Managing Partner, LumaSenti. Entrepreneur, co-inventor/co-author of the book “The Decision Model”.
North Carolina, USA
Joined March 2009
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One more from my Good News Monday conversation with Randy Kirk. Reusing the entire Starship, booster and ship together, is what unlocks data centers in the sky, and I think that unlock is worth the Earth, if you will excuse a strange metaphor for something in space. That is the real prize riding on Flight 15 and the flights that follow it.
Not investment advice.
I've been visiting Starbase since Hopper, and have always thought the rate of progress was amazing. But they've shifted to a much higher gear. The rate of build is crazy, it's extreme. Not just at the launch site, not just at the factory, but new factories rising, both rocket factories and data centers...it's incredible the size of the developments...it's really difficult to wrap your mind around it.
Randy Kirk pulled this one from our Good News Monday conversation, and it is exactly what I will be watching this weekend. If Starship Flight 15 goes well on Friday, and especially when the ship returns on Saturday, which is the critical day, I would personally expect something like a 20 to 50 point move in SpaceX stock, at least if institutional investors have the slightest clue what they are looking at.
SpaceX will not earn much from this launch itself. What matters is that all of its big opportunities are unlocked by 100% reuse, and getting there puts us roughly ten years ahead of anyone close to us, the same thing Falcon did a decade ago. I am not predicting a perfect flight this time, but this is the milestone that matters most.
Not investment advice.
Randy pulled another clip from our Good News Monday conversation, this one on SpaceX and spectrum. Elon said that if SpaceX can use spectrum ten times better than the legacy carriers, buying a telco for its licenses is on the table, and he sounded serious about it. After hearing that, I looked at the three big carriers. I think T-Mobile is out of reach, since Deutsche Telekom controls it and Europe would never allow SpaceX to buy Deutsche Telekom. That leaves Verizon and AT&T, and neither one has a controlling owner, just the usual major institutions. (In the clip I said Verizon when I meant T-Mobile.)
Not investment advice.
Randy pulled another clip from our Good News Monday conversation, this one on Optimus economics. Going from my notes on Elon's comments at the Ron Baron conference, renting looks like the likely business model, and he estimated initial production costs at around $30,000 per robot, falling toward $20,000 over time. Those numbers are what it costs to build each robot, so they tell us nothing yet about rental rates or a sale price. Randy figures a sale price is a long way off, and might land around $30,000 to $40,000 once the build cost gets down to $20,000.
Not investment advice.
When Galloway makes a "careless remark" we are urged - by his academic brothers - to give him a pass. Perhaps that is the civil thing to do. And if it were simply that - a carelessness - we might have been inclined to go along. But this was NOT that. This was a considered remark, a naked call for execution, underscored by an allusion to an extremely nasty event in American jusrisprudence; an event of which the legality, wisdom or appropriateness is still widely questioned.
Until this Professor comes clean with a humble, meaningful and appropriate apology, these random, proxy apologia count for naught.
UPDATE: Scott Galloway reached out to me earlier today and asked me to call him. I'm glad I did.
I've read @profgalloway's books, listened to his podcasts, and appreciated his willingness to confront campus antisemitism and debate people he vigorously disagrees with, including @BenShapiro with comity (and more than a little comedy).
That's why his recent comments about Elon Musk surprised and troubled me.
My central criticism was that Scott called Musk a "traitor to the West" while invoking Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed for espionage.
I think it was a careless statement, but I don't think Scott is calling for Musk's execution. Too many people on this platform are making that accusation, but it's an oversimplification. He told me he explicitly opposes capital punishment. I still believe the analogy was overblown.
We also discussed what actually happened with Starlink and Starshield in Ukraine. What was restricted, when, by whom, and under whose authority? I agree with him that we need to know what actually happened for transparency's sake. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Scott acknowledged that if Musk was legitimately enforcing a commercial agreement, not meddling in wartime policies as a private citizen, the accusation of treachery would be unwarranted. I hope that if that occurs, he will retract it publicly.
We agree that serious accusations require serious evidence.
I raised Scott's role as a UC Regent because I believe those entrusted with governing the best university on the planet deserve particular scrutiny. I never called for his removal, nor do I want him removed.
Scott explained why that framing troubled him. I listened, and I understand his concerns better.
Despite disagreeing with my criticism, Scott offered to defend my academic freedom and my right to criticize him.
As a professor, I teach students to revise their conclusions when confronted with new evidence. Today I was reminded that professors must also reconsider their own approach, too.
I stand by the substance of my criticism. But my tone should have been more collegial.
Our conversation strengthened my respect for Scott's generosity and commitment to the University of California, a system that transformed both our lives. As a two-time native son of the UC system, I think Scott will play a vital role on that august board.
Lastly, and most remarkably, two podcast hosts managed to have a contentious discussion and find common ground without recording another podcast about it.
A first in (unrecorded) history.
Randy pulled another moment from our Good News Friday conversation. You can say Elon runs late and over-promises, and plenty of people do, but he keeps delivering, and hearing his latest targets was fantastic. My guess is that we will see a SpaceX share price in the 300s by the end of next year. That is my own guesswork, and I could be way wrong.
Not investment advice.
Randy clipped another stretch from that same Good News Friday. Elon’s ARR targets are $100 billion by December and $500 billion by the end of next year, with a shot at a trillion. Those targets make my earlier paperwork look pretty pessimistic. He called the trillion a shot, and I am treating it the same way. My own view is that when a CEO frames it like that, you have to think they are aiming to do a lot better than $500 billion.
Not investment advice.
Great to be back with Herbert on Brighter with Herbert. We talked through the recent SpaceX share move after the election, and in my view the business kept compounding underneath it. I called that pullback a buying opportunity for people who already understand the company.
A few themes stuck with me. SpaceX is winding down Falcon 9 to go all-in on Starship, which I think of as playing where the puck is going. We also covered the Qualcomm work for Starlink Mobile’s 5G network and the FCC’s satellite-to-phone ruling, which I see as a win for more open competition. I shared my view that data-center projects still waiting on approvals may move more slowly under some of the new state governments, while Starship itself remains under federal protection through January 2029.
Full video: youtube.com/watch?v=R4kV59ms…
Not investment advice.
Great to be back with Herbert on Brighter with Herbert to walk through my new Monte Carlo model of Tesla’s robotaxi business.
Across 20,000 simulations, my median case reaches roughly 50,000 cars on the network by the end of 2027, including many customer-owned cars. That case generates about $900 million in revenue during 2027 and finishes the year at an annual revenue run rate of about $2 billion.
The pace of fleet growth is the biggest driver in the model, which is why I find the ramp into 2028 so interesting. These are uncertain model outputs based on my assumptions, not Tesla guidance or guarantees.
Our full conversation is here: youtube.com/watch?v=6xCPFD9o…
Not investment advice.
A roughly $1 billion Robotaxi year in 2027 sounds small for Tesla. @TeslaLarry says it's the wrong number to focus on.
His model puts 2027 Robotaxi revenue between $348 million and $2.5 billion, with about $900 million most likely. Most of that growth lands late in the year.
By Q4 2027, the median case is running at about half a billion a quarter and nearly doubling each quarter. If that pace holds into 2028, it points to a business of more than $10 billion. $TSLA
The first of what will have to be many apologies. He just digs deeper holes every time he posts. How can he claim such learning and yet be so ignorant? I guess rocket science is just a lot more rigorous than philosophy.
After reading this tweet, I feel I should apologize to Elon/@elonmusk. I assumed he tried to deceive investors by suggesting it is easier to cool in space because, according to general wisdom, space is cold. But his reason to claim it seems to be that the cooling system must/can be passive, which is a "simpler" technology than what we would have on earth. And indeed, the area of the solar panels would even need to be 2 to 5 times bigger. I still think it is unlikely I will see data centers in space in my lifetime, but that is another matter.
(By the way, my tweet was prompted by this video: youtube.com/watch?v=S1umCJfb… It contains much more information about how many launches would be required to build a data center in space.)
The market’s recent turbulence hasn’t changed my view that SpaceX looks deeply undervalued. That is my personal opinion, and in this clip from my conversation with Randy I share that view along with an important caution. Please do your own research and don’t invest money you can’t afford to lose. This is not investment advice.
Great to be back with Randy Kirk for our November discussion of Cathie Wood’s In the Know. We talked about the market outlook, how AI investment could improve productivity, and why housing can struggle even while the AI boom continues.
youtube.com/watch?v=aSq04HNW…
Great to be back with Randy Kirk for our November discussion of Cathie Wood’s In the Know. We talked about the market outlook, how AI investment could improve productivity, and why housing can struggle even while the AI boom continues.
youtube.com/watch?v=aSq04HNW…
The election: what does it mean for the US economy? Randy and I look at Cathie Wood's view of the consequences:
youtu.be/aSq04HNW-H4?is=mBv1…
Does $SPC just go ahead and buy AT&T?
🚨 ELON JUST OPENED THE DOOR TO BUYING AT&T!
Elon: “We could just acquire that legacy telco and use that spectrum, you know, ten times more effectively.”
But which telecom giant could SpaceX buy?
Larry Goldberg makes the case for AT&T!
In my latest Over The Horizon chat, @TeslaLarry and I unpack:
> Why Larry sees AT&T as a leading acquisition candidate, and how SpaceX could finance a $150B–$200B takeover
> Why Verizon is also in play, but T-Mobile faces bigger ownership and regulatory hurdles
> The massive Qualcomm deal underpinning Starlink Mobile's nationwide 5G rollout
> Why acquiring a legacy carrier could accelerate Elon's plans for a global telecom empire
> How a Grok-powered phone could tie the entire Musk ecosystem together
Larry believes SpaceX has the financial firepower to pull off an AT&T acquisition. The question is whether Elon will move before the political window closes.
🚨 WATCH:
youtube.com/watch?v=wdfAwCue…
I was glad to hear Cathie Wood talk about the American Renaissance in ARK's November In the Know and mention the North Carolina town example I shared. This clip touches on the local renewal I've been writing about in the piece below.
There's a good debate going on about how SpaceX and Tesla shares would be valued against each other if the two companies merge. One view is that the exchange ratio should be anchored to prices on October 20, the day of SpaceX's earnings call, when we learned that both boards had formed special committees of independent directors. That view deserves a fair hearing, because there is real logic behind it.
Bankers and committees do routinely look at the "unaffected" price, meaning where the shares traded before merger talk started moving them. Prices after that date can carry speculation, and nobody wants to reward or penalize one side's shareholders for a rumor. So October 20, or an average of the days before it, is a sensible reference point.
But a reference point is not a rule. No law or market practice fixes the ratio on the day committees are formed. In mergers of equals the ratio is negotiated and becomes fixed only when the definitive agreement is signed. Exxon and Mobil confirmed talks publicly, and the ratio was agreed days later. Tesla publicly proposed a range for SolarCity in 2016, then signed at a lower number. And when the SolarCity case reached the Delaware Supreme Court, the court criticized relying on unaffected prices without weighing important information that came out later.
That last point matters a great deal here. SpaceX has only been public a short time, and the market is still working out what the company is worth. Its growth is extraordinary, and I don't believe the likely Q4 2026 results are reflected in today's price. I expect significant moves in both stocks through the end of Q1 2027. Any committee doing its job will have to account for that, and that means looking at relative values well into 2027, not freezing them at a date when much of the story had yet to be told.
So I think the October 20 prices are a reasonable starting point for the conversation, but it's highly unlikely they will be where the conversation ends.
Not investment advice. I hold positions in SpaceX and Tesla.