Even SpaceX Doesn't Believe SpaceX's Hype About Space AI And Moon Cities - Jalopnik

Remember those halcyon days when SpaceX believed it was on the cusp of transforming humanity? It feels like only just this year that SpaceX was filing to launch one million AI data center satellites into orbit, something it claimed would be "a first step toward becoming a Kardashev Type II civilization." I am even old enough to remember when CEO Elon Musk said the company planned to build "a self-growing city on the Moon," all part of a plan to "extend consciousness and life as we know it to the stars." Such dreams, SpaceX had! Such aspirations!

Well, that was all before the space juggernaut quietly filed for an IPO, and now, the tune is a little different. Reuters got ahold of the S-1 filing of the world's most valuable private company, which lays out financial information and known risks for potential investors. In it, SpaceX writes:

Our initiatives to develop orbital AI compute and in-orbit, lunar, and interplanetary industrialization are in early stages, involve significant technical complexity and unproven technologies, and may not achieve commercial viability.

This is obviously a serious business document for serious business people, so the language is more restrained than Musk's bluster. But SpaceX is aiming for a colossal $1.75 trillion valuation, which just so happens to be just larger than the current record-holder, Saudi Aramco in 2019 at $1.7 trillion. That gigantic figure is only justifiable if SpaceX is about to rewrite history. So any sense that SpaceX might fall short is a risk. "May not achieve commercial viability" is about as short as it gets!