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Buttons840yesterday at 10:07 PM14 repliesview on HN

SpaceX is too big to fail. It's important for national security.

I wonder if Elon wants to tangle all his businesses into SpaceX so they are all kept afloat by SpaceX's importance.


Replies

protastusyesterday at 10:18 PM

Elon can't legally financially entangle Tesla to SpaceX due to Tesla being a public company, so his hands are tied.

Tesla is clearly benefiting from protectionism and its sales would collapse if BYD were allowed to openly sell in the US. Most people just want affordable, maintainable and reliable cars.

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Zigurdyesterday at 10:16 PM

Starship has a large number of critical milestones coming: Can it land and quickly reuse the upper stage? If not, it can't make refueling flights without building a dozen or two starships. Can it carry the full specified payload? If not, it can't even try to refuel in orbit. If it can't refuel in orbit, it can't go beyond earth orbit. Etc.

Everything has to go right or it will be irrelevant before it works.

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geuistoday at 3:09 AM

Of course it isn't "too big to fail". Even banks aren't. Despite recent history large banks have failed often throughout history. There's no such thing. It may take down the supporting sovereign government (Dutch East Indies) but life goes on and new political orgs appear. People be people.

Too big to fail is a very recent modern myth. Go back 100+ years and lots of banks failed leading into the Great Depression.

Every system has a break point.

garyfirestormyesterday at 10:25 PM

I think he will spin Tesla off since electrification and autonomy are no longer cool (he can’t build good quality cars or reliable FSD)

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derektanktoday at 12:35 AM

How vital is it really to national security? Starlink will have competition from Amazon Leo in the next few months. And while SpaceX is obviously in the lead in launch capability with Starship, there are multiple launch providers capable of providing roughly the same services the Falcon 9 and Heavy provide today.

JumpCrisscrosstoday at 12:55 AM

> SpaceX is too big to fail. It's important for national security

So was GM. Didn’t stop it from going bankrupt.

awesome_dudeyesterday at 10:34 PM

SpaceX is slated to go public some time this year - June IIRC

The biggest selling point /was/ that Musk was being managed there, he wasn't tinkering with SpaceX like Twitter or Tesla, and his foolhardy direction was kept out of the company.

BUT, like Tesla, Musk cannot help himself and is making SpaceX look like a very bad investment - tying his other interests with SpaceX, allegedly using SpaceX money as a "war chest" in his battles.

There is also a danger that investors will see xAI as politically dangerous, which will really hurt SpaceX IPO

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rideontimeyesterday at 10:24 PM

And our tax dollars.

SilverElfinyesterday at 10:28 PM

Let’s be honest - this is just a way to prop up Twitter/X. It makes SpaceX shareholders subsidize X, and also American taxpayers who are giving contracts to SpaceX for highly sensitive things. The government should ideally refuse to give SpaceX work unless it unwinds this.

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outside1234yesterday at 10:50 PM

Why? Let it fail. Bring back NASA.

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shartstoday at 1:04 AM

When you’re connected to Epstein, you’ll always be too big to fail

smileson2yesterday at 10:55 PM

national security is pretty felixaeble

kortillayesterday at 10:52 PM

Being too big to fail is not really a desirable outcome, it’s just better than failure.

Boeing is too important to fail as well but it’s been terrible as a shareholder

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UltraSaneyesterday at 10:08 PM

Merging SpaceX with a public company like Tesla would create a lot of issues for the classified projects SpaceX does.

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