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Elon Musk: I'll Put a Human On Mars By 2026
An anonymous reader writes Elon Musk says that he'll put the first human boots on Mars well before the 2020s are over. "I'm hopeful that the first people could be taken to Mars in 10 to 12 years, I think it's certainly possible for that to occur," he said. "But the thing that matters long term is to have a self-sustaining city on Mars, to make life multiplanetary." He acknowledged that the company's plans were too long-term to attract many hedge fund managers, which makes it hard for SpaceX to go public anytime soon. "We need to get where things a steady and predictable," Musk said. "Maybe we're close to developing the Mars vehicle, or ideally we've flown it a few times, then I think going public would make more sense."
My favourite tweet of all time is from Musk.
'No near term plans to IPO @SpaceX. Only possible in very long term when Mars Colonial Transporter is flying regularly.'
Because unfortunately, an IPO for the general public means that unfortunate things happen.
You lose signifcant control of your company - possibly totally.
Musk developed Falcon Heavy - with essentially no market.
The Raptor engine currently in development has no market.
The requirement for reusability is reasonable from a long-term perspective.
You can't - as I understand it - legally IPO to only those sharing your vision. You are going ... purchasing slices of your company to diversify their
to get pension funds and hedge funds and
portfolios.
These may then not want you to go spending money on wild unprofitable in the next 10 years crap, but
to make next years dividend larger.
Maybe but I'd rather have someone say let's shoot for the moon (or Mars) rather than just making a ton of profit using patents on old technology.