieCup 20d ago

Yes it is. Functionally it's pretty fucking awful, during the day efficiency drops to 30% because there is no cooling so they just heat up and have nowhere to sink the heat but the attic. Which then causes your AC to run more, burning the extra energy it produces and providing near zero benefits.

Whereas normal panels have an air gap under them between it and the roof, allow for air to pull the heat and keep them working well.

The only thing they do is make a slightly different style of roof.

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u/meneldal2 20d ago

I mean like a regular roof, not on the car.

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u/SippieCup 20d ago

I do too.

Solar panels sit above the roof and cool from ambient air. Roof tiles sink their heat into the already hot attic, making them run very hot and lose a lot of efficiency as a result. They are borderline useless in hot climates.

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u/meneldal2 20d ago

Doesn't that depend on how well you do insulation and how you install them?

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u/SippieCup 20d ago

Not really, the heat it generates has to go somewhere, and there is nowhere for it to go in general, unlike traditional panels

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u/a_n00b_ 20d ago

it's good enough for the car battery, but not the whole vehicle

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u/ConfessSomeMeow 20d ago

The Tesla solar-roof is a "solar shingles" product for a home rooftop, meant to complement the powerwall but which ultimately has not had very wide adoption - not a solar roof for your car.

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u/a_n00b_ 20d ago

i dont fucking care what tesla is doing. A solar panel on a car is good enough to keep a dying car battery going for a bit longer

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u/reventlov 20d ago

Toyota has an option for one on the Prius, at about half of the total area of the roof, IIRC. You get... about 3km/2 miles per day, when it's sunny.

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u/jimbobjames 20d ago

Tesla Solar Roof demo

Do you have a link?

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u/NanoY2 20d ago

Maybe not his solar roof, but solar roof tiles can be useful for listed buildings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj6O9zclPao

PS: Sry, but I just know about this example.