Investing in TSLA or SpaceX

[Cattledog]

TSLA is currently valued at $130B while SpaceX's current funding round values it at $36B. Comparing them to each other and not other investments, as in you had to decide to invest in two Elon Musk companies in some proportion, how would you do it?

Make your own decisions based on risk, timeline, portfolio, etc.

 

[Rarity]

Currently, Tesla is in much bigger markets by revenue and has a good bit of optionality that could drive margins higher. So I would invest in Tesla more than SpaceX.

That said, I enjoy following SpaceX more than Tesla, so it would be easier to watch the basket in which all of my eggs reside. And there are some nice features of SpaceX. For instance, if the company gets its silicon right on Starlink, it could see some pretty insane margins. We don't have any insight into the progress they have made on the custom silicon.

 

[Cattledog]

Rarity - Thx for your reply. It's not an arms length question, this week we sold some TSLA to invest in SpaceX. Since SpaceX is not often available for investment, we don't get to make the choice every minute of every day. We invested less than $1M, it just seemed like it was a good, round number to use. We still have 4x as much in TSLA as SpaceX, but I'm excited about its future.

 

[pz1975]

Wait - you invested in SpaceX directly?? How did you manage that? I’ve been trying since 2013 to invest in SpaceX (through a private broker) and was told by them it is pretty much impossible to do so.

 

[phantasms]

Wait - you invested in SpaceX directly?? How did you manage that? I’ve been trying since 2013 to invest in SpaceX (through a private broker) and was told by them it is pretty much impossible to do so.

same

Space X take my money!

 

[Cattledog]

I invested through SharesPost. Happy to elaborate in PMs.

 

[Baumisch]

Wasn't there a baron fund that held spaceX and was open for private investors?

 

[ggr]

Wasn't there a baron fund that held spaceX and was open for private investors?

BPTRX.

 

[Rarity]

Rarity - Thx for your reply. It's not an arms length question, this week we sold some TSLA to invest in SpaceX. Since SpaceX is not often available for investment, we don't get to make the choice every minute of every day. We invested less than $1M, it just seemed like it was a good, round number to use. We still have 4x as much in TSLA as SpaceX, but I'm excited about its future.

I'm surprised that you were able to get past the velvet rope into the Musk investor nightclub. Well done. A decade or so ago, Sharespost had some shares available. But then SpaceX locked down the secondary sales market by giving SpaceX the right of first refusal for the newly issued stock. Maybe some of the shares under the old arrangement came to market for you. Maybe SpaceX let some stock under the new arrangement slip past...

In any event, I started my career in aerospace and have always thought that the business stinks from an investor's perspective. So I have steered clear of the industry after exiting, even though I have followed SpaceX about 10x as closely as Tesla. But I've also had that negative opinion of the automotive industry. Despite that, here I am.

 

[Mo City]

Depends on your time frame IMO. Over the long term, SpaceX clearly has more upside than Tesla. By far IMO. It may take 10+ years to get there. TSLA has the potential to be a mega-company like Amazon and Apple. SpaceX can become it's very own category.

If the time frame is <10 years, I'd invest ~75% in TSLA. If a longer term, 50/50.

Go ahead and laugh. When it becomes obvious Starship will succeed and make the Falcon 9 program look like ancient history, when Starlink begins to monetize commercially, when the DOD tasks SpaceX with building an 11-figure satellite system specifically for national defense,etc, it will be clearer if you don't see it now.

Elon keeps the focus on Mars. That really diverts everyone's attention away from what SpaceX will accomplish on the journey to achieving Mars capability. Like everyone else, I get chill bumps thinking about the first Mars launch and landing, but a lot will happen the next 15 years. The ridiculous pace of innovation at SpaceX will not slow down.