Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / Speculation Rises as SpaceX Rumored to Acquire United Launch Alliance

Transcript

Speculation Rises as SpaceX Rumored to Acquire United Launch Alliance · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:00
  Today we're going to talk about Ula being sold news came from
• 0:07
  Eric burger at ARS Technica that Ula maybe on the market.
• 0:13
  We're gonna talk about some potential buyers.
• 0:15
  We're going to talk about the opportunities that these buyers
• 0:18
  could have by buying Ula and also some of the downsides of
• 0:23
  some of these buyers, you know, if they if they buy Ula what
• 0:26
  could happen to their business and if the even really want to
• 0:30
  buy you a light like who would want to buy you a latte?
• 0:33
  And of course, we have Neil over whatever side.
• 0:35
  I don't know which side he's on. I've done this in a while,
• 0:38
  either way like that, yeah, it's either this way, or that way.
• 0:42
  It might even be able to change it after after we record.
• 0:45
  So, yeah, we're just doing a show today about you, aiso, Ula
• 0:50
  may be sold. That's the, that's the thing,
• 0:53
  and I'm going to read a little bit from the article here.
• 0:56
  The second paragraph, the sale of you Ula, as it is known,
• 1:01
  within the industry, would Mark the end of an era that has
• 1:04
  lasted for nearly two. Decades company was officially
• 1:06
  formed in 2005, as part of a deal brokered by the US
• 1:09
  government, ensuring the military had access to both
• 1:13
  Atlas and Delta Rockets, but national security satellites
• 1:16
  into space from Ula Lockheed Martin, and Boeing merge, their
• 1:20
  launch businesses into a single company.
• 1:22
  Each taking a 50% stake. So, that's what you will a is,
• 1:26
  Now could they Silvis huge news? It's huge.
• 1:31
  Yes, that it's up for sale. It's crazy.
• 1:34
  Yeah, it's a huge company. And it's there's a lot of
• 1:39
  uncertainty as to where it goes, who owns it, how they operate
• 1:42
  it, what happens to government contracts, all the sort of
• 1:46
  thing. I mean, you always a company
• 1:49
  that's, that gets a billion dollars from from the Department
• 1:53
  of Defense, just to exist, just to be ready to do be able to
• 1:56
  launch things when they need them launch results, launch
• 2:01
  Readiness. So it's a there's a lot of money
• 2:04
  involved. There's a huge Stakes of
• 2:06
  everything involved. It's theirs.
• 2:07
  And quite frankly, there's not many suitors out there that
• 2:10
  would be able to afford and operate them.
• 2:14
  Yeah. I mean talk about those.
• 2:17
  Yeah. In the billion dollars a year.
• 2:19
  That's pretty nice. Just to be ready to go.
• 2:21
  You know just to keep it a fleet of rockets ready and the
• 2:25
  Personnel to run those Rockets four billion dollars a year.
• 2:28
  That's pretty good by itself but you also have other launches
• 2:31
  throughout the year that you could do with through you know
• 2:33
  for other National Security missions and you know for NASA
• 2:37
  and private companies. Things like that.
• 2:40
  So you're going to be making more than a billion dollars a
• 2:42
  year. If you If you run the company
• 2:46
  properly and it looks like you always do it.
• 2:48
  Okay, so that's when we doing, okay, let's just say okay to do
• 2:52
  it. Okay, writing right now?
• 2:54
  There's no, oh yeah, a lot of their business has been taken
• 2:57
  away by SpaceX, we've successfully sued them number of
• 3:00
  years ago, seven years ago to to get some space Security
• 3:06
  Contracts though. They've lost a lot of because
• 3:10
  spacex's what a quarter of the price that you will later.
• 3:14
  Charges to launch these things. So it's and it's a big deal and
• 3:18
  and that all comes down to the reusability of the Rockets, of
• 3:22
  course, the Falcon 9's that they've been using so as well as
• 3:28
  just business practices, you know, Ula is a huge Cash Cow as
• 3:34
  I were it's old-school contractors charging way too
• 3:38
  much and and the price of the rocket has to go up as a result.
• 3:44
  Yeah layers of revise your accuracy.
• 3:46
  Yeah whoever buys this as a huge opportunity, not only the
• 3:50
  contracts that are out there right now but also the potential
• 3:53
  to grow the business. Make some changes and
• 3:56
  potentially Bring it back from from early grave.
• 4:03
  Yeah. Potential collapse, I mean
• 4:05
  SpaceX launches more Rockets you know than anybody else right
• 4:10
  now. So they're dominant everybody
• 4:13
  else combined then everybody. Yeah than everybody.
• 4:16
  So I don't think SpaceX even cares that much about by me
• 4:20
  while I at this point. I mean, they know I mean, if
• 4:22
  we're talking list suitors, I guess these faceless talk about
• 4:25
  SpaceX first. Yeah, yeah, I don't think it's
• 4:28
  To happen. It's not necessary.
• 4:51
  Yeah, has reliable Rockets. So the technology is there to,
• 4:57
  you know, to To keep flying those things.
• 4:59
  But SpaceX has Falcon 9, Falcon heavy and coming up the Starship
• 5:04
  so they have their own problems to worry about.
• 5:06
  They have their own Focus to worry about if they bought
• 5:09
  something that's kind of already already built out.
• 5:14
  Its it would be good to have that in your back pocket but
• 5:17
  there's no reason to continue this Legacy operation that has
• 5:21
  like you were saying before the layers and layers of contractors
• 5:25
  and yeah, you know, it just makes it's more difficult, it
• 5:29
  takes me. There is the mission certainly
• 5:31
  be a benefit. Yeah, there should be a benefit
• 5:33
  to SpaceX to buy it and read break it down and sell it off
• 5:36
  its pieces. Yeah.
• 5:38
  And and get rid of a competitor. But I think the government would
• 5:42
  step in and say, no, that's not happening.
• 5:45
  Yeah. Soon as you got, that got word
• 5:47
  of that happening because number one, they want to have, they
• 5:50
  need to have two companies that can launch people to the space
• 5:54
  station and took shook Ruby. Chuckles.
• 5:58
  So and you always the other one in combination with the other
• 6:03
  partners but yeah, they wouldn't happen.
• 6:08
  Yeah, I do, I like to sort of rules space text, I wrote in my
• 6:11
  book, see, I don't even see a, I don't even see a one percent
• 6:15
  possibility of them buying, you know, you had a good time either
• 6:19
  the other good I mean Ilan could raise the money if he wants to
• 6:22
  buy Ula. I mean he raised the money to
• 6:24
  buy Twitter which its by any stretch of the imagination
• 6:29
  wasn't profitable and won't be profitable for a little while
• 6:33
  now. But you will a, you know, they
• 6:34
  have money coming in from the government, the billion dollars.
• 6:37
  He's a year. So, you know, if he can show a
• 6:40
  use case, where SpaceX could make money from Ula any sort of
• 6:44
  like have it a little side project that might be a thing,
• 6:49
  but I don't think there's really want to.
• 6:51
  Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's like there's no reason
• 6:54
  for them to do that. They have their own problems.
• 6:57
  If they're on a mission to go to Mars.
• 6:59
  Like they don't want to, don't want to mess that up.
• 7:01
  That's one more one. More distraction for Ilan as
• 7:03
  well. He's got a lot going on as
• 7:05
  plate. So yeah, he's running.
• 7:07
  Five different companies and very intensely to.
• 7:09
  So yes, he's got tuning, relax, a little bit.
• 7:13
  Yeah. And how he got guy sleeps, to be
• 7:15
  honest? Yeah.
• 7:17
  Apparently, he gets pretty good sleep, so yeah.
• 7:19
  Oh good for him. Yeah.
• 7:20
  Yes, super important positive, good people around him doing the
• 7:25
  work that needs to be done, so he's good, but Lockheed and
• 7:30
  Boeing, I mean they could buy each other out to.
• 7:33
  Yeah, they're the next, the next suitors that we should talk
• 7:36
  about, I mean, Those are the two companies that combine to make
• 7:39
  up, you Ali. Yeah.
• 7:41
  And both of them have an interest in the Department of
• 7:45
  Defense the money that's there so they certainly are two
• 7:50
  possibilities. Boeing is probably the lesser of
• 7:54
  the two in my mind as far as interested parties.
• 8:00
  Lockheed I could certainly see being very interested in taking
• 8:03
  this thing over and taking back. Should be interesting to see
• 8:08
  their butts. I, yeah, I mean, we're talking
• 8:11
  about a company that is 100% capable of being financially
• 8:15
  viable. They got a great product, very
• 8:19
  reliable. It's, you know, with the, with
• 8:23
  the one possible problem being competition from SpaceX, they
• 8:27
  are. They're right on track to be a
• 8:31
  competitor in this market in this field.
• 8:33
  So, Yeah. Well, I can certainly see them
• 8:37
  buying each other. Yeah.
• 8:39
  In Vulcan, I'm just reading this on the arstechnica site.
• 8:43
  Vulcan Ula has an agreement with the US military to launch 60%.
• 8:47
  I thought it was less than that, but it's 60 percent of national
• 8:50
  security. Payloads from twenty.
• 8:51
  Twenty three to twenty twenty seven.
• 8:54
  So that seems like pretty valuable thing to have.
• 8:59
  I mean, if you're going to, if you're going to buy the company,
• 9:02
  somebody like Jeff, Bezos blue, or Rigid.
• 9:05
  They're kind of old space kind of new space something in
• 9:08
  between Jeff and Liu origin. They have their own things that
• 9:12
  they're working on but it's given up Vulcan and skipping up
• 9:15
  to 60% of u.s. National Security payloads would
• 9:18
  be pretty good. I mean, make a little bit of
• 9:20
  money. Yeah, I think that little origin
• 9:21
  dollars probably the most interesting thought as far as
• 9:26
  buying this thing out, you've got a company blue origin that
• 9:31
  hasn't made it to orbit yet buying out a Eventually that
• 9:35
  makes it to orbit every single time that is going to you know.
• 9:40
  Jeff Bezos is there's more than a little bit of him.
• 9:44
  That's ego. Would you think would you agree?
• 9:47
  But I wouldn't yeah, yeah. So this this feeds his ego, he's
• 9:52
  got a company that can make it to space, make it to orbit and
• 9:57
  is successful. And he's got all these contracts
• 10:00
  with the Department of Defense which are, you know, once Again,
• 10:04
  that feeds the ego of an owner of a company.
• 10:10
  I could see blue origin stepping in very easily to take this
• 10:15
  over. Plus it also might allow him to
• 10:21
  him to him. I mean, blue origin.
• 10:23
  May allow blue origin to fast-track New England as well.
• 10:27
  They're heavy launch vehicle that says in development, but
• 10:31
  having the expertise, having all that knowledge Age of what URL a
• 10:36
  has would certainly fast-track new Glenn.
• 10:39
  And it also it would also be a good fit for the Department of
• 10:43
  Defense having a competitor to Starship.
• 10:47
  Yeah, that's up there at the same time relatively within a
• 10:51
  few years of each other. Yeah, I think you nailed it blue
• 10:57
  origin. They used to be four engines
• 11:00
  with you know, Ula Rockets. So just kind of a one to one
• 11:05
  thing. They just build the the be4
• 11:07
  rockets and they're like oh we don't have to ship them to you
• 11:09
  l.a. anymore. They are you la and they already
• 11:11
  feel their defense. Yeah.
• 11:13
  Exactly. Exactly.
• 11:14
  Yeah. We make them just for ourselves.
• 11:16
  That's cool. So that could also bring in you
• 11:19
  know they're building like how SpaceX does it everything's
• 11:21
  built by SpaceX the Isabel by SpaceX the Rockets are built by
• 11:25
  SpaceX everything's built in-house.
• 11:27
  Maybe you know this could be a good good combination of the two
• 11:32
  and then you know, the project Kuiper, you know, the Kuiper.
• 11:37
  I don't know how to say it properly.
• 11:39
  Sometimes it's quite for sometimes Kuiper, those
• 11:42
  satellites are important too for the the future of Bezos and blue
• 11:46
  origin so they could launch them on Ula rockets in the future.
• 11:49
  Don't need to wait for the new Glenn rocket.
• 11:52
  Yep, so absolutely. You know this get those up, you
• 11:55
  know, start start launching right away.
• 11:56
  So yeah it would be it would be interesting to see Jeff just
• 12:02
  take this thing on and yeah he's like that means he's got the
• 12:05
  means he's got the money here. Yeah so I think it I think it's
• 12:10
  a pretty good fit you know that he's made no.
• 12:17
  He hasn't tried to hide the fact that he's interested in National
• 12:20
  Security missions as well. You know, it's a, it's a pretty
• 12:23
  good fit for everybody involved there but we'll see, we'll see
• 12:28
  what else we got. We got Northrop Grumman.
• 12:29
  Yeah well I think is in pretty serious Contender.
• 12:32
  They've got sort of a smaller Fleet of rockets and they could
• 12:36
  really benefit from having that larger Fleet the Vulcans and
• 12:40
  whatnot. So I could see Northrop Grumman
• 12:43
  being a contender whether they have the cash or not.
• 12:46
  Is another story but I could see them being very interested.
• 12:50
  Yeah, they're, they're heavy and a national security so you know
• 12:54
  Department of Defense missions all the time.
• 12:56
  So there's no reason why they wouldn't be interested.
• 13:00
  I think. But like you said the money I
• 13:05
  think it probably raised that money.
• 13:06
  That's the thing with a graph has a has a you know, long
• 13:11
  history. And there's if they can show
• 13:13
  value with Ula and you will a launches in the Sure, Eartha,
• 13:18
  Grumman could possibly be a buyout, you know, could do my
• 13:21
  own and then once we got, we got Sierra Nevada.
• 13:28
  Probably yes. Long shot Contender here but
• 13:30
  yeah, that's another dog right there.
• 13:33
  Yeah, that's Underdog potential to grow their business and
• 13:39
  really expand things. Yeah.
• 13:42
  But I think that that's a getting to be a bit of a long
• 13:45
  shot. We're talking about a huge sum
• 13:46
  of money here. Yes, not a sin, you know, you
• 13:49
  got a billion dollars guaranteed every year and then you've got,
• 13:52
  you know, 60% of National Security launches which might
• 13:55
  end up being 3. But still, it's a lot of money.
• 14:01
  So it's, you know, you got a, there's a lot of money on the
• 14:04
  line here. This is not going to be a small
• 14:05
  bio yummy stretch of the imagination.
• 14:09
  Yeah now the option of course is sorry all I was going to say,
• 14:12
  they do a lot of NASA missions to.
• 14:14
  So all of those missions, not just National Security or
• 14:17
  Department of Defense. They do a lot of science
• 14:19
  missions. They send ressure satellites and
• 14:23
  Rovers to other planets, so they have all of that business coming
• 14:26
  into. Yeah.
• 14:27
  What were you saying? Sorry.
• 14:28
  I didn't mean to catch. I was gonna say the possibility
• 14:30
  of course exists for another Alliance as well, you know,
• 14:35
  okay, I don't know. Whether Lockheed and around, get
• 14:38
  along enough to kind of do the same thing.
• 14:41
  So I don't know where they get along.
• 14:43
  That's true. Yeah, make a merger of sorts,
• 14:48
  but perhaps, Northrop, and Sierra, Nevada.
• 14:52
  Perhaps, you know, there's a possibility there as well.
• 14:56
  Perhaps blue origin and Lockheed yeah, there's I uh, I think no
• 15:01
  brainer. Yeah, I agree with you on that
• 15:04
  one but I think so I would like to see Jeff Bezos and blue
• 15:11
  origin just be just be brutal about it.
• 15:15
  Be like we're going to buy this thing.
• 15:17
  I'm going to use your raucous to send our satellites up.
• 15:20
  I think that would be pretty, interesting to see.
• 15:23
  But more than likely, I think what's going to happen is you
• 15:25
  always going to get bought out so they have the two companies
• 15:28
  you know, Boeing and can I think the other one right now, okay,
• 15:32
  lock Yeah, just one of them is going to buy each other out.
• 15:35
  You just be like, yeah, well let us use this stuff and quite
• 15:38
  possible quite you know this for sure this change the logos on
• 15:40
  the stuff that's no probably keep this to say the same thing
• 15:45
  you're late. I don't know that will change.
• 15:47
  Yeah. Say yeah yeah yeah it's going to
• 15:50
  be interesting though because billions of dollars worth of of
• 15:53
  a company's. So if Jeff does by it out,
• 15:56
  that's a huge runway for his company.
• 16:00
  That's the origin. Massive Massive amount of
• 16:04
  Leverage that he has from that. So but yeah, I don't think so
• 16:08
  because gorgeous probably the most enticing one for me.
• 16:12
  I want blue origin to take this over.
• 16:14
  I wanted to I wanted when I am a I'm not a huge porridge and fan
• 16:18
  but I think we need more launch Vehicles, heavy launch vehicles,
• 16:22
  and we need more competition. Because as much time with you,
• 16:27
  yeah, I'm with you I'm not a huge blue origin fan so far, but
• 16:30
  at the V by U La, I think I'm going to become one.
• 16:33
  Yeah, I think they deserve a lot of excitement that is built
• 16:37
  around a blue origin approach to things rather than Ula approach
• 16:40
  to things you've got reuse ability.
• 16:43
  You've got the You know, they're trying to get the space with a
• 16:47
  huge vehicle and I love that whereas Ula hasn't really been
• 16:52
  looking towards that. So they really want to you know
• 16:55
  settle on their Niche and they're very good at that
• 16:59
  whereas Jeff is going to want to expand and look towards the
• 17:03
  future. And I think that's very exciting
• 17:05
  and competition for Space X in that field would be great too.
• 17:09
  Now, they need to get things to the Moon as well, because of
• 17:12
  course Bezos some blue origin want to send Rovers to the Moon.
• 17:15
  They want to send their whole goal is to make life
• 17:18
  multiplanetary just like SpaceX, you know, so some people
• 17:22
  multiple thousands of people working and living in space, and
• 17:26
  they need launch Vehicles, do that?
• 17:28
  So, that's a possibility, like that's probably why they would
• 17:30
  buy it because they have these reliable launch Vehicles.
• 17:32
  There are viable, you know, of course, they're going to send
• 17:36
  some stuff to the moon and stuff to or bad.
• 17:39
  They just become a contender as well.
• 17:41
  Right there are no, now they're part of the whole NASA.
• 17:45
  Hls thing, even a bigger part than they already are.
• 17:49
  Yep. And we'll take a lot of
• 17:50
  business. Think they can take some
• 17:52
  business from SpaceX which isn't a bad thing as much about if
• 17:55
  know. And he'll on wants that Eli
• 17:57
  wants competition, he wants people to, you know the more
• 18:00
  competition there is the more that the technology develops.
• 18:05
  The faster it does. Yep.
• 18:06
  That's important, I agree. All right.
• 18:08
  Well, that's about it. That's all we got for today.
• 18:10
  Thanks Neil for joining me again and I will see everybody next
• 18:14
  time. Bye, bye everybody.