Yep. AI has drained the venture capital well dry. So...
- You merge xAI with SpaceX to make one profit making company and a loss making company in to a mixed financial bag.
- Hype "Data-centres in Space" for a good six months to make it seem like it all makes sense.
- Sell all your compute to Anthropic / Google (with 90-day termination clauses) to get some revenue on the books.
- Lobby that you're such a good deal S&P and NASDAQ should change their rules to admit entry to their "required to buy" stocks. NASDAQ bites, but S&P refused.
- IPO: $80B raised from IPO partners (banks) at $135 per share. Job done. No control lost because the share of the company was so low.
- IPO subscribers (banks) sell to markets at upto $225. Lots of happy bankers. Retail markets (e.g. investment funds) now holds the shares, but it's all good, right? Nasdaq have it listed so there's an enforced buy in two weeks.
- Stock slides. Enforced buy comes at ~$145 per share and it feels a bit more firm for a day or two.
- Stock resumes it's slide to below it's IPO price.
- Stock now sits at $124
Net result:
- Space X : +$80B
- IPO subscribers: +$40B...ish
- Public Shareholders: +5% of SpaceX (Currently $69B) & -$120B