Ron Baron says he will never sell SpaceX in his lifetime
Billionaire investor Ron Baron said he's holding on to his position in Elon Musk's SpaceX for the rest of his life. "I think that we're going to hold that for another probably 10 years in SpaceX at least," Baron told attendees at the Morningstar Investment Conference in Chicago. "And I don't think, in SpaceX, I'll ever sell a share in my lifetime." The conviction of the Baron Capital chair and CEO in SpaceX comes largely from the extraordinary growth the privately-held space exploration company has seen since Baron's original investment in 2017. Baron, who's invested roughly $1 billion in SpaceX, said that the holding has since ballooned to roughly $4.5 billion. At the end of March, SpaceX was the second-largest holding in the Baron Partners Fund, roughly 18% of the portfolio, behind Tesla, at about 30%. "We've been one of the largest, if not the largest, purchaser on each one of these transactions since then. Invested a billion, now worth $4.5 billion. I think that in a company worth $350 billion, I think that in 10 years, we're going to make 10 times our money again," Baron said. "Elon thinks that's a ridiculous number. He thinks we're going to make 30 times." "Alpha is everywhere you're looking, if you're willing to buy something that you have to imagine what it will become," he added. TSLA 5Y mountain Tesla, over five years As a private investment, SpaceX is the exception for Baron, largely due to his admiration for Musk and his preference for what he's called "exceptional executives." Baron made his name by emphasizing public growth companies. In his keynote address in Chicago, Baron described first meeting Musk in 2010, saying he kept tabs on the unorthodox businessman for years before investing in one of his companies. "I met him in 2010. And he comes to my office ... he's wearing cargo pants, he's unshaven, his hair is all over the place. He's wearing a plaid sport jacket and a plaid shirt, and they don't match," Baron said. "And so, we're talking, and he's telling me how he's going to have 20 million cars a year." "That didn't seem very credible to me," Baron continued. "And so, I kept following him, kept studying him, and kept visiting him. Every few months, I call him out." Baron, 82, invested $400 million in Tesla between 2014 and 2016. Tesla is down more than 19% in 2025 after soaring 63% in 2024 and more than doubling in 2023. Earlier this year, Baron said he has no intention of selling any shares of Tesla.
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Job openings among the largest U.S. federal contractors have plummeted at 25x the rate of all other jobs amid DOGE cuts, report finds
While job openings have broadly remained steady, opportunities in private-sector government contractors have plummeted, according to new data from Indeed. A 15% drop in job listings for the 25 largest U.S. government contractors since Jan. 20 coincides with mass funding cuts facilitated by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. Elon Musk's mass spending cuts across the government have not just slashed the federal workforce, but may also have axed job opportunities among the largest government contractors in the private sector. Since the beginning of President Donald Trump's second term, job openings for the 25 private-sector companies with the largest government contracts have dropped 15%, according to a report published on Thursday by the Indeed Hiring Lab. Listings for all other jobs dipped only 0.6% in the same period. The precipitous drop in job opportunities at massive government contractors—such as Boeing, Honeywell and Deloitte (though the data does not analyze job openings for the individual companies)—coincides with the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) culling of private-sector contracts, part of the advisory's efforts to reduce so-called government waste and abuse. DOGE claims to have saved taxpayers $180 billion in workforce reductions, contract and lease cancellations, and other spending cuts, though experts warn the advisory's calculations are inaccurate and inflated. These cuts have made their mark on the private sector, with tech companies like Oracle and Leidos reportedly having contracts terminated by DOGE as part of the Pentagon's goal to slash $580 million in funding. The cuts have also hit Big Four consulting companies like Deloitte, which saw the elimination of at least 120 contracts totalling more than $1 billion, according to a Fortune analysis from April. Stark disparities in job opportunities available overall compared to the 25 major contractors may indicate these companies are starting to make tough decisions following DOGE cuts, according to Cory Stahle, the report's author and economist at the Hiring Lab. 'It's clear that these [cuts to government] funding are having an impact on some of these companies—hiring plans and where they see things going in the coming months—especially as they've seen potential pullback to their streams of funding from the government,' Stahle told Fortune. Companies have begun to report the impact of these cuts. Tech consultancy Accenture warned in March the Trump administration's cost-cutting could impact sales and revenue. Federal contracts make up about 8% of its global revenue and 16% of its Americas revenue in fiscal 2024. The company reported a quarterly earnings beat last week, but a 6% decrease in bookings. 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Since February 2024, job listings for positions at government contractors have plummeted 44%, according to the Indeed data, while all other listings have increased 14% since before COVID. While the number of job openings have more broadly stabilized, the recent data indicates the trend of government-contractor job listings 'is not changing the way the rest of the labor market is changing,' Stahle said. 'We're starting to see a break in patterns, which I think is what's most notable about this,' he added. Fewer job listings for these massive private-sector contractors may mean fewer opportunities for fired federal workers seeking news jobs, particularly as applications among this demographic soared in the spring as a result of DOGE's mass workforce cuts. Most of these fired federal employees are knowledge workers looking for white-collar positions usually offered by government contractors, according to Stahle. 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I worked at Tesla for 7 years. I quit because I couldn't support Elon Musk any longer.
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When I got the job, I quit the two jobs and immediately got a better paying role with more time off. The reason I stayed is because they kept treating me well. I was getting paid the most I'd ever gotten in my adult life. No education, no real skills to speak of, and Tesla offered me opportunities to take charge of my life and grow my career. I started out on their production line for the Model 3 and I moved up from there. When I started out, it was grueling work. It was pushing heavy things up and down aisles. I was on my feet for 12 hours a day, but they also give you three to four days off a week to recover. It was a physically demanding job, but it didn't bother me. I knew that if I demonstrated a good work ethic I could work my way up, and that's what I've done. Every few years I was able to move up, from production associate to technician to eventually lead and engineering roles. A month into a new role, it was March 2020, and we were all furloughed. It was a big freak-out moment for me. Nobody was telling us what was going on, and I felt like I was going to lose my job. But we were back to work five weeks later and I learned to work around the new COVID safety standards. I felt like I really took ownership of my area, and I eventually became a lead for that team. To do it, I really had to show my value — I had to leverage my skills and build the relationships and rapport. That's what you have to do at Tesla — the skills aren't enough, you also need the relationships, and you need to show you can pick up the slack because things are always changing there. In 2023, they provided me an opportunity to go to school through a program at a local community college. They helped me get a certificate in advanced manufacturing. I took nine courses between January and May, all while I was still doing my normal duties, and I even made the Dean's list. Later on I got another certificate, a green belt certification for Lean Six Sigma. I never drank the Elon Musk Kool Aid. When I started at my orientation, they talked about his controversial tweets. They said it's gotten him in hot water with the Securities and Exchange Commission, but they were mostly joking about it, like his behavior was okay because of who he was, what he does, or however much he's worth. There's always been that kind of mindset at Tesla, a cult of personality around Elon. I remember when he smoked weed on the Joe Rogan Experience, seeing so many T-shirts referencing it at the Gigafactory. I'd thought some of the things he'd done were wrong, like the Thai diver incident, but I believed in the mission. Then all of a sudden, he jumped into a capacity where he could impact my daily life. His involvement in Twitter, his involvement in the election, all of that was detracting from the company's mission. I didn't realize how much it mattered to me until the last couple of months. 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an hour ago
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Starlink resumes internet services in Lagos, other African countries after service suspension
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