The Amazon billionaire’s heavy-lift rocket is poised for its first spaceflight. If it succeeds, it will give satellite operators and the Pentagon a long-desired alternative to SpaceX—and at a cheaper price, Forbes reveals.



In2021, Elon Musk trolled Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, mocking his rival’s slow progress toward launching a rocket into space. “Can’t get it up (to orbit) lol,” he<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1386825367948644352" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">&nbsp;wrote</a>&nbsp;on Twitter.



Now, almost 25 years after Bezos started the company, Blue Origin is on the brink of clapping back. Its powerful New Glenn rocket is at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center for its inaugural launch, which could come as soon as early morning Monday.



Plenty of people in the space industry and government are cheering for it to succeed – and to end SpaceX’s near monopoly on lofting American satellites into orbit.



“The space industry likes having choices,” said Caleb Henry, an analyst at Quilty Space. “And it doesn&#8217;t have that today. It just has SpaceX.”



And Blue Origin is selling launches at a price per satellite that’s significantly better than SpaceX, a former employee told&nbsp;Forbes.



The launch attempt comes less than two weeks before Donald Trump returns to the White House. During his first term, the former president attacked Bezos over negative coverage in the Washington Post, which Bezos owns. Now Trump, with Musk at his right hand, is promising a shakeup in government spending and regulation that could tilt the playing field for the commercial space industry — and threaten some of Blue Origin’s government contracts.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-animal-spirits">ANIMAL SPIRITS</h3>



Bezos has positioned Blue Origin as the slow and steady alternative to SpaceX’s “move fast and fail quickly” ethos. Its motto is “gradatim ferociter,” Latin for “step by step, ferociously,” and its logo features two tortoises. So far the tortoise has been soundly beaten by SpaceX’s hare.



Over the past decade, SpaceX ramped up its launch cadence to unprecedented levels while its competition was largely sidelined. The old heavyweights of space launch — the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and Europe’s Arianespace — struggled with delays in developing new rockets, and Western sanctions removed Russian rockets as an option. SpaceX’s Falcon rockets propelled cargo to orbit 133 times in 2024, with one failure, the vast majority of the 145 launches attempted in the U.S. last year and more than half of the 263 worldwide, according to space activity tracker<a href="https://planet4589.org/space/papers/space24.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">&nbsp;Jonathan McDowell</a>.



But New Glenn, first announced in 2016, promises to be a fierce competitor. Like SpaceX’s Falcon 9, it’s a two-stage heavy lift workhorse, with the first stage designed to return to earth for reuse. But according to Blue Origin, a larger nose cone gives New Glenn twice the cargo volume of Falcon 9, and its powerful engines are designed to propel double the payload mass.



And Blue Origin is pricing to give customers more bang for the buck than SpaceX, according to a former employee who now works for a competitor who spoke to&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;on the condition of anonymity.



Blue Origin is charging roughly $110 million per launch, he said, compared to about $70 million for a Falcon 9 – effectively offering to carry twice as many satellites for roughly 50% more money.



Blue Origin didn’t respond to a request for comment from&nbsp;Forbes.



Blue Origin&#8217;s New Glenn rocket, which stands 32 stories tall and is designed to launch 45 tons of payload into orbit, is pictured during a hotfire test at Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Dec. 27.Blue Origin



New Glenn is already proving attractive to companies building large constellations of small satellites for low-Earth orbit, particularly as those satellites have gotten larger, said Henry.



Blue Origin has won contracts to use it to launch satellites for all of the major constellations, except, of course, for SpaceX’s Starlink. That includes AST Mobile, which is developing a network to provide cellular service from space. The company has said New Glenn can carry eight of its Block 2 satellites, which will be the largest yet put in low-Earth orbit. Falcon 9 can carry just four.



And Bezos’ Amazon.com is leaning heavily on Blue Origin to realize its plans for its Kuiper satellite network. Blue Origin is slated to launch at least 23% of the constellation and potentially as much as half. Amazon expects to pay Blue Origin $2.7 billion through 2028, it said in a financial filing last year.



The U.S. government is also eager for another option to launch its intelligence and communications satellites. In June the Defense Department picked Blue Origin, along with SpaceX and United Launch Alliance, to compete for up to $5.6 billion worth of launches through 2029.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-money-out">MONEY OUT</h3>



It’s welcome revenue after years of heavy spending to build the company. On the New Glenn program alone, Blue Origin has spent on the order of $10 billion, the former employee estimated. Apart from a few NASA contracts, that money has come from the deep pockets of Bezos, who has committed to use the vast fortune he’s made from Amazon to realize his boyhood space dreams.&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;estimates his net worth at $233 billion, a distant second in the world to Musk’s $416 billion.



While it’s taken a quarter century for Blue Origin to take its first shot at space, it has notched impressive achievements on the way, while building infrastructure for mass rocket launches that SpaceX only put together gradually after reaching orbit. The company developed a powerful rocket engine, the Be-4, that’s powered two successful launches of United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan rocket. With its reusable New Shepard rocket, which is designed to bring tourists to the edge of space, Blue Origin has become the only rocket company besides SpaceX to pull off the trick of landing its first stage. And it has built up manufacturing facilities expected to produce over 100 Be-4 engines in 2025, and multiple boosters to support a pace of 12 launches a year.



“It&#8217;s easy to be a little flip about, ‘SpaceX has done so much and Blue Origin has done little,’ but it&#8217;s nuanced,” said Carissa Christensen, CEO of the space consulting firm BryceTech.



A successful launch would be powerful validation for Blue Origin, but the attempt comes against a cloudy political backdrop. Trump has tasked Musk with leading an effort to chop government spending and regulation. A relaxation of rules in the heavily regulated space industry would help all participants, but competitors fear<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2024/11/12/in-trumps-space-race-musks-spacex-is-a-sure-bet/">&nbsp;preferential treatment for SpaceX</a>.



Exhibit A: Trump’s nominee to run NASA, billionaire Jared Isaacman. His company Shift4 Payments has invested in SpaceX, and Isaacman has bankrolled two private spaceflights on Falcon rockets.



Last March, Isaacman&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/rookisaacman/status/1767893365541032333" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">questioned</a>&nbsp;the wisdom of NASA’s decision to fund the development of redundant lunar landers from SpaceX and Blue Origin, in case one faltered.



But Bezos has professed confidence that Musk won’t use his influence in the Trump administration to benefit SpaceX at Blue Origin’s expense.



“I take at face value what has been said, which is that [Musk] is not going to use his political power to advantage his own companies or to disadvantage his competitors,” Bezos said in December at a&nbsp;New York Times&nbsp;conference.



Bezos, in any event, is looking far beyond the next four years. He wants Blue Origin to drive the creation of an off-world economy where manufacturing and mining is done in in space, and the “Earth will be zoned residential and light industry.” Someday he thinks that will make Blue Origin a bigger business than Amazon, he said at the&nbsp;Times&nbsp;event. But it’s all predicated on bringing down the cost of reaching space, starting with New Glenn.



“We know how to travel to space. We know how to land on the Moon. We need to be able to do it a hundred times cheaper,” Bezos told&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsuqSn7ifpU" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">space YouTuber Tim Dodd</a>&nbsp;in September. “That’s what will really open the heavens to humanity.”

New York Times Holds Annual DealBook Summit

With New Glenn Launch, Bezos Looks To Break Musk’s Stranglehold On Space

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday <a href="https://www.faa.gov/space/stakeholder_engagement/spacex_starship" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">granted a license</a> to billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX for its highly anticipated second launch of its Starship rocket, clearing the way for a test flight as soon as this week, after more than six months being grounded since its previous launch ended in a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/anafaguy/2023/04/20/spacex-starship-explodes-after-launch/?sh=670a7bb36645">fiery explosion</a>.\



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



SpaceX’s Starship, an ambitious program intended to eventually take passengers to the moon and Mars, has met “all safety, environmental, policy and financial responsibility requirements,” the FAA determined.



The FAA’s approval gives SpaceX the go-ahead for a second launch at its Boca Chica launch site in Cameron County, Texas, south of Corpus Christi.



In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, SpaceX said it plans to conduct the launch between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. local time on Friday.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



In April, a SpaceX rocket that had been scheduled to travel 150 miles into Earth’s atmosphere suddenly exploded several minutes after take-off, which SpaceX called a “rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation.” SpaceX initially planned its next test launch “in a few months,” Musk—who also owns X and Tesla—said in a&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1649050306943266819" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">post</a>&nbsp;on his social media platform. SpaceX also&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1649045802332073986" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;April’s test, despite its explosion, “will help us improve Starship’s reliability.” The FAA was later sued by a group of environmental and cultural heritage organizations, who alleged the agency erred in its approval of the test launch and that its approval violated federal environmental law.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/05/01/faa-sued-over-spacex-starship-explosion/?sh=39c6f88679de">Plaintiffs argued</a>&nbsp;the FAA failed to conduct a full environmental review and did not require SpaceX to mitigate potential environmental harm.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h2>



NASA partnered with SpaceX in April 2021 to develop a landing system to take astronauts to the moon for the space agency’s Artemis III mission, another program aimed at bringing astronauts back to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-surprising-fact">SURPRISING FACT</h2>



At 400 feet tall, the Starship rocket is the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.space.com/elon-musk-shows-off-starship-sn20-super-heavy-stack-february-2022" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tallest and most powerful</a>&nbsp;rocket ever built.



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/anafaguy/2023/04/20/spacex-starship-explodes-after-launch/?sh=670a7bb36645">SpaceX Starship Explodes After Launch</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2023/04/08/elon-musks-spacex-is-about-to-launch-starship-into-orbit-around-earth/?sh=4dc7196b1ce1">Elon Musk’s SpaceX Is About To Launch ‘Starship’ Into Orbit Around Earth</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches the third pair of O3b

SpaceX Cleared For Second Starship Test Flight—After First Exploded

TOPLINE SpaceX launched its first private flight into space on Wednesday night, carrying an all-amateur crew of four Americans onto a three-day flight around the Earth’s orbit in a move that marks one of the most ambitious leaps into space tourism— just two months after Virgin Atlantic and Blue Origin completed brief space skimming private flights.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



The mission, dubbed Inspiration4—the first orbital trip featuring no professional astronauts—launched four Americans including two contest winners, a health care worker, and their billionaire sponsor,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/jared-isaacman/?sh=92095d848698">Jared Isaacman</a>, from the Kennedy Space Center.



Aside from the 38-year-old Isaacman, the flight features 29-year-old medical professional and bone cancer survivor Hayley Arceneaux, 42-year-old data engineer Chris Sembroski and 51-year-old community college educator Dr. Sian Proctor.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



The passengers are flying aboard SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and they will be looking to spend three days orbiting the earth several times at an altitude of up to 360 miles.



The Dragon capsule was launched using SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 rocket and after the launch, the first-stage booster used for the mission also successfully landed on an ocean platform.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-surprising-fact">SURPRISING FACT</h2>



29-year-old Arceneaux has become the youngest American to travel to space and she is also the first space traveler with a prosthesis—a titanium rod in her left leg—the Associated Press&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/spacex-lifestyle-health-florida-travel-31a07f6a9f35d4a33880cb971f78452f" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



NASA Administrator Bill Nelson congratulated the mission’s operators,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/SenBillNelson/status/1438301280418635780" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeting</a>: “Low-Earth orbit is now more accessible for more people to experience the wonders of space. We look forward to the future – one where NASA is one of many customers in the commercial space market. Onward and upward!” In 1986, Nelson took a flight aboard Space Shuttle Columbia as a payload specialist while serving as a sitting member of U.S. House of Representatives from the state of Florida.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Isaacman’s payments processing company, Shift4 Payments, is funding the entire mission but the billionaire and the company have refused to disclose the total cost of the mission. The 38-year-old is the third billionaire to fly into space onboard a private flight in the past two months. In July, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin undertook brief flights to the edge of space. Unlike them, however, the SpaceX capsule will orbit the earth at an altitude that is around 100 miles above the International Space Station and will last for three full days. Although the flight is completely automated, the four-member crew spent six months training for the flight to tackle any possible emergencies. The training included flights aboard fighter jets, simulator training, and a trek up Mount Rainier.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h2>



The Inspiration4 mission will also serve as a fundraiser for St. Jude&#8217;s Children&#8217;s Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee—where Arceneaux is employed. Isaacman has pledged to donate $100 million of his own fortune to the hospital and he is seeking to raise another $100 million through donations.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://apnews.com/article/spacex-lifestyle-health-florida-travel-31a07f6a9f35d4a33880cb971f78452f" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SpaceX launches 4 amateurs on private Earth-circling trip</a>&nbsp;(Associated Press)



<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/science/spacex-inspiration4-orbit.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SpaceX Launches Astronaut Crew Like No Other on Orbital Adventure</a> (New York Times)



By Siladitya Ray, Forbes Staff

Falcon 9 rocket launch

SpaceX Inspiration4 Mission Launches Four Space Tourists On Orbital Tour Of Earth

Elon Musk was in court in Delaware last week defending his role in Tesla’s acquisition of failing solar panel installer SolarCity in 2016. That questionable decision – SolarCity was founded by his cousins; Musk was its biggest shareholder and served on the board of both companies – triggered a shareholder lawsuit. Of course, not all of Musk’s misguided notions land him in Delaware Chancery Court, but many don’t pan out precisely as planned. “If I wasn’t optimistic I don’t think I would have started an electric car company or a rocket company,” <a href="https://twitter.com/WillOremus/status/1415012678020513794?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">he told the court</a>.In the case of the $2.6 billion SolarCity deal, the solar roof revolution he predicted in 2016 hasn’t materialized. But neither has an affordably priced Tesla, an all-electric semi, a robotaxi network or next-gen low-cost, high-capacity batteries. Ahead of a ruling in the SolarCity case, here’s a roundup of some of Musk’s bigger swings – and misses – from the last five years.  



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-35-000-model-3">$35,000 Model 3</h2>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="alignleft size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1008732814-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-51852" width="379" height="252" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1008732814-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1008732814-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1008732814-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1008732814-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1008732814-2048x1366.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 379px) 100vw, 379px" /><figcaption>The general assembly of the Tesla Model 3 at the Tesla factory in Fremont, California, on Thursday, July 26, 2018. (Photo by Mason Trinca for The Washington Post via Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-35-00-price-point-was-touted-for-years-as-the-model-3-s-key-appeal-no-longer-just-a-auto-for-the-rich-telsa-would-finally-make-a-mass-market-car-but-after-model-3-went-into-production-it-was-only-available-at-that-price-intermittently-before-being-scrubbed-currently-the-cheapest-version-starts-at-40-000-and-after-taxes-registration-and-add-ons-usually-sells-for-closer-to-50-000-meanwhile-starting-prices-for-tesla-s-bigger-model-s-and-x-have-risen-to-85-000-and-95-000-respectively-and-they-really-cost-more-than-100-000-with-options-taxes-and-delivery-charges">The $35,00 price point was touted for years as the Model 3’s key appeal. No longer just a auto for the rich, Telsa would finally make a mass-market car. But after Model 3 went into production it was only available at that price intermittently before being scrubbed. Currently the cheapest version starts at $40,000 and after taxes, registration and add-ons usually sells for closer to $50,000. Meanwhile, starting prices for Tesla’s bigger Model S and X have risen to $85,000 and $95,000, respectively, and they really cost more than $100,000 with options, taxes and delivery charges.</h4>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="alignright is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/960x0/https%3A%2F%2Fspecials-images.forbesimg.com%2Fimageserve%2F60e8c1aec3268da90bbd4e49%2F0x0.jpg%3FcropX1%3D820%26cropX2%3D3181%26cropY1%3D0%26cropY2%3D2362" alt="Tesla-Semi_IR_8219-14-Courtesy Tesla" width="-471" height="-471"/><figcaption>TESLA</figcaption></figure></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"> Tesla Semi</h2>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Musk’s ambitions go beyond passenger vehicles and in November 2017 he unveiled his futuristic electric truck, promising it would go 500 miles per charge and be available around the end of 2019. As of July 2021, Tesla hasn’t announced a firm launch date or production site for the Semi and in June Jerome Guillen, the long-time head of the truck program, unexpectedly resigned.</h4>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Tesla Roadster</h2>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Unveiled in November 2017 along with the Semi, Musk said the Roadster would arrive in 2020, be the fastest production car ever made and go as far as 620 miles per charge. The anticipated tech wonder is expected to cost about $200,000 but there’s no firm launch date. </h4>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Tesla Giga Berlin</h2>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Musk wanted Tesla’s first European battery CK plant to open in July 2021. While much of the physical construction is complete, the plant lacks regulatory approval to begin operations, has stoked opposition from local environmentalists and faces fines related to water and sewerage issues. The current hope is that the plant will be open by early 2022.</h4>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1270253742-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-51854" width="697" height="465" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1270253742-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1270253742-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1270253742-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1270253742-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1270253742-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 697px) 100vw, 697px" /><figcaption>2: A sign marks Tesla Strasse (Tesla Street) at the construction site of the new Tesla Gigafactory near Berlin on September 02, 2020 near Gruenheide, Germany. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Tesla Full Self Driving&nbsp;</h2>



In October 2016 Musk announced that all Teslas were being built with the necessary computing power, sensors and cameras to allow them to eventually operate autonomously. At that time, he estimated that Full Self Driving capability would arrive in two to three years. The $10,000 feature, an enhancement of the company’s Autopilot system, was released in beta form in July, but after a series of horrific, fatal accidents Tesla now warns drivers that it “<a href="https://twitter.com/tesla_raj/status/1413764413165772803" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">may do the wrong thing at the worst time</a>” and that they need to use it with “additional caution”–suggesting that it isn’t ready for primetime.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Tesla Robotaxi Network</h3>



Musk said at Tesla’s Autonomy Day in October 2019 that by the end of 2020 “for sure, we will have over a million robotaxis on the road. … The fleet wakes up with an over-the-air update. That&#8217;s all it takes.” As a result of that capability, Tesla owners would be able to earn money from their vehicles by making them available for an autonomous, on-demand ride service the company would oversee. That hasn’t happened and there’s no indication that will be possible–or legal– in the near term.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Tesla Next-Generation Battery Cells</h3>



Musk touted a larger, beer-can size 4680 lithium battery cell in September 2020 that he claimed would be 56% cheaper and have five times the energy of the company’s current cells. He said pilot production of small batches at a lab in Silicon Valley was underway and that the company might be able to scale up to high-volume production within a year or two. Timing for production is unclear, but delays in manufacturing the cell appear to be part of the problem with launching Tesla’s Semi and Roadster. 



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Tesla Solar Production And Jobs&nbsp;</h3>



New York spent $950 million to build and equip a solar panel factory in Buffalo that SolarCity had big plans for. In exchange for the state’s generosity, the company was to create at least 1,460 jobs there. The future looked promising after Tesla purchased SolarCity in late 2016 and in December of that year Tesla said it “entered into a long-term agreement with Panasonic to manufacture photovoltaic cells at our Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo, New York, with negotiated pricing provisions and the intent to manufacture 1 gigawatt of solar panels annually.” But in the years since, output of panels at the plant has been unclear. In 2020 Tesla reported delivering just 205 megawatts of solar panels, a quarter of what SolarCity installed in 2016. Tesla has also had difficulty maintaining the required headcount at the factory. Panasonic abandoned the facility last year, further reducing employment at the facility. Tesla has been given numerous extensions by the state. As of Memorial Day, it had 1,058 employees at the plant, and has until the end of 2021 to meet the 1,460-worker target or pay a $41 million penalty.



By Alan Ohnsman, Forbes Staff

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and chairman of Tesla Motors at Tesla’s headquarters in San Carlos Tuesday Oct. 24, 3008.  Silicon Valley icon Musk became a billionaire founding PayPal, but he’s out to do something even more important – help humanity reach beyon

Elon Musk’s Biggest Tesla Blunders Of The Last Five Years

TOPLINE Billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk stirred up the cryptocurrency market with his Twitter account again Sunday when he appeared to hint Tesla would cast out its bitcoin holdings, a move that saw the cryptocurrency plunge.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h3>



When a Twitter user&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/CryptoWhale/status/1393981793813078017?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">speculated</a>&nbsp;Sunday Musk would ditch bitcoin over the hate the billionaire had received after announcing Tesla would&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/05/12/tesla-will-stop-accepting-bitcoin-as-payment-due-to-environmental-worries-musk-says/">no longer accept the cryptocurrency</a>&nbsp;as payment last week, Musk replied with one word: “<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1394001894809427971?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Indeed</a>.”&nbsp;



The vague message was enough to push cryptocurrency investors to sell off their bitcoin, and the price dipped nearly 8.5% down to $44,395 a coin Sunday.



Cryptocurrency is notoriously volatile, but Sunday’s dip was bitcoin’s biggest slump in more than three months and represented one of its biggest drops in value since the price first began to rapidly ramp up in January.&nbsp;



Last week, Musk said Tesla would no longer accept the cryptocurrency until bitcoin, which requires colossal amounts of electricity to work with, shifts to&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1392602041025843203" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">more sustainable energy use</a>,



Musk said at the time Tesla would not sell off the bitcoin it already had.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">Indeed&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1394001894809427971?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 16, 2021</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">BIG NUMBER</h2>



$1.5 billion. That’s how much Musk spent on buying bitcoin just&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/08/tesla-buys-1point5-billion-in-bitcoin.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">three months ago</a>, in preparation for using the cryptocurrency at Tesla.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">SURPRISING FACT</h2>



Running bitcoin uses&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56012952" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">more electricity</a>&nbsp;than some countries, according to a University of Cambridge study published in February. Researchers said the cryptocurrency burns through 121.36 terawatt-hours annually, roughly the equivalent of used by countries like&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56012952" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Argentina and Norway</a>.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h3>



Just two months ago,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/03/24/bitcoin-surges-as-elon-musk-says-it-can-be-used-to-buy-teslas/?sh=4e37216b3cb2">bitcoin prices soared</a>&nbsp;when Musk announced Tesla would accept the cryptocurrency as payment for Tesla’s pricey electric vehicles. Musk’s quick reversal last week to suspend Tesla bitcoin payments and the cryptocurrency’s loss of value soon after angered many bitcoin investors, who said the billionaire was&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/PeterMcCormack/status/1393971202738302986?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">misinformed</a>&nbsp;about bitcoin’s energy consumption. Musk has&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1393995872413888518?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">bickered</a>&nbsp;with and&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1393246529498976258?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">made fun of</a>&nbsp;the bitter investors on Twitter in recent days.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">TANGENT</h3>



Musk is no stranger to playing the cryptocurrency market with his tweets. His current cryptocurrency of choice, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/05/14/dogecoin-stages-a-comeback-amid-cryptos-300-billion-crash-soaring-30-as-elon-musk-and-coinbase-signal-confidence/?sh=258f1752672f">dogecoin</a>, is regularly boosted by the eccentric CEO’s Twitter memes and public enthusiasm. 



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">👀&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1383103246470811652?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 16, 2021</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h3>



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/05/12/tesla-will-stop-accepting-bitcoin-as-payment-due-to-environmental-worries-musk-says/?sh=39f2924f6e9f">Tesla Will Stop Accepting Bitcoin As Payment Due To Environmental Worries, Musk Says</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2021/05/12/elon-musk-says-tesla-stops-accepting-bitcoin-for-car-purchases-due-to-carbon-energy-use/?sh=34e39d386f85">Bitcoin Tanks After Elon Musk Says Tesla Stops Accepting It Due To Carbon Energy Use</a> (Forbes)



by Carlie Porterfield, Forbes Staff

gettyimages-1130598362-594×594

Elon Musk Sends Bitcoin Tumbling With A One-Word Tweet

Elon Musk on Monday hinted at his plans to take SpaceX’s space internet venture, Starlink, public in several years when revenue growth is “smooth and predictable” as the firm, which eventually aims to provide broadband around the world, is servicing towns in Washington ravaged by wildfires along the U.S. West Coast.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h4>



The Tesla CEO revealed his plans on Twitter, saying small retail investors will “get top priority” when the company is listed: “You can hold me to it.”



Investors may be waiting a while — Musk said he will only take the company public in several years when revenue growth is smooth and predictable, adding: “Public market does *not* like erratic cash flow.”.



Last year, Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/15/musk-on-starlink-internet-satellites-spacex-has-sufficient-capital.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;he believed Starlink would be an important revenue stream for SpaceX, with ambitions to provide high-speed internet around the world.



It comes as the company is assisting the Washington Military Department’s Emergency Management Division as it responds to towns devastated by wildfires, providing internet access to emergency responders and the public.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



In February, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-06/spacex-likely-to-spin-off-starlink-business-and-pursue-an-ipo" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told investors</a>&nbsp;of the company’s plans to spin out Starlink into a separate business and take the company public.&nbsp;



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h4>



Starlink is SpaceX’s ambitious internet-from-space project, involving a constellation of thousands of satellites that will deliver high speed internet access across the globe. SpaceX is optimistic about Starlink’s future. The company says it is already seeing an “extraordinary demand” from potential customers for its satellite broadband service, CNBC&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/01/spacex-starlink-extraordinary-demand-with-nearly-700000-interested.html#:~:text=Investing%20in%20Space-,SpaceX%20says%20Starlink%20internet%20has%20'extraordinary%20demand%2C'%20with,nearly%20700%2C000%20interested%20in%20service&amp;text=SpaceX%20asked%20regulators%20if%20it,5%20million%20from%201%20million." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a>, with nearly 700,000 individuals in the US alone. Starlink’s website says it is targeting the US and Canada in 2020 and rapidly expanding “to near global coverage” by 2021.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h4>



Elon Musk tweeted: “We will&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1310672832783884290?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">probably IPO Starlink</a>, but only several years in the future when revenue growth is smooth &amp; predictable. Public market does *not* like erratic cash flow haha. I’m a huge fan of small retail investors. Will make sure they get top priority. You can hold me to it.”



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">TANGENT&nbsp;</h4>



Starlink’s enormous constellation of satellites have proven controversial since the first set was launched last year. Some complain they&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/sep/12/stars-astronomy-spacex-satellite-elon-musk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">obstruct the night sky</a>&nbsp;and the European Space Agency said it had to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/sep/03/european-satellite-in-near-collision-with-elon-musk-spacex-craft" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">alter the trajectory&nbsp;</a>of one of its observation satellites to avoid a collision with a Starlink satellite.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h4>



The race for space has only just begun and Musk isn’t the only billionaire with his eyes set skyward. Jeff Bezos will be&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanocallaghan/2020/07/31/amazon-is-going-to-add-3000-more-satellites-into-earths-orbit--and-people-are-not-happy/#2581898d7628">overseeing</a>&nbsp;Amazon’s own constellation of internet-providing satellites, Project Kuiper, which received FCC approval this summer. Bezos’ Blue Origin is also involved in the space race, currently developing reusable launch vehicles.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h4>



<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-06/spacex-likely-to-spin-off-starlink-business-and-pursue-an-ipo" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Musk’s SpaceX Plans a Spinoff, IPO for Starlink Business</a>&nbsp;(Bloomberg)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/08/18/billionaire-elon-musk-raises-19-billion-in-new-funding-for-spacex/#59a59c272404">Billionaire Elon Musk Raises $1.9 Billion In New Funding For SpaceX</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2020/02/06/an-ipo-of-spacexs-starlink-business-would-let-investors-bet-on-elon-musk-disrupting-another-industry/#5ee646097b78">An IPO of SpaceX’s Starlink Business Would Let Investors Bet On Elon Musk Disrupting Another Industry</a> (Forbes)



&#8211;-BY Robert Hart, Forbes Staff

Billionaire Elon Musk Teases IPO For Starlink, SpaceX’s Satellite Internet Business

Elon Musk&#8217;s meteoric rise up the Forbes Billionaire List has continued this month, as he’s ascended past luminaries such as Warren Buffett and Steve Ballmer. As of Monday afternoon, Musk&#8217;s net worth surpassed <a href="https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#11a0831e3d78">$74 billion</a>, meaning he is now the fifth-richest person on the planet.



KEY FACTS



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Musk, 49, is the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, the electric vehicle company whose stock price has soared since March.</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Tesla shares gained another 9.5% in Monday&#8217;s trading to $1,643.00, giving it a <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/20/cramer-says-moves-in-tech-stocks-are-truly-insane-as-amazon-and-tesla-climb.html" target="_blank">60%</a> rise in just three weeks since June 29, and a nearly 300% increase in 2020 alone.</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Tesla is now not only the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/07/01/tesla-is-now-the-worlds-most-valuable-car-company-with-a-valuation-of-208-billion/#64a2c1d05334">world&#8217;s most valuable car company</a>, with a market cap of $304.5 billion, it’s worth more than Ford, Ferrari, General Motors and BMW <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/07/01/tesla-is-now-the-worlds-most-valuable-car-company-with-a-valuation-of-208-billion/#64a2c1d05334">combined</a>.</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Musk was ranked <a href="https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/"> No. 31</a> on Forbes&#8217; Billionaires List as recently as mid-March, with a net worth just under $25 billion.</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>His fortune has nearly tripled since then, skyrocketing to $74.2 billion at the close of trading Monday, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#11a0831e3d78">Forbes calculates.</a></li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Musk owns 21% of Tesla but has pledged more than half his stake as collateral for loans; Forbes has discounted his stake to take the loans into account.</li></ul>



KEY BACKGROUND: 



Musk first debuted on Forbes’ 400 Wealthiest Americans List in 2012 in 190th place with a net worth of $2.4 billion. On January 1 this year, he was the 37th richest person on earth. However, Tesla&#8217;s sudden and spectacular rise has propelled him near the very top of the world&#8217;s wealthiest humans. Tesla&#8217;s surge has confounded some investors, considering it’s far smaller than its competitors and only recently began to log quarterly profits. Tesla produced&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/07/01/tesla-is-now-the-worlds-most-valuable-car-company-with-a-valuation-of-208-billion/#64a2c1d05334">103,000 vehicles</a>&nbsp;in the first quarter; Toyota produced&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/07/01/tesla-is-now-the-worlds-most-valuable-car-company-with-a-valuation-of-208-billion/#64a2c1d05334">2.4 million vehicles</a>&nbsp;during that same period. In 2019, American automakers General Motors and Ford generated&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/danrunkevicius/2020/07/20/tesla-stock-may-be-rallying-for-this-absurd-reasonand-this-wont-end-well/#794f313f67a6">ten times</a>&nbsp;more sales than Tesla. Late last month, analysts from Morgan Stanley warned that Tesla stock, which was trading at roughly $1,000 per share at that time, was &#8220;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/06/23/tesla-is-overvalued-investors-are-treating-it-too-much-like-a-tech-company-says-morgan-stanley/#15e075f96c74">grossly overvalued</a>&nbsp;and set to plunge.&#8221; Earlier this month, Musk said that Tesla would produce virtually fully autonomous&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/07/09/elon-musk-tesla-will-have-level-5-self-driving-cars-this-year/#1942918a2d1d">self-driving vehicles</a>&nbsp;by the end of 2020, a claim that was met with skepticism by an auto industry accustomed to a heaping of hype from Musk on the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/business/tesla-autopilot-germany.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">capabilities of self-driving technology</a>. Musk has not sold shares of Tesla&nbsp;<a href="http://sites/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">since 2010</a>.



CRITICAL QUOTES:



&#8220;I really couldn&#8217;t care less,&#8221; Musk emailed Forbes about his net worth earlier this month. &#8220;These numbers rise and fall, but what really matters is making great products that people love.&#8221;



&#8220;Moves like we are seeing in Microsoft and Tesla and Amazon are truly insane and unlike any i have ever seen in my life,&#8221;&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/jimcramer/status/1285293615019888640?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>&nbsp;analyst Jim Cramer on Monday afternoon. When asked if Tesla was a &#8216;Covid Stock,&#8217; Cramer&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/jimcramer/status/1285310934114861057?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">replied</a>, &#8220;i don&#8217;t even know if it is a stock. it is something else entirely, like a new species discovered in the wild.&#8221;&nbsp;



TANGENT:



When Kanye West<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/randalllane/2020/07/08/kanye-west-says-hes-done-with-trump-opens-up-about-white-house-bid-damaging-biden-and-everything-in-between/#4597b0a647aa"> initially announced</a> that he was running for president, he said he had the &#8220;full support&#8221; of Musk, a longtime close friend. In a <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://pagesix.com/2020/07/11/elon-musk-backpedals-on-support-of-kanye-wests-presidential-bid/" target="_blank">since-deleted tweet</a>, Musk responded, &#8220;We may have more differences of opinion than I anticipated.&#8221; However, Musk later told <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://pagesix.com/2020/07/13/elon-musk-on-why-hes-still-backing-kanye-west-for-president/" target="_blank">Page Six</a>, &#8220;Kanye explained afterward some of the reasoning behind why he said what he said. It makes more sense than many people, including me, realized.&#8221; On July Fourth, Musk <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://pagesix.com/2020/07/13/elon-musk-on-why-hes-still-backing-kanye-west-for-president/" target="_blank">tweeted</a>, &#8220;You have my full support!&#8221;



&#8211; <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/">Tommy Beer</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/business">Business</a>

Elon Musk Is Now The Fifth Richest Person In The World

This Thursday, Jeff Bezos will make an announcement about his space company, Blue Origin. The image on the invitation sent to members of the press, a view of the Earth as seen from the Moon, suggests the Amazon founder will unveil  Blue Origin’s plans to send both robotic and human missions to the lunar surface, possibly with a NASA contract in hand.



If that’s the case, he won’t be alone. Aerospace contractor Lockheed Martin has already unveiled its lunar plans in partnership with NASA. And Elon Musk’s SpaceX has a plan for a lunar flyby mission, while NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstein suggested to a Senate committee in March that the agency was open to using commercial heavy-lift rockets for its lunar crewed missions. SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy could serve such a mission.



The last few years have seen an increasing interest in going back to the Moon. The Trump Administration has announced it wants NASA to put humans back on the Moon by 2024, and the agency has also announced plans for a “<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/topics/moon-to-mars/lunar-outpost/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Lunar Gateway</a>” &#8211; a space station orbiting the Moon that would be developed in collaboration with multiple space agencies. &nbsp;That space station brings with it opportunities for commercial companies to develop lunar capabilities to provide support for missions at the Gateway.



Lockheed Martin has a long history with NASA and lunar exploration—it was one of the contractors on the Apollo missions. But billionaires Musk, who runs Tesla as well as SpaceX, and Bezos represent the burgeoning commercial space industry, and the paths the two respective men took to get to this point couldn’t be much different.



What the two companies have in common is that both are very much products of their founders’ visions. Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000, just three years after Amazon’s IPO fed his fortune. Two years later, fresh off the sale of PayPal, Musk founded SpaceX with his own personal fortune.



It’s from there, however, that the paths of the companies diverged. For the next 15 years, Blue Origin barely made any noise, save for some controversy as Bezos bought up land in Texas to serve as the company’s test facility in the early 2000s, and some small announcements about milestones it had achieved in agreements made with NASA for about $25.7 million in funding for space development. Bezos remains the sole owner of Blue Origin, and&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;estimates that the world’s wealthiest man has funneled over $1.5 billion of his personal fortune into the company, financed by sales of Amazon stock.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5cd38d915218470008b0301d/960x0.jpg?fit=scale" alt="Time-lapsed photo of SpaceX Falcon 9 launch"/><figcaption>Time-lapsed photo of SpaceX Falcon 9 launchSPACEX</figcaption></figure>



SpaceX, in the meantime, has been anything but quiet. The company began making noise in December 2003, when it drove its first rocket, the Falcon One, from the company’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California to Washington, D.C. in order to unveil it at the National Mall for an invited group of Congressional staffers, NASA and FAA officials.. Musk regularly promotes the company and its plans for the future, his eyes firmly set on Musk’s personal vision that SpaceX is to be the vanguard of humans becoming a multiplanetary civilization.



Musk was also more aggressive in obtaining venture financing and government contracts in order to support his company. Though he still maintains majority ownership (Forbes&nbsp;estimates his stake in the company is over 50%), SpaceX has also raised over $2.5 billion to date in venture financing, grants and debt, with a current valuation of over $31.5 billion, according to Pitchbook. Recent SEC filings show it aims to raise another $500 million in capital this year.



Throughout the past decade, SpaceX has kept itself in the public eye —even as it has brought the “move fast and break things” ethos of Silicon Valley to the traditionally more conservative aerospace industry.



“SpaceX is off trying new things, rapidly innovating, breaking things,” said Chad Anderson, founder of Space Angels, a VC firm specializing in the space industry. &nbsp;“They test quite a bit, and we’ve seen some failures. We’ve seen explosions of rockets — they even put a highlight reel together of rockets exploding as they tried to land them. They take it as a point of pride that they’re willing to try new things and they’re really captured the imagination of the public that way.”



By contrast, Blue Origin rarely makes major announcements about future plans, unless it’s unavoidable due to public contracts or other reasons, preferring instead to focus its press efforts on what it’s accomplished. “Bezos proudly proclaims whenever he does a big announcement, he likes to talk about the things that he’s done,” said Anderson. One rare exception for this has been its plans for the Moon. Its robotic cargo delivery lander, Blue Moon, was first announced in 2017, and last summer the company revealed that it had a five year plan to get to the Moon.



While SpaceX has adopted a high-profile view of its risky, iterative innovation strategy, Blue Origin’s development is nearly the exact opposite. The company motto is&nbsp;Gradatim Ferociter, a Latin phrase meaning Step By Step, Ferociously. In interviews, Bezos has quoted the old military maxim that “slow is smooth and smooth is fast,” and every time one of its resuable rockets has a successful launch and landing, a tortoise is painted on its side, a nod to Aesop’s moral that “slow and steady wins the race.”



Despite Bezos’ faith in a more slow-paced, perfectionist approach to development, it’s undeniable that SpaceX has seen more success &#8211; at least so far. Though Blue Origin has had 11 successful launches to date, it has yet to send any spacecraft to orbit, instead keeping its launches suborbital, like the Mercury spacecraft that its current system is inspired by.



SpaceX, meanwhile, has had over 70 successful commercial orbital launches, which include not only putting satellites in orbit but also 15 successful deliveries of cargo to the International Space Station. It was the first company to make a cargo delivery to the station, and the company has also seen two successful launches of its Falcon Heavy rocket, currently the most powerful rocket in commercial production.



This track record has also come at some cost to the company. It’s had multiple launch failures, some of which have resulted in the loss of customer payloads, and more recently, a test fire of rockets on the spacecraft it’s developing to deliver astronauts to the space station led to the destruction of that craft— and has also likely pushed the schedule for sending astronauts to the station back to 2020. The company was originally set to have its first successful crewed flight in 2017.



In this billionaire race to the Moon, Bezos and Musk have set themselves up as the Tortoise and the Hare, respectively. But it likely won’t be until at least the mid-2020s that we learn which approach will win.



-Alex Knapp; Forbes Staff

960×0

Jeff Bezos And Elon Musk Want To Get To The Moon—They Just Disagree On How To Get There

He was a Los Angeles billionaire known worldwide for pushing the limits of engineering, safety and his bank account to achieve transportation breakthroughs, as well as for gossipy celebrity romances. 



He churned through executives like a buzz saw, made puzzlingly costly business decisions and invited conflict by thumbing his nose at politicians and the law. Yet he was one of the great entrepreneurs of his time.



No, it isn&#8217;t Tesla’s mercurial billionaire CEO Elon Musk, who’s locked in a legal fight with the Securities &amp; Exchange Commission that could lead to his ouster and must put the company on sound footing after burning through $5 billion since 2010 to popularize its electric cars and solar power. 



We’re talking about billionaire Howard Hughes, who at his death was among the world’s richest people. Hughes’ machinery ushered in the oil age, his investments helped popularize commercial air travel, he ran Hollywood’s biggest studios, built an enormous gaming and real estate empire, and has an imprint that stretches from satellite television to the Las Vegas strip and biomedical research.



We’re talking about billionaire Howard Hughes, who at his death was among the world’s richest people. Hughes’ machinery ushered in the oil age, his investments helped popularize commercial air travel, he ran Hollywood’s biggest studios, built an enormous gaming and real estate empire, and has an imprint that stretches from satellite television to the Las Vegas strip and biomedical research.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/billionaires/2019/04/05/jeff-bezos-to-give-mackenzie-25-of-his-amazon-stake-worth-tens-of-billions-in-divorce/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Jeff Bezos To Give MacKenzie 25% Of His Amazon Stake, Worth Tens Of Billions, In Divorce (opens in a new tab)">Jeff Bezos To Give MacKenzie 25% Of His Amazon Stake, Worth Tens Of Billions, In Divorce</a>



As federal judge&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/03/19/sec-slams-elon-musk-for-failing-to-have-a-single-tesla-tweet-checked/#283d8f383a46" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Alison Nathan weighs the SEC’s charge</a>&nbsp;that Musk violated a 2018 settlement arising from alleged share price manipulation with tweets about taking Tesla private, it’s instructive to look back at another mercurial entrepreneur’s career and fights with regulators, because even surprise victories didn’t guarantee long-term stability for Hughes.



Born in 1905, Hughes in the 1920s inherited Hughes Tool, which made drill bits used to burrow oil wells. Uninterested in oil, he let others run the company and moved to Los Angeles to spend Toolco cash on passion projects in two emerging technologies: aviation and moviemaking. Hughes’ silent filmTwo Arabian Knights won Academy awards. During the filming of his 1930 epic Hell’s Angels, pilots died and planes crashed. 



The silver screen adventures made Hughes a celebrity. He dated Jane Russell and Katherine Hepburn and married actress Jean Peters. Likewise, Musk married British actress Talulah Riley following his divorce from author Justine (Wilson) Musk. He’s also dated actress Amber Heard and had a brief but sensational, relationship with indie singer Grimes.



Hughes’ aviation obsession led him in 1932 to create Hughes Aircraft as a division of Toolco, to siphon more profits and manufacture planes in the pursuit of flight records. By 1938 he flew around the world in record time, gaining global fame. In 1939, he paid $9 million to take control of Trans World Airlines. 



Hughes’ aircraft unit was a big military contractor during World War II, and TWA, under his ownership, brought flying into the mainstream through expansion and enormous aircraft investments. The spending even supported burgeoning aerospace conglomerates like Boeing and McDonnell Douglas.



At the time of his death in 1976, Hughes had controlled TWA, RKO, Air West and owned multiple billion-dollar businesses, six casinos and most of the undeveloped land in Las Vegas. Though he spent his last days as a recluse at Xanadu, his Bahamian estate, Hughes’ fame was worldwide, and it carries on with his Howard Hughes Medical Institute, one of America&#8217;s biggest philanthropies. For all the success, Hughes also spent much of his public life fighting with politicians and regulators.



Like Musk, the SEC targeted Hughes for manipulative financial maneuvers in his publicly traded companies, and both faced shareholder lawsuits. Unlike Musk so far, Hughes’ reckless maneuvering also meant he was often forced to put his businesses into blind trust structures, shielded from his capricious management.



Born in South Africa, Musk came to the U.S. to study physics and economics at the University of Pennsylvania in 1992, arriving at the dawn of the internet era in search of big opportunities. Musk later dropped out of Stanford to create a software company he eventually sold to Compaq. 



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/investment/2019/01/15/not-so-fast-can-elon-musk-really-open-teslas-china-gigafactory-this-year/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Not So Fast: Can Elon Musk Really Open Tesla’s China Gigafactory This Year? (opens in a new tab)">Not So Fast: Can Elon Musk Really Open Tesla’s China Gigafactory This Year?</a>



Next he built X.Com, a Web payments company that became part of PayPal, and Musk was treated as a cofounder alongside Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman and others. When eBay bought PayPal in 2002, Musk earned a $165 million payday that bootstrapped his push into new industries. 



He began by founding the rocket company SpaceX in 2002, then in 2004 invested $6.35 million to transform Tesla from a concept on paper into the world’s leading electric car brand. He funded the residential solar energy startup SolarCity in 2006, which has since been integrated into Tesla, and in 2017 created the Boring Company as a way to advance his high-speed Hyperloop concept.



Like Hughes, Musk made daring, contrarian bets aimed at reshaping enormous industries. He, too, wanted to test the limits of corporate leadership to gain ground on incumbents like General Motors, electric utilities, oil companies and government-backed space endeavors. 



Tesla competes with an oligopoly of carmakers specializing in petroleum-powered internal combustion engines. With SpaceX he saw an opportunity to ferry satellites, cargo and astronauts into space as NASA slimmed down. SolarCity’s goal is to accelerate clean energy use and curb dependence on fossil fuels.



All three have become high-profile, multibillion-dollar businesses, but none has produced meaningful profits. They’ve also been hamstrung by Musk’s driven, but often reckless, management style.



SpaceX, a wild success now worth $30 billion, has completed numerous launches for NASA and is the leader in private space travel. Musk also set a goal of not just getting to Mars but colonizing it. At the moment, SpaceX is also reportedly under review as a federal contractor, after Musk smoked pot on comedian Joe Rogan’s podcast. 



Tesla acquired SolarCity in a 2016 merger that puzzled investors and led to accusations of self-dealing since most board members rubber-stamping the purchase were affiliated with Musk. It also triggered a class-action shareholder suit. SolarCity has disappointed so far, losing market share and moving slowly on ambitious plans to sell solar roofs and Powerwall battery storage systems. But none of Musk’s companies has become more valuable or problematic than Tesla.



Two years after its 2010 Nasdaq debut, Tesla and Musk dazzled with the electric Model S, a sleek sedan that won critical raves and blew away sales expectations. Tesla shares soared, and Musk began planning new vehicles including the Model X SUV and mass-market Model 3 sedan. But X was two years late to market, mainly because of the problematic “falcon wing” doors Musk insisted on, and the 3’s rollout was hamstrung by bottlenecks with the automated assembly line Musk envisioned. 



Tesla mostly abandoned his robotic production dream, even building Model 3’s almost by hand in a tentlike assembly line in a lot at its plant in Fremont, California. Since 2016 dozens of top Tesla executives have left, and Wall Street has grown uncomfortable with its billions of dollars in spending but weak financial position.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/lists/2019/04/05/the-10-most-notable-new-billionaires-of-2019/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="The 10 Most Notable New Billionaires Of 2019 (opens in a new tab)">The 10 Most Notable New Billionaires Of 2019</a>



Over time, Hughes became known for increasingly erratic behavior. His fame transitioned from Hollywood showmanship to mystery as he spent his later years as a recluse in a suite in Las Vegas’s Desert Inn and then at his Bahamian Xanadu. “Hughes survived three major airplane crashes and an automobile crash that put him out for two days. His head was badly banged around in all of these, and I think his mental condition can be directly attributed to those crashes,” Noah Dietrich, Hughes’ longtime accountant and confidant, told&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;in 1972. Dietrich recalled a 1944 episode when he told Hughes, “You better see some doctors and do it quick.” When Hughes returned, Dietrich recalled, he said, “Noah, thanks a lot. I had a consultation with three doctors this morning and they tell me I’m right on the verge of a complete mental collapse. They tell me if I don&#8217;t get away for a while and relax&#8230;”



In 2017, Musk <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2017/07/31/amid-his-most-important-tesla-milestone-elon-musk-says-he-may-be-bipolar/#454f42f971f4" target="_blank">tweeted that he might be bipolar</a>, a surprisingly candid admission for such a public figure. But in the summer of 2018, he created unnecessary headaches with several head-scratching moves. He triggered a defamation lawsuit for recklessly calling a British man who aided the rescue of a Thai soccer team trapped in a cave a “pedo” on Twitter. In August, after receiving an investment from Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, he dropped an even bigger Twitter bombshell. “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured,” he blared to 25 million followers. After a probe, the SEC found Musk had little basis to proclaim the buyout and charged him with stock manipulation. In September, after seeking his removal as CEO, the regulator fined Musk and Tesla $40 million, had him step down as chairman and agree to have tweets containing material information reviewed by Tesla officials. Musk agreed to the terms but neglected them and expressed contempt for the SEC. “I want to be clear. I do not respect the SEC. I do not respect them,” he told 60 Minutes’ Lesley Stahl in December 2018. That interview, combined with an inaccurate tweet about Tesla production, led the SEC to claim he had breached the settlement.



Now it’s up to Judge Nathan, who’s presiding over the case in the federal court for the Southern District of New York, to decide Musk’s fate. On Thursday, she asked that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/04/04/elon-musk-lives-to-fight-another-day-as-judge-orders-him-to-work-out-twitter-dispute-with-sec/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Musk and the SEC try to mediate a solution,</a>&nbsp;which was an idea the entrepreneur seemed amenable to. But what if he again opts for a standoff? The most extreme outcome could force Musk out of Tesla management. Could his role at SpaceX also be curbed? Will banks who’ve lent billions to Musk pull their support? These are all scenarios that played out in Hughes’ half-century business career in aviation, film, gambling, real estate and energy.



Consider his deal to take control of Trans World Airlines, an investment that returned Hughes a fiftyfold profit. TWA also spent over a decade battling the billionaire. In 1961, it sued Hughes on antitrust grounds, accusing the mercurial businessman of using a crony as CEO to rubber-stamp $320 million in jet orders, which the airline leased from Hughes Tool and nearly caused the airline to go under. The buying binge propelled TWA into one of the world’s fastest growing airlines, but its cash needs proved to be a double-edged sword. When Hughes’ hand-picked CEO retired midway through a $265 million rescue financing, he was blindsided by a piece of fine print that allowed lenders to put his shares in trust if there were any executive departures. When the financing was completed, TWA was saved, but Hughes lost control. In came the professional management, which turned the tables by suing Hughes on antitrust grounds for the reckless aircraft orders. Hughes sold his TWA stock for $546.5 million in 1966.



Of Hughes’ management,&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;said in a 1961 cover story, “On the whole, it is to be hoped that Howard Hughes will never again be able to exercise the absolute power he once held over TWA. The hope is not expressed from any high-flown considerations of economic morality or national interest. Rather, it is because Hughes is basically a distraction: No rational analysis of TWA and its prospects seems possible without soon being perverted into a discussion of this mysterious, magnetic, remarkable man.”



Even after Hughes’ sold his stake in TWA, the battle raged on, with the airline winning a $135 million judgment against the entrepreneur in 1963. For the better part of a decade, the nine-figure legal loss hung over Hughes’ empire. In 1972, an appeal by the billionaire made it to the Supreme Court, where Hughes prevailed.



That wasn’t the only airline conquest that resulted in legal trouble for Hughes. After exiting TWA, he set his sights on Air West, offering to buy the struggling airline for $81 million, or $22 a share, in a 1968 hostile takeover. Hughes won a lengthy battle and changed the airline’s name to Hughes Air West. However, in 1970 when shareholders were paid, they received just $8 a share. In 1973, Hughes and four associates were charged criminally for stock manipulation, conspiracy and wire fraud. In 1975 the SEC joined the legal battle. The suit raged on through Hughes’ death in 1976. His estate paid $30 million to the SEC in 1979 to settle the charges.



As a government contractor, Hughes invited particular scrutiny. Hughes Aircraft was notorious for missing deadlines and frustrating federal bureaucracies. During World War II, it was tasked with building a spy plane that was never delivered, though Hughes narrowly escaped death crashing a prototype in Beverly Hills. Then came notoriety. Hughes was contracted to build a plane to shuttle supplies and troops by air, instead of warships susceptible to German U-boats. His eight-engine, 750-person plywood H-4 Hercules, known nationwide as the Spruce Goose, was a marvel of ambition. But the war came and went, tens of millions were spent, and it wouldn’t fly.



In 1947, Owen Brewster, a U.S. senator from Maine who was an ally of infamous Senator Joseph McCarthy, brought Hughes to the Senate to testify on why the government spent $40 million on a plane that wasn’t delivered. To deflect accusations the was selling vaporware, Hughes organized a media event in Long Beach, California, in which he flew the Spruce Goose 33 feet in the air for about a minute, winning the public’s support and eventually ending Brewster’s political career. But to remain a government contractor, he was forced in 1953 to spin off Hughes Aircraft and put it in a trust, which was called the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. When Hughes died in 1976, he was among the world’s richest people, and nearly everything he owned was under a legal cloud.



Hughes’ divestiture of Hughes Aircraft in 1953, Forbes reported in a 1984 feature, wasn’t without upside. “The suspicion has been that the whole affair was a tax move designed to keep Howard Hughes in sole control while paying no taxes,” wrote reporter Allan Dodds Frank. The Hughes estate sold Hughes Aircraft–which evolved into a coveted giant in satellite TV that birthed DirecTV–to General Motors in 1985 for $5 billion. 



The sale turned the institute into a top philanthropy and a leader in genetics and biomedical research: It has distributed $22 billion and 28 of its current and former scientists have been awarded Nobel prizes. In a 1972 exclusive interview with Forbes, Dietrich, Hughes’ accountant, revealed that the billionaire had probably paid just $20,000 a year in taxes. 



Dietrich himself spent years in a legal battle over undelivered bonus pay Hughes promised him if he stayed amid constant turnover. And though Dietrich’s tell-all to Forbes was mostly critical, the loyal adviser conceded, “Hughes did have a certain amount of mechanical genius.”



While Musk received most of the credit for Tesla’s early breakthrough with Model S, he benefited from an able team that included veteran auto engineers Peter Rawlinson and Nick Sampson; battery expert Kurt Kelty; George Blankenship, who designed Tesla’s stores; and government affairs pro Diarmuid O’Connell. None of them are still with Tesla. And while Musk gained billions from SpaceX, it’s been ably run (with minimal turnover) by president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell. It’s a contrast to Musk’s Model 3 “production hell” in 2018, when he spent many nights sleeping on a sofa in Tesla’s Fremont factory or jetting off to promote subterranean transit tunneling services by his Boring Co.



For all the similarities between the two men, there are also major differences. Hughes hardly ever relied on outside money to finance his whims. In his 20s, he smartly took 100% ownership of Hughes Tool and thus could plunder its cash without having to answer to anyone. Musk, on the other hand, magnified his PayPal windfall with enormous sums of other people’s money, on public stock markets and in private markets. He answers not only to public shareholders and venture capitalists in all of his endeavors but also to bankers, who’ve provided billions in margin debt to maintain large Tesla and SpaceX holdings as they’ve raised capital.



As much as Tesla and SpaceX’s combined $80 billion market cap is a marvel–and Musk’s newer ventures like Hyperloop and Boring Co. set impressive goals–they have yet to profit on their industry-changing intentions. Much of Musk’s empire is still based on undelivered promises anchored to time-bound investor expectations.



-Antoine Gara; Forbes Staff



-Alan Ohnsman; Forbes Staff



-With assistance from Susan Radlauer

Crazy Aviators: The Eerie Similarities Between Billionaire Howard Hughes And Elon Musk

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk made a brief public appearance late on Tuesday to unveil the first tunnel completed by the underground transit venture he launched two years ago as an ambitious remedy to Los Angeles’ infamously heavy traffic.



But contrary to some of his own hype from several months ago, free rides were not part of the grand opening.



In a 30-minute presentation carried by live webcast, Musk touted the newly finished 1.14-mile (1.83 km) tunnel segment as a breakthrough in low-cost, fast-digging technology being pioneered by his nascent tunneling firm, the Boring Company.



Musk has advertised the proof-of-concept tunnel as a first step toward developing a high-speed subterranean network capable of whisking vehicles and pedestrians below the “soul-destroying” street traffic of America’s second-largest city at up to 150 miles per hour. But such a system has a long way to go.



The new tunnel was excavated along a path that runs not through Los Angeles but beneath the tiny adjacent municipality of Hawthorne, where Musk’s Boring Company and his SpaceX rocket firm are both headquartered.



Musk, best known as head of the Tesla Inc electric car manufacturer and energy company, launched his foray into public transit after complaining on Twitter in December 2016 that L.A.’s traffic was “driving me nuts,” promising then to “build a boring machine and just start digging.”



In May, the company gave the world a preview of the Hawthorne tunnel, posting a fast-forward video of its interior shot by a camera traveling the length of the cylindrical passageway, which measures about 12 feet (3.7 m) in diameter.



On Tuesday, Musk put the total price tag for the finished segment at about $10 million, including the cost of excavation, internal infrastructure, lighting, ventilation, safety systems, communications and a track.



By comparison, he said, digging a mile of tunnel by “traditional” engineering methods costs up to $1 billion and takes three to six months to complete.



<h5 class="wp-block-heading">FASTER THAN A SNAIL?</h5>



Musk boasted of several cost-cutting innovations, including higher-power boring machines, digging narrower tunnels, speeding up dirt removal, and simultaneous excavation and reinforcement.



He also invoked his favorite comparison with a snail, a creature he said moves 14 times faster than the speed of a typical tunneling machine. “Aspirationally, we should be slightly faster than a snail,” he said.



Musk did not say how long it took to burrow his new tunnel, which ended up running short of the 2-mile easement his company originally requested for the project.



But he showed pre-recorded video footage of a newly built elevator station designed to carry passengers from street level to the tunnel’s subterranean entryway. The video featured a modified Tesla Model X luxury car on the elevator.



When fully operational, the “loop” system as Musk envisions it will consist of passenger- and automobile-carrying platforms called “skates” that can zip through the tunnels by way of electric power once they descend into the underground network.



Alternately, he said, passenger cars could be outfitted with retractable side wheels allowing them to travel through the loop autonomously.



Musk arrived at Tuesday night’s event in a Tesla vehicle so equipped, emerging from the car at one end of the tunnel &#8211; bathed in green and blue interior lights &#8211; as he was cheered by a small, enthusiastic crowd gathered for the presentation.



Musk created a stir earlier this year by promising free trips through the tunnel once it opened. However, no such rides were in the offing on Tuesday night. A company message posted online beforehand said tunnel tours “are by invitation only,” citing “unbelievably high demand.”



Clock ticks toward potential Friday shutdown



If successful, the Hawthorne tunnel is envisioned as eventually connecting to a network of other tunnels, yet to be built.



Last month, the Boring Company scrapped plans for a 2.7-mile segment under a West Los Angeles neighborhood, settling litigation brought by community groups opposed to that project.



But Musk’s company said it was moving ahead with a proposed tunnel across town to connect Dodger Stadium, home of the city’s Major League Baseball team, to an existing subway line.



In June, Boring was selected by Chicago to build a 17-mile underground transit system linking that city’s downtown to its main airport. The company also has proposed an East Coast Loop that would run from Washington, D.C., to the Maryland suburbs. &#8211; Reuters



&#8211; Steve Gorman



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Elon Musk Unveils His First Los Angeles-area Tunnel

Elon Musk wowed millions of people who watched the livestream of a flawless first <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2018/02/06/spacex-successfully-launched-its-falcon-heavy-rocket-sent-a-car-to-space-and-landed-boosters/#3cfcebd47076" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket</a>, which carried a Tesla roadster into space, capped by the elegant, simultaneous landing of two boosters. Musk’s euphoria was undiminished as he shifted gears on Wednesday to Tesla, pointing to a silver lining for the high-flying carmaker that capped a year of big losses and production headaches for its critical Model 3 sedan.
The company reported a whopping $675.4 million net loss for the final quarter of 2017 and a $1.96 billion deficit for the year, the most ever on both counts. Loss per share was $4.01 on a GAAP basis, or $3.04 per share excluding some items. That was better than consensus estimates for adjusted EPS losses of $3.10 to $3.19, and likely the result of bigger than expected sales of <a href="https://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/zevprog.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">emissions credits</a>. Tesla shares plunged 8.6% to $315.23 on Thursday.
<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Musk</a> and Tesla CFO Deepak Ahuja acknowledged 2017’s challenges in a letter to investors but also said the table was set for a much better year in 2018. Notably, they predict operating income will become “sustainably positive” at some point this year and that production of Model 3, as well as the S and X crossover, will continue to grow.
“2018 will be a transformative year for Tesla, with a high level of operational scaling,” the two said. “As we ramp production of both Model 3 and our energy products while keeping tight control of operating expenses, our quarterly operating income should turn sustainably positive at some point in 2018.”
The company stuck with its production guidance for the Model 3, nominally priced from $35,000, to reach 2,500 units a week by the end of the first quarter, and then 5,000 a week at the end of the second quarter. The Palo Alto, California-based company didn&#8217;t say when it will hit its ultimate target of 10,000 Model 3s a week, enough to hit Musk’s goal of 500,000 a year.
“Even this Tesla realist and Model 3 deposit holder has doubts about Tesla ramping up to 10,000 units/week, essentially promising production levels of over 250,000 units in 2018,&#8221; said Rebecca Lindland, executive analyst at Kelley Blue Book’s <a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/PSAxCDkwn3sOzLgBhle12n" target="_blank" rel="noopener">KBB.com</a>. &#8220;I think they’ll be lucky to get 150,000 units out the door in 2018, and even that would be an incredibly impressive feat, requiring an average weekly rate of over 3,000 units for every single week left in 2018 with no breaks. Elon Musk needs a team of forecasters that he’ll listen to so he can finally provide Wall Street and depositors with achievable targets.”
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Last month, Tesla cut its Model 3 production target for a second time after building just 2,425 in the fourth quarter. Total production, including the higher-priced Model S and Model X, was 101,027 units in 2017.
Still, the fact that the company affirmed its production goals, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2018/01/03/tesla-on-a-slow-road-out-of-hell-as-model-3-quarterly-output-inches-up/#713c96427173" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">which were revised down in January</a>, was the best news in the report, said Jeff Reeves, analyst and executive editor of <a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/bev6CNk7A3sM8P55uzPiXt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">InvestorPlace.com</a>.
“There are never any guarantees, but Elon Musk hasn’t been shy about cutting back forecasts in recent months so he certainly would have pulled back on the reins if Tesla wasn’t confident,” Reeves told Forbes. The company also managed to burn far less cash in the fourth quarter, trimming it to $276.8 million in the quarter, compared with $1.42 billion in the third quarter and $969.8 million a year ago, he said.
“It’s always about growth with Tesla, not the bottom line,” Reeves said. “But it’s also encouraging to see a smaller-than-expected loss and a cash burn that dropped significantly from Q3 to Q4.”
Tesla&#8217;s sales of zero-emission vehicle, or ZEV, credits to other automakers that need them to comply with California&#8217;s tough emissions rules, were up significantly from a year earlier, to $179 million compared with $20 million in the final quarter of 2016. Barclays analyst Brian Johnson predicted $10 million for the quarter. Exceeding the forecast provided Tesla an adjusted net loss that was slightly better than expected.
Tesla completed the integration of SolarCity into its operations in 2017 and aims to significantly boost shipments of solar panels and power storage units this year.
“We expect energy storage products to experience significant growth, with our aim to at least triple our sales this year,” Musk and Ahuja said. “We expect energy generation and storage gross margin to improve significantly in 2018 as we enter the year with a backlog of higher-margin commercial solar projects and a more profitable energy storage business due to manufacturing efficiencies from scaling.”
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Capital expenditures will continue to rise in 2018, to expand output at the Gigafactory battery plant in Nevada and continued investment in production capacity at Tesla’s Fremont, California, plant, the company said. Tesla will also start investing this year to add production of the Model Y, a small electric crossover that will be the next vehicle in its lineup.
&#8220;We are going, as you suspect, to need to make some capital investments in the second half of this year, in late Q3, Q4, for Model Y. We want to wait probably three to six months before announcing any definitive plans on production location or details associated with that,&#8221; Musk said in a conference call with analysts.
His expectations for Model Y, which hasn&#8217;t yet been unveiled, are enormous.
&#8220;To give you some flavor for optimism for Model Y&#8230; we might aim for something like maybe capacity of a million units a year, just for Model Y alone. I think we&#8217;ll be able to do that for capex that is less than Model 3 capex at the half-million-unit level&#8221;, Musk said.
Notably, customer deposits for Model 3, as well as the recently announced Semi and Roadster became a major balance sheet item for Tesla, totaling $858 million at the end of 2017, up from $663 million a year earlier. While most of those funds are from the nearly half-million reservations Tesla has for the Model 3, a growing portion comes from the battery-powered Class 8 truck and high-end sports car.
Separately, Musk said that Jon McNeill, who had been head of the company&#8217;s sales and service group, had left the company. Musk said he&#8217;ll oversee those functions himself. Lyft said it hired McNeil as its chief operating officer.
“Jon is a world-class leader who brings deep experience as a highly successful entrepreneur and executive,&#8221; Lyft CEO Logan Green said in an emailed statement. &#8220;Last year, the Lyft community experienced more growth than in all previous years combined, growing rides by 2.3x and increasing market share by more than 50%. Jon is the right leader to build upon this momentum with his unique background of starting companies from scratch and managing at scale.” &#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga-track="contrib block byline">Alan Ohnsman</a>, FORBES STAFF

Tesla’s $675 Million Loss Pulls Elon Musk Back To Earth After Stellar SpaceX Launch

Tesla’s fleet of electric vehicles are known for their smooth ride; production at the company plant has been markedly choppier.
On Wednesday afternoon, the carmaker unveiled its third-quarter earnings. It posted revenue slightly higher than analyst estimates, but also an adjusted loss of $2.92 per share, 30% greater than predicted. Moreover, production bottlenecks have delayed shipments of the company’s new Model 3 vehicle, rendering it unlikely that Tesla will achieve its target delivery pace of 500,000 cars per year by the end of 2018. (Read more on that <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2017/11/01/tesla-pins-model-3-production-snag-on-battery-packs-as-quarterly-loss-widens/#25b2b4905488" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.)
In light of that news, investors sent Tesla shares tumbling 7% through 11:15 Eastern Time on Thursday. The stock is now trading below $300 per share for the first time since May.
That decline impacted no person as much as <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Elon Musk</a>, Tesla’s CEO and largest individual shareholder. His net worth slumped $800 million in response to the bad news. He is now worth an estimated $19.1 billion, according to Forbes’ <a href="https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/#version:realtime" target="_blank" rel="noopener">real-time</a> rankings of the World’s Billionaires, and is the 23rd richest person in America. His net worth is down $1.7 billion since the annual <a href="https://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/#400d61287e2f" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Forbes 400</a> ranking was published last month.
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Fortunately for the South African native, his wealth is somewhat diversified. Roughly half of his fortune is tied up in Tesla shares. The bulk of the rest is comprised of his stake in rocket maker SpaceX, which <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2017/08/23/elon-musks-net-worth-eclipses-20-billion-for-first-time/#45cdd0c86ac7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">raised $350 million</a> in July at a valuation of about $21 billion. He owns approximately 50% of the business.
Musk, 46, has a long track record of entrepreneurial success. His first major exit came in 1999, when he sold software firm Zip2, which he cofounded, to Compaq for a reported price of over $300 million. He then earned an even more lucrative payout in 2002 after Paypal, which he also cofounded, was acquired by eBay for $1.4 billion.
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He joined Tesla in 2004 as a major investor and took the helm in 2008. At the time, the company’s future looked dire, as credit markets were drying up during the global financial crisis and development was severely behind schedule.
Eventually, the company began churning out cars, beginning with its sleek Roadster vehicle. Even with this week’s decline, the business has been an overall colossal success. It now boasts a market capitalization of nearly $50 billion. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga-track="contrib block byline">Noah Kirsch</a>, FORBES STAFF

Roadblock: Elon Musk’s Net Worth Drops $800 Million In A Day Amid Tesla Woes

Elon Musk, a polymath entrepreneur who nearly went bankrupt launching Tesla Motors and rocket company SpaceX, is now worth more than $20 billion.
On Wednesday, Forbes unveiled its annual <a href="https://www.forbes.com/richest-in-tech/#699b58697316" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Richest In Tech</a> list, which ranks the 100 wealthiest self-made tech billionaires. Musk placed 12th in the order, at $20.7 billion, ahead of high-profile names including Paul Allen ($20.5 billion) and Eric Schmidt ($12.4 billion).
This week marks the first time Musk’s fortune has eclipsed $20 billion on Forbes’ <a href="https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/#version:realtime" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rankings</a> of the planet’s wealthiest people. In March, when Forbes released its list of <a href="http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The World’s Billionaires</a>, his net worth stood at $13.9 billion.
Much of the increase since then is attributable to the soaring value of aerospace firm SpaceX. The company, which ultimately plans to send humans to Mars, raised $350 million last month at a valuation of about $21 billion; <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Musk</a> owns more than half of the business. News of the funding round was first <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/technology/spacex-is-now-one-of-the-worlds-most-valuable-privately-held-companies.html?_r=0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> by the New York Times.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/extreme-execs/2017/07/26/investors-believe-elon-musk-not-mary-barra/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Why Do Investors Believe Elon Musk But Not Mary Barra?</a>
SpaceX has notched a number of significant achievements this year. In March, it sent a cargo payload <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2017/03/30/what-spacexs-successful-reusable-rocket-launch-means-for-the-space-industry/#7217ccae731e" target="_blank" rel="noopener">into orbit</a> with a previously-used rocket, making it the first private company to do so. More recently, on Wednesday, Musk revealed the first images of a SpaceX spacesuit on his personal Instagram <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BYIPmEFAIIn/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">page</a>. He confirmed in February that the company will send humans to space as early as next year.
Progress at Tesla, Musk’s publicly-traded electric carmaker, has also been strong. The company is rolling out a new, lower-priced vehicle, the Model 3, to substantial demand and nearly universal acclaim. The business continues to rack up losses, but Tesla’s stock has nonetheless jumped 55% in the last year.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2015/07/01/raise-family-genius-billionaires/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">How To Raise A Family Of Genius Billionaires</a>
Musk, 46, realized his first major entrepreneurial success in 1999 selling software firm Zip2, which he cofounded, to Compaq for a reported price of more than $300 million; he had previously deferred graduate school at Stanford to start the business. He then made an even larger fortune after Paypal, which he also cofounded, was acquired by eBay for $1.4 billion in 2002.
Musk joined Tesla in 2004 as a key investor and became CEO in 2008, when the business struggled to find credit during the global financial crisis. He reportedly liquidated nearly all of his assets to fund continued development at Tesla and SpaceX, both of which were viewed as long-shot ventures by many outsiders.
Now, as SpaceX rockets fly further into space, Musk’s net worth seems to defy gravity as well. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga-track="contrib block byline">Noah Kirsch</a>, FORBES STAFF

Elon Musk’s Net Worth Eclipses $20 Billion For First Time

Many would walk past him without a second glance. But this unassuming man, in a brown jacket and faded jeans, is the man who brought up a billionaire in Africa. This is Errol Musk, father to Elon – the $13.3-billion United States entrepreneur who founded PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX and wants to go to Mars. Eroll’s son, Kimbal, is a millionaire and his daughter, Tasko, is a film producer.
“They’ve been doing well all their lives. It’s not like one suddenly jumps into it right now. It’s been like that as far as I can remember. [Elon’s] sister Tasko would say you can ask Elon to do a lot of things on his computer but don’t ask him to catch a bus. We traveled a lot in those days, their mother and I split up when they were quite young and the kids stayed with me. I took them all over the world. Elon was generally in the backseat, Kimbal, my other son who is just as energetic as Elon, would do all the guiding and navigating,” says Errol.
“Elon has always been an introvert thinker, so where a lot of people would go to a great party and have a great time and drink and talk about all sorts of things like rugby or sport, you would find Elon had found the person’s library and was going through their books. He’d find fun in that, not to say he wasn’t a person who would party every now and then.”
“The kind of things he would come up with as a youngster was always surprising. When he was very small, he would ask me ‘where is the whole world?’ when he was three or four. It was these sorts of questions that made me realize that he was a little different,” says Errol in an interview on radio station 702, in Johannesburg.
The Musk family is full of adventurers. Errol’s grandmother was Canada’s first chiropractor. His father and mother were the first to fly from South Africa to Australia in a single-engine plane. Errol, a pilot, sailor and engineer, raised Elon and Kimbal in the quiet suburbs of Pretoria.
Elon’s siblings also share the limelight. Toska is a producer and director. Kimbal owns a number of restaurant chains and spearheads a non-profit school education based program, The Kitchen Community, which grows vegetables in the United States.
“Kimbal is much more of a party animal. He is one of the two original directors of SpaceX and he’s a director of Tesla… But he’s in his own world [and has] gone into restaurants and catering. He has a number of very large restaurants. He is also part of one of the fastest growing fast foods spaces called Chipotle Mexican Grill.”
“Kimbal started a thing where he put fiberglass tubes in a snakelike shape to make a garden and taught children to grow vegetables… an article on FORBES said he was the Musk who is going to change how we eat.”
It’s a story that dates back to the 1980s in Pretoria. Errol made money by consulting and developing properties while the boys scribbled away at their desks at Pretoria Boys High School (PBHS).
“My impression is that Elon kept to himself and was relatively quiet and reserved. I believe he was involved with the computer club at school, but otherwise was not really visible in mainstream activities,” says Gavin Ehlers who was headboy at PBHS in 1988, the same year Musk finished school.
Not surprisingly, Elon graduated with distinctions in physical science and computer science, recalls Bill Schroder, the headmaster of the school from 1990 to 2009. Elon and Kimbal then emigrated to Canada with their mother, Maye, in part to avoid conscription in the South African army, before taking the plunge as entrepreneurs in the United States.
“In the mid-eighties I remember him showing me a box with a red light on it and he would say this is a modem. With this, computers can talk to one another. If that computer is on the line then I can talk to a computer in England and ask it questions. He was always switched on,” says Errol.
So what lies ahead for the billionaire Elon who wants to go to Mars?
On the cards is a possible return to Africa to install thousands of Tesla Powerwalls, a 15-centimeter sized battery box that can store up to 10kWh of free, cheap renewable energy for your house.. This is enough energy to keep your fridge cold for 600 hours, according to Eskom, South Africa’s national power utility, and could solve the country’s energy problems.
“As far as Elon is concerned, I worry, what now? What is there? I start to worry of boredom. I get worried that he is getting bored of sending stuff to NASA every week or two weeks. I mean this is becoming passé… He is one of those people, and certainly was as a boy, if he suddenly decides it’s not interesting anymore he just kind of drops it. I doubt he will though,” says Errol.
From Pretoria to the stars, Elon could go to Mars.

Tag: SpaceX

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