5 pointsby infinitewars5 hours ago1 comment
  • orbitalmentos5 hours ago
    It's hard to imagine how SpaceX can be making the reported $8 billion a year in profit[1]. We now see roughly two Starlink reentries per day... The replenishment costs are at least $5M/day just to maintain the current constellation, while the entire customer revenue is ~$20M/day. Guess the real money is in Golden Dome.

    [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/spacex-generated-ab...

    • infinitewars5 hours ago
      That article claiming $8b profit is mislabeling EBITDA as profit. EBITDA removes any recurring replenishment costs, the cost of building the satellite, launching the satellite, the user equipment manufacturing and returns, all ground infrastructure build and replacement, all employee stock compensation (not counted!), no advertising costs (and they've actually had to do a lot of that lately to scrounge customers that are remote enough that their network isn't too congested to serve), no taxes are counted (though they get out of that because they have no profit!). Not to mention payments servicing all their debt and Starship development.

      *they actually use "Adjusted EBITDA" which is even more nonstandard and means they define the accounting however they want!

    • 5 hours ago
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