I gather that SpaceX, too, is cash flow negative and heavily invested in moonshot bets.

Meaning that, like for Elon's other companies, they might be in an incredibly vulnerable position, financially speaking. A disaster could sink the company. But simply failing to have some of these risky bets pay off could be just as damaging. For example, even if everything in the plan works on a technical level, if there isn't enough demand for Starlink's service to support the whole Starlink 2 project then that might turn the entire Starlink 2 project, including the Starship rocket they need to launch these larger satellites, into a big money loser.

Not entirely unlike how we're seeing signs that Tesla may not be a sustainable business, not necessarily because of anything fundamentally wrong with their core business, but because they made some over-aggressive assumptions about how many golden eggs their goose would lay.

> there isn't enough demand for Starlink's service to support the whole Starlink 2 project then that might turn the entire Starlink 2 project, including the Starship rocket they need to launch these larger satellites, into a big money loser

I'm wouldn't worry too much. Uncle Sam probably wants those capabilities anyway for the SDA to ramp up the NDSA now that the Russian nuclear threat is renewed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Development_Agency

you seem naive. SpaceX has made it to MI complex status, and US gov will easily bail them out should worst come.

> SpaceX has made it to MI complex status, and US gov will easily bail them out should worst come.

immaterial: "the worst" here is elon destroying the engineering culture & with it their ability to keep improving on what they've done so far. not going bankrupt (by way of a bailout or otherwise) is a necessary condition for avoiding the worst (boeing syndrome), but it's not sufficient

fedgov can pour money into the military industrial complex, but it can't do a whole lot more, and that only goes so far

Boeing destroyed its engineering culture and it isn't going anywhere.

Suppose for the sake of argument I managed to secure some sort of annuity that pays just enough to subsist on, starting now.

Knowing that I'm guaranteed enough income to stay minimally solvent does not mean I have no reason to care about losing additional income streams that enable me to have things like vacations and dinners at nice restaurants and digital watches.

Similarly, the relative security of the ~1/3 of Boeing's revenue that comes from government contracts is probably small consolation to its shareholders. They do that business more-or-less at cost; essentially 100% of their profits come from other sources.

>They do that business more-or-less at cost;

Aren't all govt contracts cost plus?

Developmental contracts sure.

Buying COTS products; probably not.

Also, the "plus" part covers both overhead and profit. So, depending on what your overhead situation looks like, profit can still be minimal or non-positive.

Sure but the "plus" part is capped [1] for cost+plus.

If you're buying AWS compute through GSA I bet the rate is more than AWS's costs + 10/15%.

Or if you purchase say post-it notes from Staples; I bet they're going to be way more than the cost of paper+glue*1.15.

[1]: https://www.acquisition.gov/far/15.404-4#FAR_15_404_4__d941e...

In other words, Space X will exist as long as there are no competitors. That gives them years, not decades.

Are there any competitors expected to match SpaceX's launch costs or capacity in the next few years?

Blue Origin will catch up any time now...

SpaceX is in a much more solid position. You can tell that Musk hasn't interfered in its operations nearly as much as he has with Tesla or X (case in point: renaming it "X").

Once he rage fires Shotwell.. and given how insane that would be only validates its likelihood at this point

I think the SpaceX disaster is more likely to be a loss of crew event.