The news struck like a thunderbolt: SpaceX might IPO Starlink.
For years, investors have sought a viable way to invest in Elon Musk’s space start-up, SpaceX. Alphabet‘s 2015 investment in SpaceX, giving the internet giant a partial stake in the space company, suggested one way. (Currently the only way.) But what investors really wanted was a way to own SpaceX directly.
Problem is, Elon Musk is not all that interested in IPO’ing SpaceX. He doesn’t want to cede control of the company and risk short-term-focused investors derailing his plans to colonize Mars, for one thing. And with SpaceX’s satellite launch business reporting positive EBITDA (and even occasional positive GAAP profits), he doesn’t really need the money an IPO would generate. Result: A near-term IPO of SpaceX probably isn’t in the cards.
But an IPO of Starlink might be.
Starlink for sale
This was the upshot of a recent column by CNBC space maven Michael Sheetz, who reported that “SpaceX is considering spinning off its Starlink satellite business and may have an IPO for the unit in the next several years.”
Apparently, it was SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell who spilled the beans. Speaking to a group of investors in Miami earlier this month, Shotwell conceded that although SpaceX itself might not go public anytime soon, “Starlink is the right kind of business that we can go ahead and take public.”
So how might that work? Let’s begin with a few assumptions.
Elon Musk is on record as estimating that it might cost $10 billion to build his imagined network of 12,000 Starlink internet broadband satellites to orbit Earth. (If he builds the bigger theoretical version of Starlink, comprising 42,000 satellites, it might cost a bit more, but for now let’s just stick with the assumption of 10 bills.)
Now, a recent stock sale at SpaceX placed the company’s implied, private valuation at $36 billion. Assuming SpaceX can hold on to that valuation through an IPO, all it will need to do is spin off Starlink for a market capitalization of just one-third of SpaceX’s total market valuation, and this should generate all the cash SpaceX needs to complete Starlink — and begin selling internet access to essentially every human on Earth.
How likely are investors to value Starlink at one-third the valuation of SpaceX as a whole?
Well, consider. With 36 planned rocket launches this year, SpaceX is by far the biggest privately owned rocket-launching company on planet Earth. It’s so popular, says CNBC, that market analysts believe SpaceX has access to “an unlimited amount of funding” anytime it wants to sell shares of itself, or float its own debt.
Problem is, one of the ways SpaceX became so big, and so popular, was by offering rocket launches at prices cheaper than almost anybody else can manage. (Maybe India can. Perhaps China. But we now know for a fact that SpaceX’s big competitors Roscosmos, Ariane, and America’s own United Launch Alliance cannot.) As a result of charging so little for its launches — and as already mentioned above — SpaceX’s launch business isn’t generating a whole lot of profit.
But Starlink will generate profit. Simply gobs of it.
In fact, internal SpaceX documents from 2015, obtained by The Wall Street Journal, confirm that SpaceX expects to generate $4 billion from selling Starlink internet access as early as next year — and perhaps as much as $22 billion a year by 2025. If SpaceX’s estimates are anywhere near correct, then spinning off Starlink at a valuation of even $12 billion (one-third of current SpaceX market cap) would offer investors the bargain of a lifetime — the chance to buy an Elon Musk company at a P/E of about 0.5 times estimated 2025 earnings.
For comparison, and for context, at its current market capitalization of $143.6 billion, Elon Musk’s only publicly traded company today — Tesla(NASDAQ:TSLA) — sells for more than 13 times estimated 2025 earnings (according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence).
Judging from the example provided by Tesla, chances are good that investors would line up to buy a Starlink IPO at valuations several times the 0.5 times needed to fund Starlink. More than that — they’d clamor for a piece of the action.
My prediction, therefore: SpaceX will in fact spin off and IPO Starlink — just as soon as Musk has evidence confirming that his profits estimates are correct. And when that happens, this IPO will be a smashing success.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
