Elon's blood feud with Trump will not gut SpaceX's $350 billion valuation
Matein Khalid
I had analyzed SpaceX as a potential 10X winner in the Dubai media circa late 2020 when it traded at a mere $46 billion in the private market and even invited a number of close friends in an investor syndicate after sourcing shares from the Founders Fund in San Fran via the secondary market.
Shakespear's Henry V praised the English longbow archers who won him the battle of Agincourt and thus the crown of France as 'we few, we happy few, we band of brothers'. I feel the same way about my SpaceX chums except our band of brothers includes a very noble sister.
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Is the 9X fairytale in SpaceX shares over, now that Elon publicly accused Trump of falsehood and even suggested that POTUS-47 was on a Jeff Epstein's Fantasy Island paedo guest list? Not at all, even though Trump has threatened to take away all Uncle Sam subsidies and contracts away from Elon's companies, now that the bromance of the century has gone sour with such a bang.
Tesla (TSLA) shares naturally lost $150 billion last night on Nasdaq as TSLA plunged to 295 but a mass market EV car brand with stiff Chinese competition and declining market share cannot remotely be compared to SpaceX – Why?
Unlike Tesla, SpaceX has no real technological peer and neither the Pentagon's Space Command nor NASA can or will replace SpaceX just because Trump has fallen out with Elon. America is not yet Russia, where Elon would take a jump from a window or be found with 6 bullets in his head, as happens in every Kremlin routine suicide. True, Wall Street is agog with rumours that the Navy SEAL team that whacked Osama in his safehouse is now rehearsing for even a more secret mission than Zero Dark Thirty to silence Geronimo.
Jokes apart, SpaceX is too crucial to US national security, the rocket launch program and Space warfare to do anything but nurture SpaceX and help it grow bigger and richer in the years ahead for my band of brothers and noble sister. SpaceX is gaining market share and key awards and neither Trump nor even Musk can do much to derail its meteoric rise to Silicon Valley superstardom.
SpaceX just won a $6 billion contract for 28 rocket launch missions critical to US national security from Space Command. Blue Origin only won a $2.4 billion contract for 7 rocket launches. SpaceX is easily the largest, most reliable, most successful, most technologically advanced space contractor for Uncle Sam and the President can do squat about this cold hard reality.
SpaceX is on a roll with the world's top governments and intel agencies apart from USG/Uncle Sugar. After all, SpaceX commercial launch revenue rose by an incredible 56%, the kind of growth I see in a snappy, nappy software unicorn rather than a 20 year old Valley golden oldy that mesmerizes and owns Space, the Final Frontier…
Sadly for Trump, Elon is Captain James T. Kirk and naughty even though he gets to yell 'beam me up Scotty' when the going gets tough on FX deal making with President Xi in Beijing.
SpaceX is already the most profitable commercial rocket launch business the world has ever seen and its growth curve is not yet over. The FAA allowed SpaceX a five fold increase in rocket launches from its Texas base, now rebranded and incorporated as the City of Starbase. The air war between Indian and Pakistan tell the world's heads of state/spymasters that air battles will be won or lost via satellite based command and control centers, which the Chinese PLA has perfected to an art form. So I expect SpaceX to get some multi-billion dollar mega contracts from India, which is miffed at both Trump and French electronic warfare technologies. So can SpaceX command a $500 billion valuation? To borrow Obama's slogan, yes we can!
Also published on Medium.
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