white exec wrote: 06 May 2018, 11:36
. . . Let alone all the other cash-consuming projects Musk is involved with, like SpaceX . . .
Actually unlike Tesla, SpaceX is a profitable, privately held company, and the only connection between the two companies is that Musk heads both companies, other than that they have no connection with each other and certainly not financially.
SpaceX doesn't rely on venture capital or investment to keep going and has no shareholders to answer to. They turn a tidy profit as both a contractor for NASA for ISS resupply missions and satellite launches, as well as performing numerous commercial satellite launches.
In 2017 they performed more launches than any other launch provider, and the numbers of launches is expected to grow considerably again this year. They pioneered reusable booster technology and have something like 15 successful landings of the first stage booster under their belt now, something that nobody else has done.
Ten years ago Russia was one of the biggest launch providers in the world doing nearly 50% of the worlds satellite launches, today that figure has dropped to about 10% with SpaceX now being the single biggest launch provider with nearly 50% of the total market. Russia have more or less come out and admitted they're throwing in the towel in the commercial unmanned launch market as they can't compete. They will remain in the manned launch market though with their Soyuz capsule as that is the only currently flying human rated rocket in the world and the only way to get people to the ISS.
In short while SpaceX is far from the only game in town, they're eating everyone else's lunch, and now moving on with designing and building the very exciting looking next generation BFR platform while launches for the next few years using the existing Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets pay the bills. All the financing for the BFR is coming out of profits from existing customer deployments.
So the situation of SpaceX isn't even remotely like Tesla - it's a mature, profitable private company with a very bright future, and they're very unlikely to fail at this point.
My guess is that, at some point, Tesla will get sold off or bought, and for a substantial sum.
I'm not sure what's going to happen with Tesla. Unlike SpaceX who are profitable and in a very good position, Tesla are only 50/50 at the moment.
They're gambling everything on getting the Model 3 production sorted out and ramped up - if they can do that, they should become profitable for the first time ever late this year. If that happens I think they have a good chance of surviving long term.
If things don't work out this year the I really don't know what their future will be like or whether they will have one. My gut feeling is they will get past the production ramp problems soon and things will look upwards. Musk is nothing if not tenacious. He has put all his money, heart and soul into Tesla to keep it going, when he says he's sleeping on the factory floor working on the production ramp problems you better believe it.
I listened to some of the investor call and he sounded like a man that hasn't slept properly for weeks, who is almost at the point of breaking.
Some of his tweets lately are a bit strange and off the wall as well, like a man deliriously short on sleep...
I wish him well and hope the production problems can be sorted out so he can go back to his own bed!
