This deal can't just be financial engineering, since that wouldn't make sense. They must be getting something out of this, i.e. compute.
Google is buying compute because they need it. That explanation works a lot better to me than one where Google is doing this purely for unrealized future gains on a minority stake in SpaceX.
The fact that Google owns a stake in SpaceX doesn't hurt. But the multiple math is specious, and profitability math plain wrong.
the ironic thing is if the parties involved were bullish on xAI winning or near term ODCs undercutting compute costs this deal wouldn't have been attractive. But as it is, Google probably only slightly overpays for boring ground-based datacenter space they actually need to hit internal goals, and it looks even better if IPO investors in a stock they hold pick up some of the the tab.
They’re getting compute. There was a free for all period when xAI did one smart thing and that’s build like there’s no tomorrow. Because tomorrow is today, and today jurisdictions are racing to pause datacenter construction.