SpaceX S-1 cites $26.5T AI market
SpaceX's IPO S-1 filing claims a $26.5 trillion actionable total addressable market for AI, a figure Gary Rivlin called entirely made up.
Snapshot · This Week in Tech (Audio)
TWiT 1086: The Great Beagle Migration - Pope Leo XIV's 1st Encyclical & Ferrari's 1st EV
Explore episode
May 31, 2026
Where this was said
SpaceX IPO: Musk Votes Shares He Doesn't Own Yet
At 4:08 · chapter starts 1:35
With SpaceX's IPO S-1 still fresh off the press, Gary Rivlin leads a sharp dissection of its most audacious provisions. The standout: Elon Musk retains voting rights on performance shares that haven't been granted yet, contingent on benchmarks like putting a million people on Mars — meaning he can vote equity he doesn't own. [1] — Gary Rivlin "SpaceX's S-1 IPO filing contains a provision allowing Elon Musk to vote performance shares that haven't been granted to him yet — shares co…" 03:30 Rivlin also highlights a $26.5 trillion actionable total addressable market for AI that he flatly calls fabricated. Sam Abuelsamid adds a crucial economic reality check: strip out Starlink and SpaceX's actual rocket-launch business loses money even after receiving roughly $38 billion in federal government revenue. The group notes that SpaceX's corporate governance would be scandalous at any conventional public company, but investors will likely pile in anyway, betting on the Musk halo effect rather than the underlying financials — treating it as a meme stock before it's even listed.
SpaceX IPO: Voting Shares He Doesn't Own Yet
SpaceX's S-1 IPO filing contains a provision allowing Elon Musk to vote performance shares that haven't been granted to him yet — shares contingent on impossible benchmarks like putting a million people on Mars. Gary Rivlin calls the entire document a masterclass in Muskian make-believe, with a $26.5 trillion AI market figure he calls 'made up.'
SpaceX $38B in federal contracts
SpaceX receives approximately $38 billion in federal government contracts, yet its non-Starlink space launch business still loses money.
Blue Origin's Spectacular Launchpad Explosion
Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket exploded during a hot fire test, destroying the company's only launchpad and setting back NASA's lunar program by at least a year. The explosion was so massive that Ring camera videos captured the sky lighting up miles away — and it puts the spotlight on how Blue Origin's failure creates a dangerous SpaceX monopoly on U.S. launch capacity.
Similar snapshots
$14K/month in 6 months
Sam built Algrow from zero to $14,000 in monthly revenue within just six months of shipping his first MVP.
10,000 users in 6 months
Algrow reached over 10,000 users in roughly six months, driven almost entirely by organic Discord community growth.
First 400 users from Discord
Sam acquired his first 400 users entirely through Discord communities, without paid advertising or traditional outreach.
480 new customers in one month
Algrow added exactly 480 new paying customers in its most recent month, demonstrating strong ongoing growth.
£10K revenue in last 4 weeks
Sam's Stripe dashboard showed over £10,000 in revenue in the last four weeks, equivalent to roughly $13,000–$14,000 USD.
Free access for early users as growth hack
Sam gave all early users free access so they could show the tool to friends, turning them into live demos and advocates who helped the product spread virally.
No self-promo rule exploit: screen sharing
By silently screen-sharing his tool in Discord voice chats rather than posting links, Sam attracted curiosity without violating no-self-promo server rules.
$10K+ from affiliate marketing first
Before building Algrow, Sam and two friends made over $10,000 in revenue through affiliate marketing for RizzApp by posting faceless texting story content.
First 100 customers from email list
Daily content drives traffic to a waitlist landing page; those email subscribers become your first 100 customers because they already trust you and want to solve the pain you address.
