Re: [Starlink] a bit more starship news (David Lang)

["David P. Reed" <dpreed@deepplum.com>]

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Maybe too far off-topic, but the idea that SpaceX has "less incentive" for distorted accounting because it is "private" and not "public" is absurd and laughable.
 
But that has nothing to do with the SpaceX technology itself. So why are we discussing it? They will survive or not based on what their cash flows will be - and the closer one looks the less promising their cash flows are, just as before with Tesla.
 
So, side note:
 
Why does SpaceX "report a profitable quarter" and not release its full historical book of accounts? And why would someone on this list cite that number alone? (Any professional investor in Silicon Valley would be unimpressed - you can make a quarter look profitable by really simple games).
 
Hell, Bernie Madoff's private corporation's accounting reports showed *amazing* performance.
 
But more to the point,so does the Trump Organization.
 
It feels kind of like reading the National Enquirer to see all the speculations about SpaceX's business operations - it's just a celebrity "star-f***ing" game.
 
Musk himself has been caught manipulating the books of all the companies he's in control of, mixing their accounting, etc. to make himself look like a great businessperson. But it's just a shell game as far as one can tell. Maybe he's "great" in some sense, but that includes a lot of propaganda. I stipulate he is a propaganda master, and great at pretending skills he doesn't actually have.
 
Private companies need bankers (even when run by billionaires like Trump and Musk). Bankers are the target of these "reports". Look at Deutsche Bank and Trump. It turns out almost all loans to Trump have not performed, yet Deutsche still poured money into him. 
 
By creating an echo chamber of noise that makes SpaceX look like a "sound business", the bankers are more likely deceived. No problem - blew up launch pad, wasted a launch by not being careful about known issues - hey, looks like a brilliant guy.
 
So yeah, he has LOTS of incentive to distort accounting.
 
 

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