"We never think about quarters," as Elon Musk puts it at SpaceX, and he's not in a hurry to close Starlink because of the "tremendous distraction" of becoming public like Tesla

 "We never think about quarters," as Elon Musk puts it at SpaceX, and he's not in a hurry to close Starlink because of the "tremendous distraction" of becoming public like Tesla

"We never think about quarters," as Elon Musk puts it at SpaceX, and he's not in a hurry to close Starlink because of the "tremendous distraction" of becoming public like Tesla

Perhaps public markets and space industry are not a marriage made in heaven. Take the much awaited Starlink first public offering. The primary source of income for Elon Musk's SpaceX, the most valuable private firm in America, is Starlink, which offers global internet connections via a network of low-Earth orbit satellites.

Musk is enthusiastic about the concept, but he has no plans to close Starlink anytime soon. Why is it a major reason? benefits of private business ownership over public corporation ownership.

We never think in terms of quarters here at SpaceX. ARK Investment Management CEO Cathie Wood held a Space chat this week in which Musk said, "We never think about it, and we don't think about the stock price."

He has learned from the Tesla CEO that "public companies are under a great deal of pressure to avoid having a poor quarter. In order to avoid disappointing people at the conclusion of the quarter, that may actually lead to less effective operations. "Will try hard."

The benefit of SpaceX

When asked if he believed he could take more chances with SpaceX than with Tesla because to the latter's privacy, Musk said, "Absolutely."

SpaceX has emerged as the leading launch provider very quickly, and Starlink is well ahead of its upcoming competitors, especially Amazon's Project Kuiper. On December 12, Bloomberg said that the business has started negotiations to sell insiders shares at a price that would put its worth close to $180 billion.

The Starlink spinoff IPO is now expected to occur between late 2024 and 2027, despite Musk's denial last month that it would. Approximately $150 billion was SpaceX's current private worth. In January, venture investor Chamath Palihapitiya anticipated that Starlink would go public this year and that its valuation would be "at least half of that amount."

Starlink's sales increased to $1.4 billion last year from $222 million in 2021, according to a Wall Street Journal story from September. However, it is insufficient given that SpaceX predicted to make $12 billion in revenue in 2022 eight years ago. Musk said that Starlink had reached break-even cash flow last month.

As per SpaceX, Starlink boasts of over 5,000 operational satellites and over 2 million active customers. Concurrently, well-known store Costco has begun to sell its receivers.

However, Musk said last week that he didn't believe going public was worthwhile unless they had really steady and predictable cash sources. At that time, you have such a significant turnaround that going public is not an issue." Not likely to occur.

Given SpaceX's track record, Musk welcomes and has no trouble persuading venture investors to invest in the company. "If other people are willing to invest at a particular price... that's an outside assessment of the company's value," said the wealthiest man in the world.

It goes without saying that launching satellites into orbit is quite costly, and the results may not be seen right away. Author of a 2017 book on Musk, Ashley Vance, admitted to the billionaire earlier this year that she sometimes wonders whether the Starlink business case justifies the "incredible amount of money" invested on such a venture. It "may or may not work" logically. He enquired as to Musk's level of uncertainty.

Musk said, "The business case is not subjective, it's objective." "If you can provide an attractive Internet connection, where the quality and price of the product is competitive with terrestrial alternatives – or often there are no terrestrial alternatives – then you clearly have a business."

Tesla issues

This week, Musk said that SpaceX is shielded from analyst influence by its private status. He said that "many analysts who follow companies have a time horizon that's maybe only a year or two...," which is one of the difficulties with the public markets. What matters to them is not your long-term What will happen since your performance in the near term will determine their professional path.

He claimed that at Tesla, "We feel like we have a kind of moral obligation not to have a bad quarter and let people down," and that he often works beyond midnight on New Year's Eve at distribution centers.

"Going public also carries an excessive amount of legal burden," he grumbled. Thus, if you become prominent, these class-action legal firms will constantly sue you. The media never brings up the fact that the complainant is only a puppet. I can't stand it. This keeps occurring all the time.

Musk admitted that going public would have many benefits, the most apparent being easier access to finance. The automaker's capital structure, which was "highly leveraged as a private company," was also cleaned up by it, he said.A was intricate.

"It's a huge distraction as well as a downside," he said.

On the other hand, Musk and the SpaceX team have mostly avoided these earthly diversions.