All posts tagged: SpaceXs

Former OpenAI Staffers Warn xAI’s Poor Safety Record Could Complicate SpaceX’s IPO

Former OpenAI Staffers Warn xAI’s Poor Safety Record Could Complicate SpaceX’s IPO

Published by skeptic

Two former OpenAI employees and a group of AI safety nonprofits are warning that Elon Musk’s AI lab, xAI, could become a liability for prospective investors in SpaceX, which is preparing to file what’s expected to be the largest initial public offering in Wall Street History. In a letter directed to investors published on Tuesday, the ex-staffers highlighted what they describe as “unpriced risks” related to xAI that could complicate SpaceX’s reported plans to raise up to $75 billion as part of its IPO. The rocket company’s private valuation shot up to over $1 trillion after it acquired xAI last year. Musk claimed his rocket company could launch data centers into space for his AI lab, but the letter’s authors argue that xAI’s poor record on safety issues could complicate how investors view the combined company as it gets ready to submit its IPO prospectus filing. One of the letter’s signatories and coauthors is a new nonprofit called Guidelight AI Standards, which was cofounded by former OpenAI safety researcher Steven Adler and former OpenAI policy …

OSHA probing worker death at SpaceX’s Starbase site

OSHA probing worker death at SpaceX’s Starbase site

Published by skeptic

A worker died at SpaceX’s Starbase launch site in South Texas on Friday, and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) has opened an investigation. The San Antonio Express-News reported Monday that the unidentified victim died at around 4:17 a.m. local time on May 15, citing OSHA and local officials. The Wall Street Journal later reported that the county sheriff confirmed to the outlet that a worker died. OSHA confirmed to TechCrunch that it is investigating the apparent accident. Representatives for the nearby Brownsville police and fire departments did not respond to requests for comment. SpaceX and the newly-incorporated City of Starbase did not respond to requests for comment. The circumstances of the worker’s death are not immediately clear. OSHA told TechCrunch that it won’t release more information until its investigation is complete, which could take months. The death comes just a few days ahead of the first planned launch of SpaceX’s upgraded Starship rocket. Elon Musk’s spaceflight company is also reportedly releasing the detailed prospectus for its initial public offering this week, which is …

If Starship Explodes Again, It Could Derail SpaceX’s Entire IPO

If Starship Explodes Again, It Could Derail SpaceX’s Entire IPO

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech SpaceX has enjoyed a lot of leeway when its Starship rocket has failed or exploded because of the sheer ambition of its vision — and because CEO Elon Musk has framed “breaking things” as an opportunity to quickly make progress, an approach that’s worked well for the space company in the past. But at some point the world’s largest rocket needs to deliver, and that point is fast approaching, a new Bloomberg piece argues. SpaceX is seeking a $1.75 trillion IPO, the largest in history, and investors around the world will be watching like a hawk to see how its flagship product performs when it embarks on its twelfth test flight this week. The pressure would always be on with an IPO of such proportions, but Musk has more or less staked SpaceX’s entire future on Starship’s success. After folding his AI company xAI into SpaceX, he revealed a new vision for deploying one million orbital AI data …

SpaceX’s IPO Plan Will Give Elon Musk Ironclad Rule Over the Resulting Empire

SpaceX’s IPO Plan Will Give Elon Musk Ironclad Rule Over the Resulting Empire

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech When SpaceX makes it debut on the stock exchange later this year, experts expect it to be the largest public offering in financial history. Should that audacious prediction come to pass, it would widen Elon Musk’s lead over the next-richest person into an unfathomable chasm, and cement him as one of the most powerful men in modern history. It’s also sounding like the financial maneuver will give him an ironclad grip over the resulting empire, which includes xAI and X-formerly-Twitter. According to an IPO prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and unpacked by Reuters, once the company goes public, Musk will serve as CEO, CTO, and chairman of SpaceX’s nine-seat board of directors. The company will pursue a dual-class equity structure, under which legacy investors like Musk will receive 10 votes each, while public shareholders only get one. In other words, Musk’s mammoth slice of the pie — though it only adds up to 42 percent …

The Download: plastic’s problem with fuel prices, and SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO

The Download: plastic’s problem with fuel prices, and SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO

Published by skeptic

3 Iran has struck Amazon’s cloud business in Bahrain again It promised to hit US companies only yesterday. (FT $) + Other targets include Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia. (CNBC) + AWS data centers in Bahrain were also hit last month. (Reuters $)  4 OpenAI was secretly behind a child safety campaign group It pushed for age verification requirements for AI. (The San Francisco Standard $) + OpenAI had backed the legislation as a compromise measure. (WSJ $) + Coincidentally, Sam Altman heads a company providing age verification. (Engadget)  5 Anthropic is scrambling to limit the Claude Code leak It’s trying to remove 8,000 copies of the exposed code from GitHub. (Gizmodo) + An executive blamed the leak on “process errors.” (Bloomberg $) + Here’s what it reveals about Anthropic’s plans. (Ars Technica) + AI is making online crimes easier—and it could get much worse. (MIT Technology Review)  6 A new Russian “super-app” aims to emulate China’s WeChat And give the Kremlin new surveillance powers. (WSJ $)  7 America’s AI boom is leaving the rest of the world behind  And it’s concentrating power and wealth in a handful of companies. (Rest of World)  8 Chinese chipmakers have claimed nearly half the country’s market Nvidia’s lead is shrinking rapidly. (Reuters $)  9 The first quantum computer to break …

Musk Targets Retail Investors For Up To 30% Of SpaceX’s IPO Shares

Musk Targets Retail Investors For Up To 30% Of SpaceX’s IPO Shares

Published by Jenni Sidey

Elon Musk is planning a highly unconventional IPO for SpaceX, aiming to make it one of the largest public offerings ever, with a target raise in the tens of billions, according to the Wall Street Journal. Instead of relying solely on the standard investor roadshow, he is considering bringing investors directly to SpaceX sites, where they could tour facilities and potentially witness rocket launches—turning the pitch into an immersive experience designed to build excitement and demand. A central part of the strategy is reshaping who gets access to shares. Musk wants to allocate a much larger share of the IPO to retail investors—possibly a third or more—far above the typical allocation. He is also exploring giving priority access to loyal supporters, such as Tesla shareholders and individuals who have backed his other ventures, reinforcing his pattern of rewarding his existing base. The WSJ writes that at the same time, SpaceX may depart from traditional IPO rules around insider selling. Some early investors could be required to hold their shares longer than usual to help stabilize …

SpaceX’s One Million Orbital Data Centers Would Be Debilitating for Astronomy Research, Scientists Say

SpaceX’s One Million Orbital Data Centers Would Be Debilitating for Astronomy Research, Scientists Say

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Earlier this week, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, successfully delivering 25 Starlink satellites into orbit. While such launches have become astonishingly commonplace, the company achieved a major milestone that day: getting more than 10,000 active Starlink satellites orbiting the Earth at one time, according to data compiled by Harvard astronomer Jonathan McDowell. The extent of SpaceX’s megaconstellation of broadband-beaming satellites is staggering — a seismic shift in the number of spacecraft in our planet’s orbit that has turned out to be a massive headache for astronomers worldwide. At first, the satellites reflected most of the Sun’s light, appearing as bright streaks in ground-based night sky observations. In fact, they’ve proven bright enough to be visible to the naked eye, often being mistaken for UFOs. Updated versions of the small, mostly aluminum terminals were designed to alleviate the problem with black paint and mirror film — changes that, while welcome, …

SpaceX’s 1 million satellites could avoid environmental checks

SpaceX’s 1 million satellites could avoid environmental checks

Published by skeptic

SpaceX wants to launch many more satellites Charles Boyer / Alamy Stock Photo Astronomers are scrambling to work out the environmental impact of a SpaceX application to launch 1 million satellites, as the deadline for its approval fast approaches. On 30 January, SpaceX announced it had applied to send a vast mega-constellation of 1 million satellites into space with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the US, which CEO Elon Musk said would act as orbital data centres for artificial intelligence. The satellites would vastly outnumber anything else in orbit, with only 14,500 active satellites in space today. Currently, the FCC has no requirement to assess the potential environmental impact of launching so many satellites, including the effects on Earth’s atmosphere or the changes to the night sky it would cause. “We’re deeply concerned,” says Ruskin Hartley, CEO of DarkSky International. “We’re not opposed to satellites, but we believe it needs to be done in a responsible manner.” Following satellite applications, the FCC allows members of the public to comment, which it did for SpaceX’s …

Police Raid SpaceX’s Brand New Offices

Police Raid SpaceX’s Brand New Offices

Published by José Betancourt

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Fabrice Coffrini / AFP via Getty Images It was only yesterday that Elon Musk announced that SpaceX had acquired his AI company xAI, a merger that catapulted the rocket maker into being the most valuable private company in the world, but raised significant questions about bringing two firms with vastly different missions under the same wing. Now, the freshly-joined entity is facing one of its first major tests. On Tuesday, French authorities raided the offices of X, Elon Musk’s social media site owned by xAI, as part of its ongoing criminal investigation into the sexual deepfakes generated by its AI chatbot Grok. Following the acquisition, of course, those X offices are now SpaceX offices. The raid was carried out by the Paris Public Prosecutor Office’s cybercrime unit, in collaboration with French police and Europol. And it’s perhaps an early warning sign of how all the baggage that SpaceX is inheriting by bringing Musk’s controversial AI efforts into the fold may haunt the company going forward. In an announcement, …

SpaceX’s IPO could open the floodgates — and secondaries are booming in the meantime

SpaceX’s IPO could open the floodgates — and secondaries are booming in the meantime

Published by skeptic

SpaceX is reportedly lining up four major Wall Street banks for a potential 2026 IPO — a move that could signal the long-awaited reopening of the public markets after a years-long IPO drought. In the meantime, late-stage private companies like SpaceX are finding other ways to create liquidity for employees and early shareholders, largely through a fast-growing secondary market. To unpack what SpaceX’s IPO chatter means, how private liquidity works before a debut, and what investors are looking for in today’s pre-IPO giants, we spoke with Greg Martin, managing director at Rainmaker Securities, a broker-dealer specializing in secondary share transactions for late-stage private companies. You can listen here or wherever you get your podcasts, or read the conversation below. UPDATE: This conversation took place before the news broke that SpaceX is considering merging with xAI and Tesla. TechCrunch reached out to Martin to learn how this news has affected SpaceX secondary sales. His response: “The news that SpaceX may be considering various transactions with xAI and Tesla, has caused a temporary pause in the market …