Merged Musk buys Twitter!/ Elon Musk puts Twitter deal on hold....

[jeremyp]

True. They have manufacturing times, and those are longer than three weeks for an orbital rocket.

Are they?

Fuel is a small part of launch costs.

No. Having to carry more fuel means carrying a smaller payload, which means that, overall you need more rockets to get the same payload into space.

It is if you can do it quickly, which means cheaply. SpaceX can do a turnaround faster than they can make a new rocket, by a large margin. That’s a damn good indicator that reusing is cheaper than building new.

I don't think we know that.

That doesn’t mean we can’t figure it out.

Well it does. We can only guess at SpaceX's costs.

 

[jadebox]

Rather than focusing on the cost, I think the larger point is every pound of excess fuel carried is a pound less payload available.

We are staying far off topic, but most rockets like that carry extra propellant just in case it is needed due to some anormality. In the case of Falcon 9's boosters, that reserve provides at least some of the propellant needed for the return. There was a launch of the Falcon 9 where the booster wasn't recovered because more fuel was needed to ensure delivery of a larger payload.

 

[jimbob]

Via Scrutable.science

"
https://twitter.com/AvidHalaby/status/1602127460677844993

The comment was that if the many of allegations in this thread are true, Musk has bought a cut'n'shut

.

The stuff uncovered in the Twitter whistleblower report is much crazier than anything in the "Twitter files" but it's much less politically/tribally salient so it got no attention. Going to do a thread on some of the craziest things, in no particular order.

Example

Twitter didn't monitor employee computers at all, it was not uncommon for employees to install spyware on work devices

Twitter does not have separate development, test, staging, and production environments. At least 5,000 employees had privileged access to production systems.

 

[Ziggurat]

Are they?

Yes, they are. This isn't secret information.

ETA:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Production
In 2016, they were producing 18 cores per year, with a production line that could work on 6 cores at a time. That means each core was taking around 4 months to produce. They may have cut that down a bit since then, but it's still a lot longer than 3 weeks. And production is easier to parallelize even for one rocket than servicing, so production is also likely to have a higher cash burn rate than servicing.

No. Having to carry more fuel means carrying a smaller payload, which means that, overall you need more rockets to get the same payload into space.

Or you need a slightly bigger rocket for the same payload. But not much bigger, because you only need a small percentage of the fuel for return.

But it doesn't really work that way anyways. VERY few space missions (stuff like the ISS) involve multiple launches for one payload. Generally speaking, you pick the launch vehicle you need to get whatever your payload is into space. If one rocket won't do, you don't split it across multiple rockets, you just pick a bigger rocket. Plus, SpaceX offers the option to fully expend the Falcon 9 to get a heavier payload into space without re-use. You just have to pay more for it, because SpaceX doesn't get the rocket back. And that price differential (something like $60 million for reusable launch, $90 million for expandable) is another good indicator that re-use is economically viable.

And lastly, we haven't even touched on the advantage that re-use offers in terms of volume. SpaceX can launch many more missions in a year than the number of rockets they can manufacture. So they can operate with a fraction of the manufacturing capacity it would take to get that volume out of single-use rockets.

I don't think we know that.

Maybe you haven't been paying attention, but I know that.

Well it does. We can only guess at SpaceX's costs.

Not with great precision, sure. But again, time scales tell us a lot. The time scales indicate that reusability is efficient. And that meshes with other known facts, like the price premium on expendable launches.

Is it logically possible that Falcon 9 re-use isn't an economic winner? Yes. Is that likely? No, it really isn't.

 

[Segnosaur]

Looks like Musk is taking a page from the Trump playbook of not paying your debts...

From: Business Insider
...Twitter has stopped paying rent for any of its offices...and Musk has instructed employees to no longer pay Twitter's vendors.... Musk's team is now weighing the possibility of not paying the severance at all...

Sounds like Musk is getting advice on how to run a business from President Trump. If those suppliers and property companies have less financial muscle than Twitter then it's likely he'll get away with it IMO.

Not sure about that.

Granted, a property company may not have the billion dollar market value that Twitter does, but they still probably have access to more than enough legal resources to afford to go through with a lawsuit. (Trump was successful in not paying his contractors because they were often fairly small businesses who couldn't afford lengthy court cases.) It probably doesn't matter much if a company is worth billions or just hundreds of millions...

Likewise refusing to pay severance, especially in the US. In the EU where there are effective unions and proper employment laws then maybe ex-employees may be able to get a settlement (though whether Twitter ever pays is another matter entirely).

Even if the U.S. does not have laws dictating severance, many of the layoffs involved twitter's global workforce, so foreign laws might apply in some cases.

And it is possible that employees had some sort of severance pay agreement in their contracts when they were first hired.

In the US, it'll be individuals against Twitter, a very unequal struggle.

It is unequal. I wonder if employees who were terminated might be able to form a class action lawsuit against Twitter (given the fact that their cases are all similar/identical). Would probably be easy to find a lawyer willing to take the case on.

 

[jeremyp]

Yes, they are. This isn't secret information.

ETA:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Production
In 2016, they were producing 18 cores per year, with a production line that could work on 6 cores at a time. That means each core was taking around 4 months to produce. They may have cut that down a bit since then, but it's still a lot longer than 3 weeks. And production is easier to parallelize even for one rocket than servicing, so production is also likely to have a higher cash burn rate than servicing.



Or you need a slightly bigger rocket for the same payload. But not much bigger, because you only need a small percentage of the fuel for return.

But it doesn't really work that way anyways. VERY few space missions (stuff like the ISS) involve multiple launches for one payload. Generally speaking, you pick the launch vehicle you need to get whatever your payload is into space. If one rocket won't do, you don't split it across multiple rockets, you just pick a bigger rocket. Plus, SpaceX offers the option to fully expend the Falcon 9 to get a heavier payload into space without re-use. You just have to pay more for it, because SpaceX doesn't get the rocket back. And that price differential (something like $60 million for reusable launch, $90 million for expandable) is another good indicator that re-use is economically viable.

And lastly, we haven't even touched on the advantage that re-use offers in terms of volume. SpaceX can launch many more missions in a year than the number of rockets they can manufacture. So they can operate with a fraction of the manufacturing capacity it would take to get that volume out of single-use rockets.



Maybe you haven't been paying attention, but I know that.



Not with great precision, sure. But again, time scales tell us a lot. The time scales indicate that reusability is efficient. And that meshes with other known facts, like the price premium on expendable launches.

Is it logically possible that Falcon 9 re-use isn't an economic winner? Yes. Is that likely? No, it really isn't.

Well then you need to explain why SpaceX appears not to be profitable. They have been raising money externally every year since inception, often to the tune of billions of dollars.

Well, you don't need to explain it, because we are miles off topic at this point.

 

[jeremyp]

Story from the NYT about the future of Twitter.

https://boingboing.net/2022/12/13/is-twitter-preparing-for-bankruptcy.html

Posting a link to a story that quotes it because I've hit the NYTimes' paywall.

The tl;dr is that Twitter is no longer paying its bills and displaying all the signs of a company that is actually insolvent.

Edit: Ninja'd

 

[jeremyp]

It is unequal. I wonder if employees who were terminated might be able to form a class action lawsuit against Twitter (given the fact that their cases are all similar/identical). Would probably be easy to find a lawyer willing to take the case on.

There are at least two class action lawsuits under way already.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/qai/20...n-employees-for-mass-layoffs/?sh=36bca9074dde

https://thehill.com/regulation/cour...t-alleging-company-targeted-women-in-layoffs/

I'm sure employees not getting their severances will already have thought of it.

 

[Ziggurat]

Well then you need to explain why SpaceX appears not to be profitable. They have been raising money externally every year since inception, often to the tune of billions of dollars.

Because Starship has enormous development costs, and basically no income yet. If Starship is a bust, it might sink the company.

ETA: and Amazon spent years and years operating in the red, not because they couldn't turn a profit, but because they were always expanding. They could have halted that expansion at any point and gone into the black, but they wanted to grow, and they did, and it paid off.

But none of that suggests that Falcon 9 isn't wildly successful. Every indication is that it is wildly successful. And Musk is a big part of that success. If SpaceX does go bankrupt and fold, it's pretty much a certainty that someone's going to buy up the Falcon 9 part and keep it running.

This idea that Musk is an idiot really makes no sense. He's a smart guy. That doesn't make him immune to mistakes, even very large ones. But it's not clear whether Twitter will be a big mistake, for two reasons. First, it's still too early to tell how it's going to play out. And second, we don't know what Musk's goals actually are. If the goal is simply to make more money, then it will be easy to evaluate success or failure over the long run. But if it's not, if it's something else, then measuring success or failure may become much more difficult.

So is the Twitter purchase a mistake? Quite possibly, but that's not a safe bet either. When someone smart does something that you don't understand, don't assume that they're making a mistake. It's entirely possible that you just don't understand what their goals are.

 

[Darat]

Via Scrutable.science

"
https://twitter.com/AvidHalaby/status/1602127460677844993

The comment was that if the many of allegations in this thread are true, Musk has bought a cut'n'shut

.



Example

Sadly doesn't surprise me, but given Twitter's age and the fact that "professionals" had been meant to have been running it for several years it should have gotten out of that "start-up" mentally some time ago.

 

[lobosrul5]

https://nypost.com/2022/12/14/jet-t...-at-elon-musk-for-suspending-twitter-account/

And more free speech restrictions from the guy who says he's all about free speech... and even specifically said he'd allow this account to continue. BTW, flight plans are a matter of public record, the kid was just aggregating them and posting to twitter.

Geez and this is coming from the Post (a right wing rag), not the Times.

 

[lobosrul5]

Because Starship has enormous development costs, and basically no income yet. If Starship is a bust, it might sink the company.

ETA: and Amazon spent years and years operating in the red, not because they couldn't turn a profit, but because they were always expanding. They could have halted that expansion at any point and gone into the black, but they wanted to grow, and they did, and it paid off.

But none of that suggests that Falcon 9 isn't wildly successful. Every indication is that it is wildly successful. And Musk is a big part of that success. If SpaceX does go bankrupt and fold, it's pretty much a certainty that someone's going to buy up the Falcon 9 part and keep it running.

Even given all this Twitter ****, and Elons mistakes etc, I still think what SpaceX has been doing is really ***** cool. But you are, perhaps, mistaking that for profitability. Making money in space is hard, there's a reason so few businesses have tried it, and fewer have been successful.

Of course the Falcon 9 end of the business is likely profitable by now, if they aren't totally lying about reusability being a cost savings. But that money may be being spent on other SpaceX projects.

ETA: Musk tweets: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1602806063606075392?cxt=HHwWgMCoke7np74sAAAA
At risk of stating obvious, beware of debt in turbulent macroeconomic conditions, especially when Fed keeps raising rates

uhhh yeah thats great advice, too bad you didn't heed it yourself.

 

[jeremyp]

Because Starship has enormous development costs,

What are they? Nobody knows outside of SpaceX.

ETA: and Amazon spent years and years operating in the red, not because they couldn't turn a profit, but because they were always expanding. They could have halted that expansion at any point and gone into the black, but they wanted to grow, and they did, and it paid off.

Fine, but that doesn't mean SpaceX can do the same thing.

But none of that suggests that Falcon 9 isn't wildly successful. Every indication is that it is wildly successful. And Musk is a big part of that success. If SpaceX does go bankrupt and fold, it's pretty much a certainty that someone's going to buy up the Falcon 9 part and keep it running.

But we don't know the costs in detail so we don't really know if it is profitable.

This idea that Musk is an idiot really makes no sense.

It explains the Twitter fiasco a lot better than many other hypotheses.

He's a smart guy. That doesn't make him immune to mistakes

Well he's either made a lot of mistakes or he's some sort of grifter.

Hyperloop - vapourware
The Boring Company - embarrassing
Solar City - scam
Tesla FSD - scam
Teslabot - embarrassing
Neuralink - embarrassing bloodbath
Twitter - dumpster fire

even very large ones. But it's not clear whether Twitter will be a big mistake, for two reasons. First, it's still too early to tell how it's going to play out. And second, we don't know what Musk's goals actually are. If the goal is simply to make more money, then it will be easy to evaluate success or failure over the long run. But if it's not, if it's something else, then measuring success or failure may become much more difficult.

So is the Twitter purchase a mistake? Quite possibly, but that's not a safe bet either. When someone smart does something that you don't understand, don't assume that they're making a mistake. It's entirely possible that you just don't understand what their goals are.

I don't think Musk has any coherent goals for Twitter. Remember he spent months trying to get out of the deal.

 

[jeremyp]

https://nypost.com/2022/12/14/jet-t...-at-elon-musk-for-suspending-twitter-account/

And more free speech restrictions from the guy who says he's all about free speech... and even specifically said he'd allow this account to continue. BTW, flight plans are a matter of public record, the kid was just aggregating them and posting to twitter.

Geez and this is coming from the Post (a right wing rag), not the Times.

I knew that was inevitable. In fact there is a theory that Musk bought Twitter just to shut down Elonjet. My only surprise is how long it took him to do it.

 

[lobosrul5]

Hyperloop - vapourware
The Boring Company - embarrassing
Solar City - scam
Tesla FSD - scam
Teslabot - embarrassing
Neuralink - embarrassing bloodbath
Twitter - dumpster fire
<snipping your post>

So Elon got into x.com which appears to have been heading towards disaster, when it merged with another company and became paypal then ebay bought it for a fortune, he took that money and invested it into a EV company called Tesla. So thats lightning striking twice for him, then bust, bust, bust, bust, bust, bust, bust. To me, its more likely that Musk was in the right position at the right time, and had some serious luck on his side, rather than he's some sort of prescient genius who is playing "5d chess" with Twitter.

 

[lobosrul5]

I knew that was inevitable. In fact there is a theory that Musk bought Twitter just to shut down Elonjet. My only surprise is how long it took him to do it.

Then he really is dumber than a box of rocks. His flight info is already out there, the ElonJet guy wasn't like a hacker or something. So, if someone wanted to assassinate him by finding out where his jet is, they can do so anyways.

ETA: I should clarify, he's dumber than a box of rocks, IF that theory is true.

 

[Ziggurat]

What are they? Nobody knows outside of SpaceX.

Obviously. But they are also obviously large. It's no stretch that they could easily take up all that investment money.

Fine, but that doesn't mean SpaceX can do the same thing.

Yes. And I said as much: Starship might fail. But that's still what they are trying to do: expand. Had they just sat back on the success of Falcon and not tried Starship, there's no reason to think they wouldn't be in the black. And while the details of SpaceX finance aren't public, you better believe SpaceX's lenders know a lot of the details. They are giving SpaceX money because they think they'll get it back. If Falcon wasn't turning a profit, why would they expect to be able to get their money back? They aren't all idiots. This isn't Robinhood/GameStop, where they're in it for the lolz.

Well he's either made a lot of mistakes or he's some sort of grifter.

Idiots don't make successful grifters.

I don't think Musk has any coherent goals for Twitter.

Maybe. But again, that's not a safe assumption. If he does, there's no reason he would tell us.

 

[plague311]

Idiots don't make successful grifters.

Uh, wut?

 

[jeremyp]

So Elon got into x.com which appears to have been heading towards disaster, when it merged with another company and became paypal then ebay bought it for a fortune, he took that money and invested it into a EV company called Tesla. So thats lightning striking twice for him, then bust, bust, bust, bust, bust, bust, bust. To me, its more likely that Musk was in the right position at the right time, and had some serious luck on his side, rather than he's some sort of prescient genius who is playing "5d chess" with Twitter.

x.com was his second venture after zip2. He lucked out with zip2 as well, by which I mean, he kept his shares after he was ousted and made a lot of money when it was sold.

Also, SpaceX isn't a bust, at least not yet. He did claim in November 2021 that it might go bankrupt if Starship wasn't regularly launching Starlink satellites in 2022. That hasn't happened but then he may just have been lying to persuade his employees to give up their Thanksgiving holiday.

 

[Suddenly]

Yep luck doesn't strike that often but being struck with wealth at birth sure does help.

I presume by others you mean Tesla and SpaceX?

SpaceX we know has been successful in developing the technology but all the accounts I've read is that it is constantly having to seek funding so still not commercially successful.

Tesla - well as we all know the luck there has been the total fantasy company valuation.

Seriously - are there any other successes?

Building a cult of personality creating unimaginable wealth. It's honestly impressive.