According to the S-1 filing of SpaceX, shareholders (which include employees with stock) can sell up to 20% of their stock starting on the second full day of trading after the company releases its first earnings report.
So each employee can sell 20% of their stock (probably options, but since they've had an "Employee Share Purchase Plan" (ESPP) some will hold actual shares). If 80% of someone's holdings are dependent on them staying at SpaceX I doubt many will leave after selling 20%.
I'd heard it was more that they said the AI business had taken the oxygen out of the room for them. Software was getting ignored. I think everyone knew IBM wasn't an AI player, but them saying AI had a knock on effect for them scared some.
It's since recovered, but it was one hell of a reaction.
SpaceX employees are probably not happy about being used as a dumping ground for an AI black hole company. I expect many are counting the days until they can leave.
Yep. AI has drained the venture capital well dry. So...
You merge xAI with SpaceX to make one profit making company and a loss making company in to a mixed financial bag.
Hype "Data-centres in Space" for a good six months to make it seem like it all makes sense.
Sell all your compute to Anthropic / Google (with 90-day termination clauses) to get some revenue on the books.
Lobby that you're such a good deal S&P and NASDAQ should change their rules to admit entry to their "required to buy" stocks. NASDAQ bites, but S&P refused.
IPO: $80B raised from IPO partners (banks) at $135 per share. Job done. No control lost because the share of the company was so low.
IPO subscribers (banks) sell to markets at upto $225. Lots of happy bankers. Retail markets (e.g. investment funds) now holds the shares, but it's all good, right? Nasdaq have it listed so there's an enforced buy in two weeks.
Stock slides. Enforced buy comes at ~$145 per share and it feels a bit more firm for a day or two.
Stock resumes it's slide to below it's IPO price.
Stock now sits at $124
Net result:
Space X : +$80B
IPO subscribers: +$40B...ish
Public Shareholders: +5% of SpaceX (Currently $69B) & -$120B
Companies like that tell themselves they only hire from the top 10% of the industry. When you're as big as these companies it's just not true. You're employing people across the whole spectrum, like it or not.
The data centres are far from up. Many of them look to have a few steel beams in place and that's it. Others are sitting empty due to lack of hardware or lack of power.
That doesn't make sense so I went and looked it up.
So each employee can sell 20% of their stock (probably options, but since they've had an "Employee Share Purchase Plan" (ESPP) some will hold actual shares). If 80% of someone's holdings are dependent on them staying at SpaceX I doubt many will leave after selling 20%.