[TacoCommander]

The end game is the SpaceX IPO which will make him a trillionaire, and then he doesn't need Tesla any more.

[toomuchtodo]

Indeed.

SpaceX in Merger Talks with xAI - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46814701 - January 2026

[rchaud]

Regular IPOs usually have commitments from pension funds, mutual funds, private equity firms and other institutional investors secured in advance of going public. How many of those parties would be interested considering that SpaceX really only has one main customer whose business isn't guaranteed considering his political partisanship?

[NetMageSCW]

Their main customer is Starlink and it will continue to be cash printing machine.

Their second customer is the Federal government and SpaceX has a monopoly on cheap reliable fast launch services that will overcome most politics. Even EU companies and Amazon and OneWeb have been forced to use them because there is no better option.

[alterom]

Unfortunately, enough for many regular people to be screwed when that stock crashes.

[burningChrome]

Or the Boring Company which most people have also completely forgotten about.

[hinkley]

Because it’s boring.

[TacoCommander]

They just work "underground"

[scottyah]

He barely needs Tesla now, pretty much the only thing stopping electric cars from being ubiquitous are people in politics and media. The new mission statement is just to make everything for everyone, which I guess solves the people-on-earth problems he wanted to tackle. Next is a push for Mars (which again is mostly threatened by some politicians at this point).

[habinero]

His entire wealth is basically paper anyways.