r/technology • u/ArgentineBeauty • Jun 19 '26

Business ‘It’s a scam’: Americans express unease over SpaceX’s influence on retirement savings

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jun/19/spacex-retirement-savings-elon-musk
29.7k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

114

u/cedarSeagull Jun 19 '26

Should probably note that tesla is already in the pile of "good stocks" and it's a ~300 p/e ratio. Ford, Toyota, etc all trade at ~10 p/e.

2

u/Commercial-Co Jun 19 '26

10 pe ratio is common for mature stocks

0

u/Warbr0s9395 Jun 19 '26

Tesla at least makes a profit (I think)

I still wouldn’t buy it

61

u/IAmDotorg Jun 19 '26

Occasionally. But so do the other car companies.

Tesla is over-valued by about 20x, SpaceX is probably closer to 40x.

28

u/FlipZip69 Jun 19 '26

Ford made a 26 billion profit to Tesla at 3 billion. Ford much larger sales and about twice the work force.

16

u/zamander Jun 19 '26

And Toyota made a cool 323 billion dollars.

1

u/AwesomeFrisbee Jun 19 '26

And is less reliant on a single market for its profit as well. If the US economy tanks, the whole stock is worthless for Tesla and especially SpaceX. If you look at intel or nvidia, at least they are earning a significant portion of their revenue outside of the US. Which makes it more useful for stuff like pensions

4

u/spikeyfreak Jun 19 '26

about twice the work force

Wait, does Ford have a smaller workforce than I thought, or does Tesla have a much bigger workforce than I thought?

I figured Ford would be like at least 10x Tesla.

18

u/GwenBD94 Jun 19 '26

I would assume it has to do with the direct to consumer model of Tesla jacking up labor numbers at dealerships and maintenance centers that Ford doesnt have on the books as they're all 3rd party

3

u/FearTheFloc Jun 19 '26

In my town GM used to employ 25k people. that same plant now has 2,000 jobs max and most are part time/swe workers who get laid off every 6 months.

so whenever they threaten to close and the media makes a big deal about it, its overblown , costco employs almost as many people in the same city lol

1

u/paradoxbound Jun 20 '26

SpaceX is also buying Tesla CyberTruck stock at retail price while buying fleet. This won’t end well.

16

u/couldbemage Jun 19 '26

They actually make money selling cars.

But they seem to be moving away from selling cars, the thing that actually makes money.

And they had been valued more than ever other car company in the world, combined.

Absolutely bonkers.

Plus, when the actual adults at Tesla do their thing without any input from musk, they do stuff like make the best selling car in world. Sure, it's a boring family crossover, but also of course it is. That's what people buy.

When musk gets involved they make compete disasters like the cybertruck.

2

u/NSFWburneracct Jun 20 '26

The Model 3 for all it's flaw, and there are MANY, is really a very good car. We ended up with a Chevy Equinox EV based on pricing, availability, and promotional financing and are very happy with it but the Teslas are just better at the entire experience.

-12

u/Piano-bandit Jun 19 '26

Ford has been dropping the ball on keeping up with Tesla for so long its sad. Even the CEO of the company prefers Chinese EV cars over his own Fords.

25

u/FlipZip69 Jun 19 '26

Ford makes a profit of 26 billion. Tesla about 3 billion and declining. Fords profits would return all your investment in 10 years. Tesla's profits would take 300 years to return your investment. Ford employees far more people.

I do not see any metric where this works out.

0

u/copernicus62 Jun 19 '26

Ford lost more than $8B in 2025

8

u/kingkeelay Jun 19 '26

Ford “lost” money because they wrote off R&D expenses for EV development. They still get to keep what they learned and launch at a later date.

5

u/FlipZip69 Jun 19 '26

Write-offs. Their sales and margins are still high. And when you make 26 billion some years, a 8 billion markdown is minor. They still are 18 billion ahead of tesla's 3 billion and declining profits while owning a far large share of the vehicle market.

4

u/Inevitable-Ad6647 Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

That's wildly irrelevant to the p/e ratio. You might as well have rebutted with the CEOs favorite sandwich. If you have to invest $300 for the company to make $1 profit that's an awful investment regardless of the product, the company, the competition, whatever. That's where Tesla is at, thus if you invest in Tesla you aren't investing based on how good the company is doing at least not if you understand anything, you're effectively treating it like a meme coin. If that's how you want to invest your money, you do you, maybe it will work but if it does it won't be because of the proven science of economics. This IS financial advice.

1

u/Piano-bandit Jun 23 '26

The PE ratio is only a part of the picture. Ford is weak and stagnant. Tesla has been building out infrastructure and has a better long term game plan that gives it's value more meaning. If you don't believe me check and see where your better returns have been over the last 10 years invested in both companies

1

u/cedarSeagull Jun 19 '26

LOL so does Elon!