2026년 2월 14일 · Unknown · financial · 출처 Yahoo Finance
As SpaceX (SPAX.PVT) prepares for a supposed IPO this year after merging with xAI, Xplore COO Lisa Rich comes on Asking for a Trend to discuss the value of Elon Musk's private space venture and what the addition of xAI brings to the table.
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Video Transcript
00:00 Speaker A
Lisa, it is good to see you. I hear Lisa, you're coming to us from a Tesla via Starling. So you are all in on the Musk Empire. Uh let's dig into this empire because Lisa, as you know SpaceX
00:23 Speaker A
lots of talk, lots of headlines about an IPO. Lisa, you're a SpaceX investor. Your thoughts on this. I I would imagine Lisa, you wouldn't mind seeing a a public debut here.
00:39 Speaker B
Thank you, Josh. Not at all. And and had I had the opportunity to ask Elon during Davos what his plans were, of course, I would have. Um, at USA House, they had an amazing presence there. Uh, but we've got amazing opportunity here with all the progress that SpaceX has made Starlink, uh, obviously, I wouldn't be talking you to you right now without it. The concept of Starlink, uh connect with all the Teslas and having that integrated would be amazing. So all these properties that Elon has, could you imagine if they're all folded up into one more like the Alphabet uh story which merged Waymo and uh YouTube which were valuable properties in and of themselves. Um, so when we had the private uh story that came out private company of XAI merging with SpaceX, that was huge news, but what happens next? I think is the big question because if you look at all these other properties that uh Elon has launched, all of which are uh making revenue in and of themselves. That's one thing, but his ambitions are huge. They're capital intensive. The idea of going to the moon uh and commercializing that, we're talking about even bigger money that's required, which is why going to the capital markets makes sense at this time and rewarding all of the success that SpaceX has had uh up until this point.
02:37 Speaker A
Can I ask you as an investor, how would you go about thinking how to how to value SpaceX, especially after this merger with XAI, like what is the what's the comp, Lisa? Is there a comp? You know, is it tech? Is it aerospace? Um is it one of one? How would you think about that?
03:00 Speaker B
Well, I think it's it's, it's adding, you know, one plus one equals five, you know, in this case, but can the market achieve a valuation that's acceptable if they combine forces? Because they're all valuable in and of themselves and if you think about the value in the trillions, um and and of course factoring in the the future plans, um, that's a big question. So is there a comp? No, I don't think there is one. This is really a story of our lifetime right now is uh where we're headed next with uh the financial story and of course, the physical and digital story of what they can accomplish.
03:42 Speaker A
As an investor in SpaceX, Lisa, I'm curious when you saw, okay, they're merging with XAI. Did you look at that Lisa and say, yes, that makes sense. That makes sense financially, that makes sense strategically. It it creates a stronger story overall or did you think it complicates the narrative, walk me through it.
04:02 Speaker B
No, I think XAI and and their plan, which is um the digital side of connectivity for a whole universe that they're trying to build for us. Uh when Elon talked about it in his uh all hands, he said he wanted people to live their life on the app, you know, XAI and they just introduced the money side of this. Um it all flows together and it's um it did make sense to me. Um but now what does it mean for an IPO and the value? Um and and timing? Um not sure uh because the original thought was middle of the summer, I think.
04:47 Speaker A
Let me ask you, I I want to get your take on these headlines we saw this week. Um reports of departures of XAI co-founders, um that's coming after it looks like several other founding members too. You know, as an investor, did you look at that, Lisa? Was that, I don't know, is that any kind of red flag to you or no, that's just, hey, that's that's normal scaling going on.
05:08 Speaker B
It wasn't to me because I am a founder and I've I've never scaled something like what Elon has done. However, you go through these stages and the people that you hire at the beginning of the company are not the people that are the skill sets that you necessarily need for scale and growth. So a lot of those folks sit well in that early stage environment, but then when you need to get management in place and larger teams in place, it gets more complicated. So you need people with those skill sets. So it's uh an evolution that does have to happen and he kind of bit the bullet and did it.
05:51 Speaker A
Last question, Lisa. I'm I'm curious, you know, as a SpaceX investor and you outlined all these these grand opportunities and ambitious ambitions and and that's why you you saddle up with Elon Musk because he swings for the fences, right? Um, I'm curious though, what were before you put money to work? What were some of the risks you thought about with SpaceX? You know, was it I don't know, was it national security concerns? Was it was it regulatory issues, competition? How how did you frame it?
06:17 Speaker B
Well, I would say the the government was a big, one of the biggest challenges for SpaceX because they were going to provide a service but they had to prove they could do it. They had to prove they could do it at a lower cost and then reliably. So they've done that with cargo and then crew missions. Um and now the idea of instead of going to Mars first, going to the moon first. This is this cadence of launch that they've achieved for um getting uh mass to into orbit is so phenomenal. Can they do that uh for the moon and that helps us actually have a reliable uh launch cadence that lowers…