Elon Musk on the challenge of SpaceX being a public company | The Economist

One of the. challenges with. being a public company. is that, the pressure. to have great results. every single quarter. And to not really invest. in things that may only. pay off in five to ten years. In the case of SpaceX. I want to extend consciousness. beyond Earth and have a. growing civilisation. on the Moon, Mars. and elsewhere in the solar system.

I think ultimately. this would have a very high return. on investment. But in the short. term, we'll be spending. all this money on a Moon base. and a Mars base. I’m going to get all this pressure for. like well, you missed your earnings. this quarter, because you spent. too much on Mars. And I'm like, yes—. by the way. that was in the S-1 prospectus. and it's literally. listed as a thing. we will do. But they still get. grumpy about these things. because their like, well you had. whatever, you know you said.

your gross margin. would be this. and it's actually slightly worse, now we're going to punish you. and the short-sellers. will descend upon you. and you get a lot of pressure. You're going to get a lot of that. I just need some way to. say, listen guys, we're going to focus on. five- to ten-year. or longer time-raising investments. This will depress. our short-term earnings. If you take a long-term. view and there are investors, we have any investors. that do take long-term view. In fact. I'm a big fan of. the retail investors.

In fact. I find our retail investors, on balance, have the—. they're very insightful and. have very long-term views.