Latest / Best of Business / Chris Keall: NZ Herald senior business writer on what SpaceX filing for IPO could mean for Elon Musk

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Chris Keall: NZ Herald senior business writer on what SpaceX filing for IPO could mean for Elon Musk · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: Now SpaceX is going public and what could be one
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  Speaker 2: of the biggest IPOs in history Elon Musk and the
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  Speaker 2: SpaceX team. So that the company is worth about two
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  Speaker 2: point nine to eight trillion New Zealand dollars. The IPO
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  Speaker 2: could make Elon the world's first ever trillionaire. Chris Keel
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  Speaker 2: is the Herald senior business writer and he's with us. Hey, Chris,
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  Speaker 2: I are So, what's the thinking behind taking SpaceX public.
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  Speaker 3: Well, they're looking to cash in and raise around eighty
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  Speaker 3: billion dollars and to do that they'll have to IPO
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  Speaker 3: at a evaluation of around one point seventy five trillion US. Now,
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  Speaker 3: if my back of the envelope cherno maths is correct,
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  Speaker 3: that we'll make Musk worth nine hundred and thirty one billion.
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  Speaker 3: So will still be a snick under that trillion. So
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  Speaker 3: a bit of incentive leaf there?
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  Speaker 2: Is it worth one point seven five trillion?
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  Speaker 3: Well, they just launched. They just release some of their
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  Speaker 3: IPO documentation today. A lot of it's redacted, including Elon
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  Speaker 3: Musk's exact stake so that's thought to be about forty
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  Speaker 3: two percent. But it does say that last year their
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  Speaker 3: revenue was eighteen point seven billion and they lost four
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  Speaker 3: point nine four billion, So it's quite a stretch there
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  Speaker 3: from to one point seven five trillion valuation.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, the loss is the significant losses every single year.
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  Speaker 2: Surely must turn some people off, mustn't it.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, And so Elon's saying he's got the Starlink broadband
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  Speaker 3: Network of satellites component, which analysts do think is a
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  Speaker 3: cash machine in New Zealand alone, that Starlink uses increased
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  Speaker 3: from thirty seven thousand fifty thousand last year, so one
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  Speaker 3: hundred million revenue from here alone. And he's saying he's
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  Speaker 3: going to make data centers in space. I have absolutely
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  Speaker 3: no idea whether that's possible, and then being the data
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  Speaker 3: down with giant space slazers.
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  Speaker 2: So there's question it's totally.
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  Speaker 3: Fine, Yeah, it's like, is that technically possible? Then there's
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  Speaker 3: another more sort of unusual danger, which is will you
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  Speaker 3: get into another online fight with Trump? And I have
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  Speaker 3: no idea about space flazers and data centers in space,
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  Speaker 3: but I think that one's probably quite likely. And last
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  Speaker 3: time they gone to that ferocious, really vicious online spad
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  Speaker 3: about the big beautiful Bill. Trump was saying, I'm going
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  Speaker 3: to cancel all the SpaceX government contracts, and Musk was saying,
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  Speaker 3: go on, idea, I'll leave this astronauts stranded in the
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  Speaker 3: International Space Station and it sort of took months to recover.
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  Speaker 3: And that had a funny on one level, but not
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  Speaker 3: so much of your shareholder and this other public company, Tesla,
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  Speaker 3: which has basically been flats ever since.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a fair point that you made. Chris,
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  Speaker 2: thank you very much for running us through the latest
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  Speaker 2: Elon Musk machinations. Always fun. Chris Keel, New Zealand Herald,
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  Speaker 2: Senior business writer.
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