That is the Starship over there on the right. The Starship with both stages. The bottom stage has not been built as yet I think. I watched the flight of SN10. It was quite pleasing to see this giant metal creature fling itself into the sky. It was even more pleasing to see it return to sit upright on the landing pad. Unfortunately there was a combustibles leak somewhere on the bird and after ten minutes or so it blew up. No matter! SpaceX has two or three more under construction at Boca Chica. Maybe the next one won’t leak.
Late last night SpaceX launched Starlink 17 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This bird delivered another batch of 60 Starlink communications satellite to LEO. What does that make now 1100-1200 in position in space. they successfully recovered the first stage on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You.” This was the 8th trip to space for this particular booster. SpaceX is doing a 90 day turn-around on reusability for these boosters. Da plan is to eventually put 400 of these grand commo widgets into orbit on Starship flights.
Well, pilgrim turcopoles I wonder if the Mighty Elon would be able to spend this kind of money if the Miniscule Senator Warren is able to pass a Wealth Tax to take 2%/year of his money away. pl
If you look closely, there was a problem landing SN10. It was clearly tilted to one side. Space-X will probably reveal details later, but it looks like some sort of problem related to the landing legs. It could be something like a hard landing or partial landing leg failure. That could lead to the fire and eventual explosion.
Still, it’s a fantastic example of making progress through use of experiments instead of paper analysis and meetings. It’s a long time ago, but the US lost 12 out of 12 of the first spy satellites. Back then costs were different, computers were actual human beings, and they just built and launched better versions each time. Eventually spy satellites worked.
If Fauxcahontas and the Winter Soldier Climate expert have their way space flight might get shifted to China. I’m surprised they haven’t ripped off the IP from SpaceX yet.
To answer your question, Colonel, the wealth tax would result in a huge hit on his wealth, but probably nowhere near the hit he has taken since early January, when TSLA was at $880 per share. It has lost almost 1/3 of its value since then, and is currently at +/- $600 per share.
According to Forbes daily update of the world’s richest people (really important information to us poor slobs), his net worth has dropped from +/- $185 billion in early January to +/- $149 billion according to Forbes list as of market close yesterday.
https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#3160dca33d78
And it is dropping further as I write. Assuming the slide in the Nasdaq continues for some weeks, his net worth might just drop to $140 billion, or lower. For calculations sake, and being conservative as we all are, let’s assume his net worth drops to $125 billion before the slide in the Nasdaq stops.
You seem to have underestimated Senator Warren’s avarice somewhat, Colonel. Her proposal is 2% on net worth in excess of $50 million, and 3% of net worth in excess of $1 billion. Since the 2% tax on the first billion of Musk’s wealth would be chump change, it would be reasonable to calculate his wealth tax at 3% of his entire net worth.
Assuming as I have that his net worth drops to $125 billion, a 3% wealth tax would amount to +/- $3,750,000,000.00 ($3.75 billion). That is sure a lot of moolah! But according to Forbes, it is not anywhere near as much as he lost in the market this week alone!
And assuming a reasonable over-time growth rate of 4% per year, it would not be unreasonable to assume that even after paying the tax his net worth would increase by $1 billion or more per year, all other things being equal.
So it would appear, Colonel, that the Mighty Elon would not really have any trouble in continuing his space exploration endeavors! And good for him. In all seriousness I applaud his genius, and only wish that I had bought some TSLA when it was $85 per share!
Not bad for a poor boy from South Africa. I knew about the 3% but was having a senior moment.
I seldom have anything other than senior moments these days.
Col. Lang,
Elon is using investor capital (OPM). SpaceX just raised a new round. Early investors including Elon are sitting on some nice paper capital gains at the last round valuation. It is wonderful that private investors are willing to fund the growth of this company. SpaceX clearly is providing nice competition to the traditional defense aerospace companies that dominated this market segment.
The problem with wealth taxes like this is that they require the target to deliver cash from wealth that is usually tied up in assets.
If those assets are in company shares, those shares will usually reduce in value when a significant shareholder sells. This reduces the targets wealth and hence its ongoing tax liabilities.
It is those in the $50-100M bracket that will probably be hardest hit as much of their wealth could be in housing which may need to be sold. If excluded from the tax it is a pretty big loophole. Whether it is probably depends on how many current or past politicians are caught up in it.
on mars
they say
the grass is greener on mars
and you may
drive electric cars
the red trees
grow so high
there glass leaves
glow brightly in the sky
the deer
are somewhat mechanical
they have shiny black hair
eyes that are atomical
a soulless substitution
for the garden of eden
where the tree of destitution
bears fruit that cannot be eaten
here on this moons barren plain
mankinds first stepping stone
a place of no rain
I atone
for the forgotten earth
a once blue now yellow sky
our place of birth
now bled dry
On Tue, 2 Mar 2021, 21:26 edward, wrote:
they say
the grass is greener on mars
and you may
ride in electric cars
the red trees
grow so high
there glass leaves
glow brightly in the sky
the deer there
are somewhat mechanical
they have shiny blue hair
a most unusual animal
on this moon’s barren plain
mankinds stepping stone
a place of no rain
I atone
for the forgotten earth
a once blue now yellow sky
our place of birth
now bled dry