Comment by zugi
2 days ago
> We've seen how irrational and ignorant stock traders are from other publicly traded space companies.
Absolutely true, but ignorant stock traders making irrational trades only matters if company management pays attention to them. Musk will maintain complete control of SpaceX even after the IPO, so he can focus on long-term value rather than short-term ups and downs.
Of course, over time, if more shares are issued, this may change.
The argument for the IPO was to fund their space datacenters project, if Musk could afford to ignore the stock price, that wouldn't be needed.
At this point in time, Musk can afford to ignore the stock price since he will retain sufficient shares (with 10x voting rights if I am understanding correctly) to outvote any board.
However, some projections I have seen suggest even the public raise won't be enough for the entire vision (which includes LEO data centers AND trips to the Moon and Mars). That means he will either have to find the revenue or eventually sell even more shares. It will only be at that point he will care about stock price.
That's the thing, why does everyone seem convinced that the guy who has been making up pie in the sky projects and breaking his promises, won't find himself wanting more money?
Have IPOs ever been about just a one time cash infusion?
He'll be able to raise debt against the massively inflated valuation of the company. SpaceX will have access to far more capital after this than before.
As I understand it he will retain control of the company in a similar arrangement to the one Zuckerberg has at Meta. Anyone who buys SpaceX stock is just along for the ride.
But by the time retail traders can affect the stock price, SpaceX will have already gotten their money.
They get all the money on the ipo day. They dont get more if it goes after unless they sell more stock