zlacker

I feel like without adding some commentary with these quotes this comment lacks enough info to see how it relates to the linked article.

>>Fogest+(OP)
Because this move is entirely financial engineering to hide losses just like the roll up of X in to xAI.

None of this has anything to do with business or innovation. Do you not immediately see that? Most of my friends reaction to this news was that this is so obvious it's almost funny (or actually it is funny, since most were laughing as they read the headline).

I'm curious how you could not understand the relevance of the quote unless you were aggressively trying to not understanding it.

>>Fogest+(OP)
Legitimately, did you not immediately conclude it was for financial shenanigans? What did you think? I'm not trying to be shitty, but what else could there be?

>>crysta+F1
> I'm curious how you could not understand the relevance of the quote unless you were aggressively trying to not understanding it.

Monet probably wondered how other people couldn't see purple in a haystack.

>>Fogest+(OP)
You don't see how the common thread is Elon Musk buying out his own businesses, largely on the basis of overinflated stocks and corporate welfare?

It's baffling that the market has stayed so irrational because of Musk. It will collapse because of him.

>>crysta+F1
yeah, I am not a huge fan of Musk, but this move is just going to bring down arguably the only decent thing he's produced.

Leave SpaceX alone you child. Gwynne has it in excellent hands.. find some other way to pay for your juvenile brainfarts.

>>Fogest+(OP)
This merger smells like a bubble. Servers in space? They don't make enough to cover costs here on earth. Americans will be forced to bail this mess up because we need Falcon 9, Starship one, etc.

>>crysta+F1
Parent poster may have been thinking of other readers. I see it as you do, but it's a fair question.

>>Fogest+(OP)
without having watched the Big Short or having read the article, my first impression from the quote is "Megacorporations are failing dramatically, and the billionaires at their helm are freely doing financial gymnastics to pull the covers over the eyes of shareholders, while gaming the system to fully circumvent taxes and regulation -- the people with the power to do anything about it (legislators and regulators) watch idly (maybe profiting), the oligarchs make off like bandits despite copious failures, and the end consumer/taxpayer is either robbed or clueless this is going on, but most likely both, when there was a world where accountability could have been had and the common man was treated better."

the article headline immediately screams "financial gymnastics" to me so the rest followed from the quote.

>>rluna8+84
The military (and/or government) should keep paying in advance for anything they need from SpaceX and make sure other unsecured creditors are not tooo significant.

When it all goes bankrupt, they can pay off the bonds for x¢ in the dollar and own SpaceX.

Perhaps if the gov could organize a little better, they'd make sure SpaceX owed lots of taxes and put themselves in front of the queue for ownership and screw other creditors (especially foreign).

Edit: looks like the US military doesn't spend that much on SpaceX: https://londoneconomics.co.uk/blog/publication/crouching-riv...

>>crysta+F1
Is it financial engineering or social engineering?

He's all over the Epstein files and his daughter has publicly verified that the timing works out and the emails are probably legitimate.

https://www.threads.com/@vivllainous/post/DUMBh2Vkk8D/im-jus...

>>Loughl+B2
maybe I am a fool, does space-based AI make no sense at all?

>>senect+34
Although I'm sure SpaceX would be a non-trivial loss, the most important idea - their truly reusable rocket -- is proven to the point where other people are assuming they should do that to make rockets, it's like if Benz' company goes bankrupt in 1899. In that universe the Mercedes probably never happens but the automobile idea is already a done deal.

>>mapont+C6
At these scales, financial and social are very intertwined, it's both.

>>tialar+b7
What do you mean? SpaceX didn't invent the reusable rocket, and my understanding is that Falcon 9 is still not significantly more economical than disposable rockets, and that the main reason it's attractive is that it's not Soyuz-2.

>>crysta+F1
What are they hiding that wasn't hidden already? Two private companies making a private transaction.. there is no mandatory reporting now nor after this move

>>crysta+F1
Tesla acquiring solarcity was the same thing over. It did not make sense. Then and it does not make sense now. But the distortion field is so great no one notices.

>>teacpd+L6
Watts=heat

Heat has nowhere to go in space. Read about how much engineering went into cooling the ISS and now multiply that by billions.

>>teacpd+L6
No. Imagine if your computer was in space instead of being under your desk. Would that solve anything?

Orbit is a very inconvenient environment. It's difficult to reach so maintenance is a nightmare, it's moving all the time, there's nowhere to sink waste heat into, you have a constrained power budget, you have a constrained weight budget. The only things you want to put in orbit are things that absolutely can't go anywhere else.

>>crysta+F1
What are you talking about? They are both private companies. They don't have public financial reporting.

>>fluori+J8
> SpaceX didn't invent the reusable rocket

There isn’t a single inventor and reusable rockets emerged through decades of research.

But: SpaceX was the first to make orbital-class reuse routine and economically viable.

>>fluori+J8
Your understanding is wrong; see page 2 of https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20200001093/downloads/20.... That’s a log plot!

The backing table is on page 8. Falcon 9 is (was, in 2018! It’s only cheaper now.) at $2700/kg to LEO. No one else is below $4k, except… Falcon Heavy.

>>teacpd+L6
> maybe I am a fool, does space-based AI make no sense at all?

I think it does, for what it’s worth if we are to extend intelligence (as we know it) and potentially consciousness out there into the galaxy.

Because of distances and time, it is unlikely that humans will populate the galaxy with biological offspring (barring some technical breakthroughs that we have no line of sight on).

AI, on the other hand, could theoretically populate the galaxy and beyond, carrying the human intelligence and consciousness story into the future.

>>teacpd+L6
Literally none. Space is the worst possible place to put something that overheats already on earth. There's probably some synergy in the other direction (AI piloting of satellites or whatever) but that's marginal at best.

>>crysta+F1
It's really disturbing how confidently blinded you are by whatever political biases you have.

>>crysta+F1
I understand it now, after reading the thread. There's a reason for that.

I have not been following the machinations of X very closely. I don't have the corporate structure of Elon's empire in my head, nor do I have the Meta or Alphabet/Google hierarchies in there. I couldn't have told you about the history of xAI beyond that it exists.

So that's plain ignorance of something you consider common knowledge, but I don't, rather than "aggressively trying to not understand it." And that phrase is particularly grating btw.

>>teacpd+L6
it absolutely doesn't unless there's a magical unobtainium cooling tech Musk got his hands on

>>CGMthr+M8
SpaceX investors want to cash out, which is why they’re going public. Elon Musk wants to dump his X/xAI bags onto the public markets by merging it with SpaceX.

Essentially means that SpaceX investors are bailing out Elon Musk.

>>fluori+J8
Space is basically half the cost of it's competitors on a per kg basis. And while previous experiments like the DC-X existed, SpaceX absolutely gets credit for the first operational reusable rocket stage.

And I say that as someone that despises Elon and the way he casts his companies as due to his personal technical genius.

>>rluna8+84
> Americans will be forced to bail this mess up because we need Falcon 9, Starship one, etc.

Or they could just go with the competition. If it came down to propping up something, I don’t see much difference between propping up ULA, Blue Origin or SpaceX. In the current environment who gets propped up probably depends on who scratches Donalds back.

>>senect+34
>arguably the only decent thing he's produced.

such a hilarious comment / mindset. he made the best selling car in the world 3 years running. neuralink is a great breakthrough. there are a string of accomplishments which individually would be the greatest thing many many people have ever done.

>>jasonw+Xb
>And while previous experiments like the DC-X existed, SpaceX absolutely gets credit for the first operational reusable rocket stage.

Not true. What about STS?

>>crysta+F1
Hiding losses? From whom? He's the majority shareholder of both businesses. The combined company will go public and report on things like revenue, burn rate, etc. It's not financial engineering. It's a purchase.

Just say "rocket man bad" and save some keystrokes.

>>Rover2+vb
So reveal the unbiased truth to us please -- what's the real motivation for consolidating these companies?

>>idontw+U8
A lot of people who are a little bit ignorant think it's really easy to cool things in space because space is notoriously very cold.

Physics, it turns out, is slightly more complicated than this and it turns out vacuum is an incredibly good insulator and more (much more) than offsets the temperature differential in terms of how easy it is to cool something.

>>Fogest+(OP)
It is pretty clear. Socialize the losses of Musk investments by recovery via SpaceX contracts, supporting the US space program and the new Golden Dome program.

He sold FSD for 12 years, now is going to sell a Dyson Sphere for the next 30. This guy makes Ponzi look like a street hustler.

>>fluori+J8
I found that surprising, so I looked on Wikipedia.

Soyuz-2 capacity to LEO: 8,600KG

Falcon 9 capacity to LEO: 22,800KG when expended, 17,500KG when not.

Soyuz-2 Cost to Launch: $35 Million

New Falcon 9 Cost to Launch: $70 Million

Used Falcon 9 Cost to Launch: $50 Million (cost to SpaceX: ~$25 Million)

Soyuz-2 cost per KG: $4000 (data from 2018)

New Falcon 9 cost per KG: $964 when expended, $1250 when not.

Use Falcon 9 coster per KG to Customer: $893 when expended, $690 when not

So realistically, Falcon 9 is roughly 20-30% the price per KG when new, and dropping to a minimum of 17.25% of the price when used.

Plus you get a larger diameter payload fairing and the ability to launch a payload up to 4X the size.

I'm pretty sure that even used as an expendable rocket, 1/4 the price per KG (if you need the capacity) is a pretty significant improvement. Now I understand why satellite ride-shares are so popular!

>>bko+5d
> Just say "rocket man bad" and save some keystrokes.

Hey Jeff, on what day is the wildest party on your island?

>>ghc+Jd
Plus, the Falcon launch cadence is infinitely better than Soyuz 2. 2025:

Soyuz-2: 12 launches

Falcon 9: 165!

>>bandra+ub
I've sure they've considered that in the engineering. For example, the solar panels would shade it. The space station has a cooling system in it. Musk's Starlink satellites don't seem to be overheating.

>>CGMthr+M8
Because X and xAI are both losing money. X needed cash to operate, so Elon rolled it into xAI to use xAI’s cash to help fund it. xAI is likely burning egregious amounts money, but will have trouble raising more capital. By rolling it into SpaceX he further covers up the financial issues because SpaceX is actually profitable. He can then raise more capital without having to worry (for a while) about how awful the burn is…

I, by and large, have a strong dislike of Musk to put it mildly. The one thing I will give him, and I think this is his real gift, is he’s absolutely brilliant when it comes to raising capital. He has proven to excel at raising capital, and deploying it well, for extremely capital intensive businesses. I do however wonder if the chickens are coming home to roost because both X and xAI are extremely unprofitable.

I think it’s almost inevitable we will see Space X and Tesla merge. The conditions of that merger will, I believe, say a lot about whether this move was brilliant or batshit.

>>bko+5d
Maybe he likes the xAI minority investors more than the SpaceX investors? Or he needs their support for something else.

I agree we'll have to keep digging (or reading other comments, at least) to find a better explanation.

>>andsoi+ob
In, perhaps, a few hundred years.

>>leesec+jc
> he made the best selling car in the world 3 years running

Not only did Elon not found Tesla[0], but many employees have described the "babysitters" or "handlers" who are responsible for making him feel like his ideas have been implemented, so that his caprice and bluster don't interfere with the actual operation of the company.

To give him his due, he's a phenomenal manipulator of public opinion and image, and he certainly has invested a lot of his emerald-generated wealth into numerous successful ventures - but he himself is not a positive contributor to their success.

[0] https://autoworldjournal.com/is-elon-musk-the-founder-of-tes...

>>ljm+W3
SpaceX does real work at a profit, and its competitors will need even more time to catch up than they did Tesla.

Obviously there's a pattern of financial engineering, and it's inefficient, but the winners do offset the losers so there won't be a total collapse.

>>bandra+ub
So the whole space based data center thing is just a gimmick?

>>crysta+F1
But that is also just an assumption isn't it? Could this not also be related to the fact that they plan to launch a ton of servers into the sky to run in space and power AI? It would mean that their AI product would become heavily based on the services provided by SpaceX via launching all this.

But regardless, I think quotes like these should have some commentary around them as it helps create a discussion around whatever point they might be trying to make rather than having to make assumptions.

>>mkull+ef
A gimmick, in a highly-financialized field? Surely not!

>>Walter+de
The problem is not shading them from the Sun. And the starlink satellites run at about 1 kW

>>Fogest+5g
Data centers in space have never been a thing and never will be.

>>nashas+O8
SolarCity and Tesla made more surface level sense just being in the same general vicinity since they're both fundamentally green energy companies. That made it easy to spin questions about the financials with some CEO-speak about synergy.

However, the way Musk has become less subtle with this tells a story. He got away with these shady financial dealings multiple times so he's now becoming even more brazen and transparent with this behavior. We have gotten to the point in which the spin needed to justify his moves is the physics-defying viability of datacenters in space.

The distortion field will keep growing as long as he keeps getting away with it.

>>scubbo+Ye
I mean, even if he isn't directly making a lot of the decisions in these companies that are doing well, it doesn't mean he doesn't play a big role in that still. He still had to pick a lot of these leaders, pay them well, keep them satisfied enough to stay there, and also give them the proper freedom to lead these companies. There are many people out there who could also manage to make these companies fail instead of grow.

I feel that a lot of people simply don't like Elon because of political reasons which are often also based on misinformed opinions. It also can't be denied that he is an intelligent person. You can hear it when he talks in interviews.

Now I think ultimately any ultra wealthy person is going to have some flaws that people can find and latch onto in order to hate someone.

>>rluna8+84
This could just be a gamble they hope pays off. Or maybe there is some kind of other bigger picture strategy at play here that goes beyond just the AI from space idea. I try to stay optimistic about innovations in tech and I like to see companies willing to try new things instead of just staying stagnant.

For example, I think the car market had become pretty stagnant with traditional car makers, and most electric cars they attempted to make sucked. Tesla making good desirable electric cars really pushed EV's into becoming more popular and having a better charging network. I think it would have taken much longer for EV's to start growing in popularity if someone wasn't willing to take a risk.

Are they going to be too early to the market for this kind of tech? Maybe. Is it going to end up being a waste of money? Yeah it totally could be. But at the end of the day I do like to see some risks being taken like this and it sucks seeing constant negativity whenever companies try something new.

>>leesec+jc
I was shocked to learn recently how China is crushing it in renewables and electric cars. BYD sold 600,000 more electric cars than Tesla in 2025, becoming the world's largest EV brand. Tesla's sales have been declining since 2023, while BYD sales are rapidly growing, so the gap is likely to get even larger in 2026. This is an important trend, regardless of how one feels about Musk.

Sources: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aee8001 https://www.statista.com/chart/33709/tesla-byd-electric-vehi...

>>slg+Jg
Which is why he's the GOPs bank now

>>Loughl+B2
Well if they plan to put a crap ton of new satellites in the air specifically for running xAI on it, I think there is a decent chance that it isn't purely financial shenanigans. Obviously the finances are probably a big part of such a decision, but companies also do these kinds of things all the time. I don't see why this is considered "shenanigans" or how the quote would relate to what is happening.

>>slg+Jg
Why are space data centres physics defying?

>>Fogest+5g
Why would they launch data servers into space? What purpose would that serve?

>>Fogest+Uh
see https://taranis.ie/datacenters-in-space-are-a-terrible-horri...

>>keerth+05
I see what you're saying, but I also know that companies do these kinds of things all the time. It's very normal for companies to move around like this if it results in better financials. I don't see how that really makes this "financial gymnastics". Pretty much every company out there does some funny things with the numbers in order to reduce their tax burden. I wouldn't doubt this is the same kind of thing. If xAI plans to launch a ton of servers into the sky, it kind of makes sense for them to be apart of a company they also own that just so happens to launch satellites.

Starlink is also a company under SpaceX. Would you argue that is also financial gymnastics? Is it much different from what Starlink does? Instead of launching satellites to be a world wide ISP, they are launching them to be an AI provider.

I just don't see how this compares to the quote, otherwise it would apply to so many companies, including other ones already under SpaceX.

To me this just doesn't seem related and seems like a pretty big stretch likely biased by people who dislike AI and Elon.

>>Walter+de
good read: https://taranis.ie/datacenters-in-space-are-a-terrible-horri...

>>nerdpo+Hg
Low orbit satellites providing internet across the world also weren't a thing... until they were.

>>senect+34
I think we're around stage 4 of:

  1.  Elon is a genius, a real world Tony Stark.
  2.  How dare you!  You're just jealous!
  3.  Ok, regardless, he's done more to advance EVe and space travel than anyone else alive.
  4.  Oh God, he's going to cripple US development of EVs and rockets, isn't he?
  5.  Eh, Mars was never happening in my lifetime anyway.

>>Fogest+5g
> Could this not also be related to the fact that they plan to launch a ton of servers into the sky to run in space and power AI

FWIW, SpaceX launched a Tesla roadster into space without first having to merge with Tesla.

>>Fogest+2j
The biggest problem with satellite internet was the costs involved, which SpaceX has pretty much solved.

Datacenters in space, on the other hand, are a terrible idea because of the laws of physics, which will not get "solved" anytime soon. But don't take it from me, listen to this guy with a PhD in space electronics who worked at NASA and Google:

https://taranis.ie/datacenters-in-space-are-a-terrible-horri...

>>throwp+Xh
Cooling.

Radiative cooling is the only option, and it basically sucks vs any option you could use on earth.

Second, ai chips have a fixed economic life beyond which you want to replace them with better chips because the cost of running them starts to outpaxe the profit they can generate. This is probably like 2-3 years but the math of doing this in space may be very different. But you can't upgrade space based data centers nearly as easily as a terrestrial data center.

>>throwp+Xh
How do you cool them? Getting rid of heat is one of the number one challenges on the ISS.

>>bdangu+Li
I'm gonna be honest, I really don't see how these opinion pieces are relevant. There are a lot of smart people working at these companies and I'm sure they have done a lot of research and work into determining that this is a viable thing to try. I am going to put more faith into that than somebodies opinion online.

It seems like a lot of people are very biased on this topic and want to see this fail because of who the company is. This author of this piece you linked appears to be both anti-AI and anti-Elon for example.

We also are unaware if there is some bigger strategy at play here and a bigger vision then what is currently being shared. I like to see companies try to innovate and take risks. I would like to try and be optimistic about things.

>>andsoi+ob
Not sure if I feel comfortable with Mecha Hitler being our representative to the rest of the universe.

>>select+Sb
Don't forget that a lot of US mil stuff is launched by SpaceX so in a very real way they are the prime defense contractor in space for the country. If the public offering doesn't work, Unc Sam'll bail them out. Wonder if Trump will want a stake in the company this time.

>>throwp+Xh
Not physics defying, just economically questionable.

The main benefits to being in space are making solar more reliable and no need to buy real estate or get permits.

Everything else is harder. Cooling is possible but heavy compared to solar, the lifetimes of the computer hardware will probably be lower in space, and will be unserviceable. The launch cost would have to be very low, and the mean time between failure high before I think it would make any economical sense.

It would take a heck of a lot of launches to get a terrestrial datacenter worth of compute, cooling and solar in orbit, and even if you ship redundant parts, it would be hard to get equivalent lifetimes without the ability to have service technicians doing maintenance.

>>overfe+Cj
That's a very disingenuous argument and you know it. Starlink is under SpaceX. Do you also think that is wrong then too? They are effectively doing the same kind of thing.

>>throwp+Xh
Their viability is what I called physics-defying. Without some drastic changes to our current level of technology, the added costs of putting something in space along with the complexities of powering, cooling, and maintaining it once it's there is just too much to overcome the alternative of just building it on Earth.

>>throwp+Xh
Likely the intended meaning here is that the practicality of space data centers goes against the physical realities of operating in space. The single most prevalent issue with operating anything in space is heat dissipation in that the only method of doing so is via radiation of heat, which is very slow. Meanwhile, the latest Nvidia reference architectures convert such ungodly amounts of power into heat (and occasionally higher share prices) that they call for water cooling and extensive heat-exchange plant.

Even if one got the the economics of launching/connecting GPU racks into space into negligable territory and made great use of the abundent solar energy, the heat generated (and in space retained) by this equipment would prevent running it at 100% utilization as it does in terrestrial facilities.

In addition to each rack worth of equipment you'd need to achieve enough heat sink surface area to match the heat dissipation capabilities of water-cooled systems via radiation alone.

>>throwp+Xh
More details from a guy who has thought this through https://taranis.ie/datacenters-in-space-are-a-terrible-horri...

>>wookma+Ci
It’s hopium for his investors. Just like his robots.

>>decima+Xj
Check the authors history. They are both anti AI and anti Elon. I think I feel a lot more confident staying optimistic and assuming that the SpaceX and xAI team have done their research about this. I know a lot of people are heavily biased in this matter due to politically not liking Elon or not liking AI, but I also think it's fair to say these companies have many very smart individuals working for them. If they have come to the conclusion that this is viable, then I have much more faith in what they are saying over one guys opinion who is biased against them and saying it's a bad idea.

You're also passing these judgements without knowing their full plan. Maybe we only know one part of the plan and maybe other details have not been announced. They may have a much bigger plan for this than just the specific information we have.

>>bdangu+Si
It is a good read. Thank you.

>>Fogest+7k
> I'm gonna be honest, I really don't see how these opinion pieces are relevant. There are a lot of smart people working at these companies and I'm sure they have done a lot of research and work into determining that this is a viable thing to try.

Like "robo"taxi, right? A lot of smart people have been working on this at same company for decade+

> I am going to put more faith into that than somebodies opinion online.

There are opinions and then there are things you can review that are factual and based on laws.

>>throwp+Xh
Without evaporation and convection, getting rid of heat is a bitch in space.

>>bdangu+Yl
> Like "robo"taxi, right? A lot of smart people have been working on this at same company for decade+

I'm a bit confused what you're trying to imply here. They have launched RoboTaxi's and recently have been removing the human safety monitors in them. Are you trying to imply this didn't take a lot of work from a lot of intelligent people?

>>roboca+j6
The magic is not money or subsidies. Boeing got far more and they produced bupkis. Its organizational excellence. I don't know if that would survive. I guess if they can keep Falcon 9 stable then its still worth something but I imagine the star employees who grind themselves to dust getting this stuff to work do it for the mission and would depart if this occurred. Would Falcon 9 fall apart of that happens?

>>slg+Jg
Doesn’t Tesla have a large and profitable storage business now? Probably could have just built that instead of buying SolarCity.

>>crysta+F1
didn't tesla just 'invest' 2bills in xai?

>>Fogest+sm
No, I am trying to not imply but say that it doesn't work which is why the company is now pivoting away to "humanoid robots" and is slowly starting to stop making cars.

>>Fogest+9l
It doesn't matter what their perceived, by you, biases are. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH ALL THAT HEAT?

>>teacpd+L6
Thinking a bit, ORBITAL ai makes little to no sense, nowhere to dump your heat, your gpus are going to be slag or only operate part of the time. But what if he put them on the moon? the lag time is what ~1.2s? That seems like an amount of time that a current AI query can take and still seem reasonable.

Not that I think it's anything but him allowing some investors to cash out when spacex goes public. Hell didn't he just shift 2billion from tesla to xai?

At the end of the day he will never see whatever bullshit he's peddling in the media about this sale his drug habit is going to kill him before then.

>>Fogest+9l
Having previously criticized someone doesn't make your technical analysis biased. It just means you noticed similar problems previously. Conversely, "I used to support him so I'm not biased" is given unearned credibility when really it just means you were late to noticing the obvious.

>>bdangu+Si
that's an amazing read, lots of concrete and convincing challenges; but otoh, technology is evolving at such a fast pace, maybe it is possible for breakthroughs that we couldn't imagine now to become reality sooner than we would have anticipated?

>>fluori+Pc
Eh that's a spaceplane and solid rocket booster shells which I see as categorically different, and an absurd failure on a cost per kg basis.

>>bdangu+Uo
You're talking about two different things. Robotaxi's are different from the self-driving style features of a personal Tesla vehicle. You specifically said RoboTaxi but now are referring to a pivot related to their Tesla vehicles.

>>saalwe+ej
I think he's genuinely changed for the worse, quite a lot, in the last 10 years. Staring down failure seemed to keep the worst tendencies in check, being untouchable amplified them.

>>sleepy+1p
I guess you'll have to wait and see what ideas they have to deal with this. If they can't manage the heat they aren't going to spend billions launching these things just for fun.

>>benzib+gq
Technical analysis most definitely can be biased due to political leanings. This is why there is the whole idea that research can often be bought and paid for to get the results you desire. Because they are biased with money. Certain ideas or theories of how things could be done could very easily be overlooked or excluded by someone trying to dig for reasons to say something won't work.

What I am saying is that clearly SpaceX/xAI feel that this is a viable option based on many experts research/facts that are more knowledgeable than a single bloggers opinion. If I am thinking rationally why would I choose to believe a single random person over a group of experts banking A LOT of money that they have a solution that works?

>>jasonw+Es
It was a spaceplane and also a rocket. It literally had fixed rocket engines and was carried up by separating rocket stages. And yeah, it was expensive to operate, but it was built in the '80s and it truly was the first reusable rocket regularly flown, rather than being merely an experimental craft.

>>Fogest+tk
> Starlink is under SpaceX

Kuiper is not under Blue Origin, and there are no whispers of Amazon and BO merging. You're the one being disingenuous in suggesting that companies have to be merged to buy services from - or cooperate with - each other.

>>scubbo+Ye
truly a braindead argument. probably paid for by a shortseller.

>>scubbo+Ye
Trying to make a point out of whether he did or didn't found Tesla kind if defeats the rest of your post. He paid over 90% of the first funding round and brought in key people like JB Straubel. When the company was basically an incorporation paper and no assets. Under most companies people would have argued for founder/co-founder status at that point. So yes he didn't "found" Tesla but for all intents and purposes he basically did.

>>Fogest+Wt
I am just talking about (non-existent and will never materialize or exist) robotaxi. not about “full” “self driving” features of regular teslas (I own one)

>>Walter+Ql
There's another way to look at it, though. If the data center satellites can be built and launched cheap enough, you can still come out ahead on performance/cost. I.e. if the space data center has 1/10 the performance of a ground one, and they can be built and launched for less than 10% of the cost, then you've got a business. And there are costs that won't be incurred - no electric bill, no cost for land, no charge for maintenance.

I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss Musk.

>>overfe+Ex
That's not what I said. Please stop using these kinds of disingenuous attacks.

>>bdangu+OF
They exist and are operational. I am confused by what you are talking about. How can you say "non-existent" and "never materialize" when they are quite literally in operation as a service right now.

>>Walter+bG
* no electric bill: if you use solar panels to provide your own power, you also have no electric bill on Earth.

* no cost for land: land in sunny places where crops don't grow (for instance) is good for solar power and very cheap compared to building out a datacenter

* no charge for maintenance: sorry, I really don't get this one. Why don't the computers in space need any maintenance?

>>sleepy+9q
Does the moon offer much heat dissipation potential vs. orbit? The lunar surface seems like an almost-as-harsh environment.

>>reveri+xT
Also 1.2 seconds is like ridiculously long, unacceptable latency.

>>Walter+bG
Why do your magic space computers not require maintenance?

>>Fogest+kI
Being combative and wrong would be an unfortunate combination. Combative, wrong and ignoring counterexamples that disprove your assertions and hurling ad hominems puts you firmly in troll territory. Good day.

>>reveri+pd
It's uhhh... clearly explained in the linked announcement.

>>slg+Jg
I come to realize that spaceX is an ISP as well. And now with twitter, they are a social network too. Space launcher + internet network + social media + (next big thing). It would not be long until they start providing data centers (in space). And with the Elon distortion stock pricing, Wall Street will reward every business venture no matter how stupid he gets himself into. Like flame throwers. Or wine.

>>ta9000+Fn
Tesla customers make great targets to sell Tesla solar. And Solar city customers make great targets of Tesla power banks. Though they should be selling old heavy Tesla batteries for stationary power storage.

>>Fogest+8u
Which is precisely why I said originally that data centers in space have never been a thing and will never be a thing. Because the whole premise is "it's cold in space so that's great for data centers", but that fundamental premise is fundamentally wrong and based in a misunderstanding of the physics involved. There is no other redeeming argument for it, therefore it's not going to happen. Anyone trying to sell you on data centers in space is grifting.

>>Fogest+Bu
You are arguing against something I didn't say. I never claimed bias doesn't exist. My point is that having previously criticized someone is not evidence of bias. You are treating "this person has been critical before" as inherently discrediting, when it is just as likely they were right before and are right again now. Conversely, "I used to support him so I am not biased" is given unearned credibility when really it just means you were late to noticing the obvious, or got it wrong previously.

As for dismissing the article: the author has a PhD in space electronics, worked at NASA, and spent a decade at Google including on AI capacity deployment. He walks through power, thermal, radiation, and communications constraints with actual numbers. You do not get to hand-wave that away with "he is anti-Elon" and then defer to "the team spending the most money." That is not rational analysis, that is fandom.

And the idea that SpaceX's experts looked at this and concluded the combination makes strategic sense - seriously? This is the same playbook Musk has run repeatedly: SolarCity into Tesla, X into xAI, now xAI into SpaceX. Every time there is a struggling asset that needs a lifeline, it gets folded into a healthier entity with Musk negotiating on both sides. xAI is burning $1B/month. There is already a fiduciary duty lawsuit over Tesla's $2B investment in xAI. The "space data centers" rationale is a pretext for giving xAI investors an exit through SpaceX's upcoming IPO. This is not a strategic vision, it is financial engineering solving an obvious problem for Elon.

Meanwhile, Grok has been generating sexualized images of children, the California AG has opened a formal investigation, the UK Internet Watch Foundation found CSAM attributed to Grok on the dark web, Musk personally pushed to loosen Grok's safety restrictions after which three safety team members quit, and xAI's response to press inquiries was the auto-reply "Legacy Media Lies." This is the company whose judgment you are trusting over a domain expert's detailed technical analysis.

>>Fogest+mI
There are as many operating as there are 9’10” tall teenagers.

>>Fogest+Vg
> It also can't be denied that he is an intelligent person. You can hear it when he talks in interviews.

While I certainly won't deny that I do strongly disagree with all of Elon's politics, I'm being as fair and unbiased as I can when I say - we must be listening to different interviews. The man sounds like a caricature of a bumbling college stoner philosophy student most of the time.

>>reveri+AT
My contention is that for large ai query, it's not that unacceptable.

>>reveri+xT
There is a whole fucking moon you can embed heatsinks into.

>>reveri+7T
> Why don't the computers in space need any maintenance?

Because it would be too expensive to maintain them. Replacing them would be cheaper (I presume).

>>sleepy+UP3
That's a good point, the rock you're sitting on is basically a giant heat sink.

>>Walter+No4
Ah! That makes sense. But surely there is a point at which this economics becomes true for terrestrial datacenters too (in fact I saw some glimpses of that 10+ years ago, demonstrations of shipping-container-sized self-contained units that you just plug in power, and replace the whole container when it gets degraded). If they're not doing that today for terrestrial datacenters, then it probably doesn't make economic sense yet to do it in space either.