SpaceX Must Go Global and Spinoff IPOs to Avoid Nationalization

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How Elon Musk and SpaceX Could Avoid Nationalization Amid Starlink and Starship Dominance ?

As Starlink and fully reusable Starship become increasingly dominant—potentially increasing bandwidth by over 100 times, deploying satellites by 20 times, and dropping the cost to space by 50 times in the next 2–4 years—the risk of nationalization grows sharply. SpaceX’s emerging monopoly status in critical infrastructure. SpaceX must rapidly grow beyond government contracts. SpaceX Starlink is already over half of its revenue. This must and will rapidly increase to over ten times government and military revenue.

SpaceX has to have more partnerships with other private space and telecom companies. They need to share launch capacity, satellite access, or technology. A competitive ecosystem would make the case for nationalization less compelling.

Establish joint ventures with international and domestic partners, including traditional aerospace and telecom players, to distribute control and lessen the perception of a single point of failure.

SpaceX needs to get more public-private collaborations.

IPO minority stake in Starlink or Starship as a public companies. Get more public ownership.

29 thoughts on “SpaceX Must Go Global and Spinoff IPOs to Avoid Nationalization”

  1. SpaceX cannot in no way “go global” with its current rocket technology. Rocket technology is highly regulated by the State Dept through ITAR restrictions. Any rocket company in the US is in effect a domestic company “owned” and heavily regulated (i.e. controlled) by the US government. (not technically owned, but functionally owned.) So there is no need to nationalize SpaceX or any other defense company. They have nowhere to go. Could the State Dept force divestment from Elon Musk? That would be debatable. The more likely scenario would be Elon violating ITAR and being fined and jailed if he were to try and take his rocket technology to another country. Donald Trump would not cancel contracts either as it would cripple our intelligence assets for more than a decade. ULA, Blue Origin, and others cannot produce at the rate that the DoD has come to rely on from SpaceX. As for Bannon, he is way over his skis if he thinks we would try to nationalize SpaceX. He simply does not know what he is talking about, no more than anyone that thinks Elon can just up and move his company overseas or to outer space for that matter. Good luck finding 16,000 competent employees ready to relocate to Mars.

  2. Yet another breakthrough in nuclear propulsion rockets shows why Starship will never reach Mars, even if it can stop blowing up, which is unlikely in the near term at least.
    https://youtu.be/q5Nrl5kSXyM?si=N5zm2OSshoYsLMFo
    I maintain that nuclear rockets will land on Mars from America – and maybe even China – and now that Musk is feuding with Trump, Trump may even fund this better alternative just to spite Musk and also to beat China. There’s no way Musk is landing Starship on Mars at the next orbital alignment in 2028. After that it’s 2030, and nuclear rockets could be ready by then.

    • There’s absolutely no technical reason Starship shouldn’t reach Mars. It can provide enough delta V, after all. And while terminal velocity on Mars after aerobraking is quite a bit higher than on earth, the atmospheric conditions are in some ways more favorable, the lower gravity meaning that you have a much larger window in which the atmospheric pressure is suitable for braking from your transfer orbit. Really, the only unfavorable aspect is, as Musk has pointed out, the higher concentration of oxygen radicals in the plasma sheath.

      Musk just needs to finish up the development program in time. Which, I agree, is something of a longshot at this point, everything would have to go perfectly from this point forward to pull it off. The launch window is in late 2026, he’s got 17 months to get reentry licked, orbital refueling licked, and have some confidence about keeping a viable amount of fuel in the tanks for 6-8 months. Not impossible, but it would require everything to go much more smoothly than they’ve experienced to date, I think 2029 is more likely.

      I do like nuclear rocketry, chemical rocketry is marginal for going to Venus and Mars, and nearly unworkable for any further destination. The obstacles are not technical, though, they’re regulatory/political. From a technical standpoint, sure, you could have a nuclear rocket ready to go by 2030; Just dust off the plans for NERVA, and build one.

      From a regulatory standpoint, it’s probably not doable. You’d need two successive administrations that were not just open to, but committed to clearing all regulatory obstacles.

      • Does Musk have to lick re-entry on Earth to get a (nearly empty) Starship to Mars?
        Almost certainly NOT successfully landed on Mars, but testing Mars-entry to collect some data?
        Instead of refueling on orbit, launch it with extra methane/oxygen tank capacity instead of any payload.

    • Ha! my design, thought experiment anyways, is far better. “If” they can keep the nuclear material in by spinning in that design then they can in my design also. It’s way better because you can easily turn it off and it has no chance of going uncontrollably critical. It’s easily started stopped and restarted. I described it and drew a picture here.

      https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/01/nasa-studies-aerogel-fission-fragment-rocket-200x-better-isp-than-chemical.html#comment-174452

    • Check out the Pulsar Sunbird: https://pulsarfusion.com/sunbird-fusion-propulsion/

      Why not use a few sunbird engines to haul out a bunch of fully fueled Starships and cargo modules out to mars orbit? Then ferry cargo down to the surface with Starship. A sunbird dock in Mars orbit as well as Earth orbit could service express launch between the two. Perhaps we could avoid the 2 year window limitations. Maybe.

      Anyway – I do think nuclear or sunbird style fusion tugs makes more sense that relying solely on chemical rockets when talking about interplanetary travel.

  3. From a purely technical POV launching Starships from the French Guiana site or perhaps in Brazil by the mouth of the Amazon would be better. That coastline is almost on the equator with lots of open ocean in all directions from due east to a bit west of north, so one can launch into an orbit of any useful inclination. (Is there any use for strongly retrograde orbits?)

    Is there any country in which political considerations would not be a problem?
    BTW see this
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RocQGE_s7PU&t=1s
    for “How Apple Made China a Tech Powerhouse” and made both itself & the world captive to China.

  4. If I was Musk, I would try to buy Clipperton island from the French. Its right on the equator reasonably close to California, and while France is a US ally they are the most independent one. The island is also located in the Clarion–Clipperton zone, so it would be a perfect place to try to assemble an independent industry based on mining manganese nodules. There isn’t just manganese in those there is a lot of iron and other things as well. The lagoon would make a good harbor if dredged and the island is on the equator, so a better lunch location than any of the location SpaceX has now as well. There is also room for a long runway, and some industry related to possessing nodules.

  5. “As Starlink and fully reusable Starship become increasingly dominant…”
    Did I miss something?
    How is Starship dominant if it failed to open the cargo bay doors…

    • You did miss something. You missed the next sentence. Hope this helps.
      “in the next 2–4 years”

  6. Your assuming all these other countries would be passive investors without their own interests.

  8. SpaceX cannot do that they would lose control of their own technology. Attempting to do what is being proposed would be a violation of laws restricting access to military technology.
    It is why Clinton had to sign a waiver for the tech transfer that enabled China to gain MIRV technology with the transfer of satellite bus technology.

  9. It does not help when Elon blows off on social media with threats to pull the plug on the services he is providing.
    This already happened with Ukraine (where the service is being paid for by Poland I think).
    He has burned bridges with the Democrats, and now his threats to pull service support (space launches and Starlink) in response to Trump.
    Not good optics if he wants to be trusted with long term contracts.
    I previously said that CEOs getting deeply involved in politics is not a good idea.
    How is that working out?

  10. The only way out for SpaceX is full technology transfer to another jurisdiction. Everything else is not going to be allowed. Even if they somehow succeeded in full technology transfer, everyone involved would be arrested for treason and an assortment of other sins the same day, and die in prison. That is rather demotivating. Another problem is where to go? Any jurisdiction that is independent, is a de facto or stated enemy of USA: China, Russia and North Korea. Every other place would be demotivated immediately from receiving such a gift. And out of those three, only China has the capabilities required for SpaceX to realise its potential. How long would it be before everyone involved in this plan is found dead? Hours.

    The only real way out for SpaceX is up. They are a space company, they should be based in space (Moon, Mars, cislunar space, etc). Until then they can only make nice with USA, whoever happens to rule it. Go Weyland-Yutani or perish (eventually, one way or another) – that is the way for SpaceX.

    • They can’t legally transfer the technology to another jurisdiction, rockets are legally “munitions”.

      What they COULD do is create a startup in another jurisdiction, and have it independently develop next generation rockets. But, as you say, the only jurisdictions genuinely independent of the US on that level are nasty international adversaries, where they’d be even less independent.

      Moving their operations to space is indeed the way to go. But it’s not a short run thing. It’s the work of decades.

      • Legalities are and always will be controlled by state, and state will nevel allow tech like SpaceX to leave USA. It can only be an escape, in which case legalities are irrelevant. But such an escape is best to be into space, not from one state cage into another.

        If you look at the three I named, only one is an option worth considering. Russia will not work for SpaceX because its beaurocracy is biologically incompatible with people like Musk. Even in Putin took Musk by hand and personally ordered everyone to help him and SpaceX, inexplicably it would turn into “crawling on glass”, which means SpaceX being unable to do their work. North Korea, if Kim did the same, would work out in theory, but only if China supported SpaceX there, which means North Korea is just in the way. So China only. In China, SpaceX would be just like Tesla in China – one of many, or great many such companies doing this, though ahead of others. They would not be nationalised or anything, just the same treatment as other big business. SpaceX would benefit from it, but USA and Trump personally, would make everything possible to slow down SpaceX clone based in China. In the end, it would not be worth it.
        What no one expects, even though Musk spelled it out a while ago as a kind of a joke, which it was not, is moving to space. There is just one problem with his chosen way to do it: Mars is too far for that as the first step, it has to be Moon as an industrial base, but a space platform as “an island in space”. That island can be declared a sovereign state, outside of any jurisdictions, and physically outside reach of terran powers (in cislunar space, such as L1 or L2, and close to Lunar industrial base). For the platform to be legit sovereign state, it will have to be big, something like 20km side cube with rotating 1g cylinder. But that thing would last centuries, millenia, once built. The key to that is not so much SpaceX and rockets, though essential, but robotics. Lunar industry will either be robotic, or not exist. That is what Musk can do, but he is a bit fixated on Mars occupation. Escaping Terra should be first step, becoming Weyland-Yutani, then Mars would be easy. Personally, I don’t get the fixation on Mars – it will never have 1g, therefore no better than Moon, and Moon is 3 days away any time, not 6 months away once in 2 years. Priority now should be on escaping Terra, or there will be no Mars occupation.

        • The fixation on Mars is that Musk wants a lifeboat, not just a colony. He wants a colony that could plausibly survive some event that takes out humanity on earth.

          From that perspective, the Moon is just too close, virtually any extinction event on Earth is going to take out a Moon colony, too.

          Disease? The trip time is too short to function as an effective quarantine.

          Major asteroid impact? A Moon colony would likely be taken out by the debris thrown up by it.

          War? Again, too close.

          And the Moon is so close no colony on it is likely to be self-sufficient, it just doesn’t make economic sense to pursue local self-sufficiency to that degree.

          From Musk’s perspective, anything closer than Mars won’t achieve the objective: A colony that would survive an extinction event on Earth.

          • An island in space, with 1g, would be a lifeboat, also a colony, if that is so important. Such a structure can be put to any orbit (over time), including L4 and L5, which is much better than Mars in every aspect. Even at Mars, it would be better in every aspect to keep people in orbit on such a structure, and use Mars as resource base only. Without 1g people go bad rather quickly, so Mars itself would be neither a life boat, nor a colony, long term. Taking Phobos and Deimos for materials for such a structure is the obvious best move. But the same can be done in Lunar orbit, as Lunar environment is enabling for a number of otherwise difficult industrial processes useful for building such a structure.

            Vacuum is an effective barrier for any disease. I don’t see a problem with it at all, which Mars would help solve by being so much farther.
            Same for asteroid, war and everything else: put that structure anywhere you like, and have 1g and enough mass to permanently shield from galactic radiation at the Terra surface level. Mars is slightly worse than Luna in every aspect.

            And since war is so much in fashion now, just out of spite it is so easy to drop 100kt (100kg) nuke on any Mars settlement – distance does not protect, time does not protect either. If anything protects in space, it is being invisible in the vastness of space. So a 20km side cube floating somewhere around L4 or L5 would be invisible and therefore invulnerable to any missile (non sci-fi). Just for reference, such a structure would have 1000km2 inner area with 1g all over it. Mars will never have anything like that.

            The ultimate survivor-escapist solution would be a mobile version of such structure, which requires only added propulsion, and is commonly called a “ship”.) Mars will never have that.

    • Full tech transfer is illegal under u.s. law. Rocket tech falls under the missile restricted technology regime that is not allowed without a Presidential waver.

  11. Isn’t it great. You build your business the entire life, get extremely successful and then it is taken from you. Who is John Galt?

  12. If SpaceX is nationalized, it will become as efficient as NASA, which is to say not at all. Kind of defeats the purpose of having it….

  13. This article seems to assume that nationalizing SpaceX would be a bad thing. I think it would have a number of advantages.

    First, while Elon Musk seems to be good at starting companies he also seems to be too erratic to be trusted with a major share of the world’s economy.

    Second, while nationalization will probably reduce innovation at SpaceX, this will allow other new space companies to grow. SpaceX is the 500 pound gorilla in the room and keeping it from throwing its weight around will boost competition.

  14. SpaceX won’t get Nationalized, The only person I’ve even heard float that absurd idea was Bannon. The tension between Musk & Trump is calming down, and they will be talking to each other (in person) soon enough.
    But an IPO for a separate company (Starlink) will happen, sadly it will happen AFTER Elon has milked most of the value out of it. I was hoping to invest in that years ago when he first mention a Starlink IPO…but by the time it actually happens, EVERYONE will know about it, and be using it.

  15. They would have to leave the planet to avoid the prospect of nationalization. The fact is only one other country in the World can support a company like SpaceX. And if they moved to China the CCP would nationalized them if the USG didn’t stop them first. All nations on the planet consider orbital launch and intercontinental ballistic missiles or be core national technology and expertise. SpaceX is just going to need to get better at playing politics, like Boeing, Lockheed, Arianespace, etc. Elon gambled with Trump and lost, it doesn’t mean SpaceX has to lose.

    • Eh, more like he gambled with Trump and didn’t win as much as he’d hoped. Just getting the bureaucratic harassment stopped was worth a lot.

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