{"text":[[{"start":7.78,"text":"A gatekeeper that controls access to the future space economy? A space-based communications company that will rake in cash by reaching consumers anywhere in the world? The first conglomerate to link space-based data processing and communications with advanced chipmaking and AI, in an industrial reordering that skips several steps ahead of rivals?"}],[{"start":32.36,"text":"Such rationalisations for why SpaceX might be worth a cool $1.75tn are already flowing freely. Elon Musk’s rocket company officially filed for a record-breaking initial public offering this week, touching off what is set to be a stock market sales pitch for the ages."}],[{"start":52.34,"text":"It’s not entirely clear what the main narrative will be that drives this sale. But with Musk, there is always a tantalising promise just beyond the horizon — and sometimes, far beyond the horizon — to keep investors wanting more. It is a skill he has honed in full public view over the years, turning Tesla from an electric-car company into an alternative energy conglomerate, before recasting it again as a driverless taxi operator and, finally, an all-purpose robot maker. A media that is always ready to marvel at Musk’s next big promises, and investors eager for the profits they bring, seem likely to take the bait."}],[{"start":94.08000000000001,"text":"Musk’s fans saw industrial logic in the ramming together earlier this year of SpaceX and xAI, his AI and social media company, in a deal valued by the companies at $1.3tn. That the AI company’s Grok is being used in customer service at SpaceX while the rocket company might one day launch X’s data centres into orbit was judged to make this a plausible fit."}],[{"start":123.62,"text":"In reality, the merger looked like a case of sheer financial opportunism. SpaceX’s cash flow and fundraising power could support big losses at xAI, which is locked in an expensive race with better-funded rivals such as OpenAI. Investors who had backed Musk’s purchase of Twitter (now X) and suffered the pain of big writedowns as that company retrenched have also been rewarded with a healthy slice of SpaceX stock."}],[{"start":153.4,"text":"The same financial opportunism lies behind the timing and scale of SpaceX’s stock market debut. Musk is no stranger to technical moonshots, but this looks like a moonshot of a distinctly financial variety."}],[{"start":169.44,"text":"At $75bn, the IPO would attract far more than Musk has raised for SpaceX and Tesla in their combined lifetimes before this. A valuation of $1.75tn, perched on revenues that last year were probably no more than $20bn, makes the valuation a stretch on any measure."}],[{"start":192.48,"text":"Dragging in xAI spoils what would otherwise might at least have been a relatively clean financial narrative for SpaceX’s IPO. The company’s giant Starship rocket promises to transform the economics of putting payloads in space, while its Starlink network is shaping up to be a money-spinner: PitchBook estimates SpaceX generated $7.5bn in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation last year, a figure that it predicted could rise to $95bn by 2040 on revenue of $150bn."}],[{"start":231.82,"text":"The investors SpaceX hopes to attract will have to start out with a sum-of-the-parts valuation, pulling apart the rocket investments, communications cash flows and AI losses to ascribe a value to each part of the business. "}],[{"start":247.81,"text":"Until the company’s formal filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission is made public much closer to the share sale, it is impossible to tell whether there will be enough information for that exercise. And that is before they even stop to ponder whether they should ascribe any value to the really big promises that Musk has started throwing around this year: launching data centres into orbit and building a permanent city on the moon."}],[{"start":276.94,"text":"The attempt to justify the sticker price based on business prospects many years in the future is also a stretch. Musk will be close to 70 by the end of 2040: Does anyone seriously think they can predict what his industrial empire will look like by then?"}],[{"start":294.47,"text":"None of this, though, is likely to damp the enthusiasm for a chance to own a second Musk trillion-dollar stock. Given its sheer size, most big investors will find it hard to stand aside and risk not buying into something that might one day account for a significant part of the market’s main indices, says Lise Buyer, an IPO expert who worked at Google during that company’s stock market listing. “Everyone will be looking at what everyone else is doing,” she says. Fear of missing out will rule the day. "}],[{"start":326.97,"text":"Analysts are likely to reach for whatever industrial and financial logic they need to explain why SpaceX’s stock is worth whatever Musk and his bankers ask for it. But none of that should distract from what is really going on. The tech industry’s biggest showman is turning all his considerable skills to organising the stock market’s Fomo event of the decade. Nobody ever accused him of not thinking big."}],[{"start":363.94,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1775208101_4443.mp3"}