Hey everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast. This is a show where we discuss the critical Crossroads, The Shape, SpaceX, Tesla X, The Boring Company, and Neuralink. And I'm your host Will Walden if you want uninterrupted episodes of the Elon Musk podcast. Please go to club. Elon.supercast.com to find out how there's a link in the show notes. Elon Musk has announced that his AI venture Xai will release its ChatGPT competitor Grok to the open source public domain this week.
It's a strategic move by Musk, who has consistently criticized Open AI's profit driven use of AI technology, and it marks a shift in AI development and accessibility for a large language model like Grok And by open sourcing. Grok XAI is set to join the ranks of companies like Meta and Mistral, which have already made their AI models freely available for modification and use by everybody.
And the decision to make Grok open source comes on the heels of Musk's legal action against Open AIA, company he Co founded but departed from in 2018. And Musk's lawsuit accuses Open AI of straying from its nonprofit roots and original mission, alleging that it has instead pursued profit maximization, particularly following its collaboration with Microsoft. Now the legal confrontation has sparked a big debate in the tech community and what are the
merits and the risks of open sourcing AI technologies as opposed to keeping them closed sourced and for profit? While Musk's critique of Open AIS transformation centers around it's shift from an open source nonprofit organization to what he perceives as a profit focused entity closely aligned with Microsoft. Now according to Musk, this contradicts open AI stated commitment to developing AI that
benefits humanity at large. The lawsuit and Musk's vocal criticisms highlight the growing tensions between ideals of open innovation and the realities of funding and profiting from advanced AI research. Now, myself, I'm an open source kind of guy. I'm a developer. I've been developed apps for companies that have gotten millions and millions of uses, and I've open sourced some of my technology that large corporations have used. So I'm a proponent of open source.
I'm also a proponent of capitalism and making money. And so I understand the two points that are being discussed here, but the announcement of Grok's open sourcing was made by Moscone X. Of course, it used to be Twitter, and it's challenging Open AI directly and other
leading AI developers. And by offering Grok as an open source tool, Xai aims to democratize access to advanced AI, potentially fostering a more inclusive, innovative field of AI development that's not confined by the commercial interest of a few dominant players. It opens up the playing field now.
The debate over open sourcing AI is not new, but has gained fresh momentum in light of Musk's lawsuit against open AI, and proponents argue that Open Access to AI technologies can accelerate innovation and application across diverse fields. However, there's significant concerns about the potential misuse of open source AI, including fears that it could be exploited for harmful purposes such as terrorism or the development of uncontrollable AI
entities. Now Musk's vision for AI governance includes the creation of a third party oversight body, a concept he advocated for at least last year's AI safety summit in the UK. And such an organization would monitor AI development across the industry, providing a check against potentially dangerous or unethical applications of the
tech. This proposal reflects Musk's ongoing concerns about ethics and safety implications of unchecked AI. Now Musk and Xai and also Grok were driven by his desire for the alternative to the AI development models pursued by Open AI and Google and Microsoft and larger companies. And Musk aims for XAI to embody a commitment to maximum truth seeking AI, he says, a goal that underpins the decision to open source Grok and engage a wider community. This development and
application. Now, Musk's position on open source AI was further clarified in a conversation with Lex Friedman last November, though, where he lamented the development of open AI from its original open source ethos. Scathing and his remarks under score this tension between the fundamental principles of open AI and its current operational model, which Musk's perceived as overly profit driven and restrictive in terms of access to AI technologies.
Now this lawsuit against Open AI presents a pivotal moment in Musk's long standing relationship with the organization. Having been a founding member himself, Musk's departure from the board in 2018 was a huge turning point for the company, leading to his current adversarial stance. His legal challenge raises important questions, though, about the commitments and responsibility of AI organizations and their alignment with broader societal interests.
Open A is response to Musk's lawsuit has been to assert its continued dedication to developing AI in a matter that benefits humanity as a whole. The organization argues that the scale resources required for advanced AI development necessitated the shift for a for profit model, a decision that Musk was purportedly in agreement with in 2017.
Now this defense highlights the complex balance between Musk's ideals of open sourcing AI tech, but also the necessity, the absolute necessity of the money that you need to buy these chipsets. The NVIDIA GPU is that you need to drive the way that these things function. It costs a lot of money, and sometimes open sourcing technology doesn't make you any money, and most of the time that's the case. Now to make money.
Open AI has different business models, but Elon Musk thinks they should be completely open and no privatization of it, and no way to capitalize on the finances of the people like myself who pay for Open AI. And the legal battle between Musk and Open AI is also complicated by the definitions and expectations surrounding artificial general intelligence.
Proves that Open AI has deviated from its mission involving open sourcing everything, and they're demonstrating that ChatGPT 4 or its successors constitute AGI, a challenging task given that the current state of AI technology and the evolving understanding
of what actually AGI entails. Now, the controversy surrounding Open AI's direction and Musk's lawsuit could have broader implications on the AI industry, potentially affecting Open AI's market position and the trust of its customers and partners. I don't think it's going to really do that much, though I I think they're going to be competitors. In a weird way, I think Elon is more competitive than Sam Altman about this. Sam knows his role.
He knows what's going on and working with Microsoft, he almost has an infinite amount of money and capital coming into the organization, so we won't really have to worry about that. And the recent turmoil within Open AI, including the temporary dismissal of Sam Altman, has already raised concerns amongst stakeholders about the organization's stability and the governance. But Sam is back back on the
board. And amidst these developments, Musk continues to use his platform on X to critique Open AI, of course, and advocate for a more open approach to AI development. His interactions with users on a platform reflects strong opinions on the need for transparency and accessibility in AI, as well as his skepticisms towards Open AIS current trajectory. Now, I want you to think about this for a moment. Do you think Elon is kind of mad about being booted from Open AI
because he he's gone in 2018? That's something you have to think about. You can't just sit back and accept things the way that they are. There's really no reason for Elon to lie to us, right? But could he be upset that he's not part of Open AI now? Seeing all of their current success and how far ahead they are than a lot of the other AI technologies out there?
There's a possibility. I just want to keep that open, make sure that you keep an open to mind about these things because you never know what's going on behind the scenes. And Grok and the way that Elon is expressing that he wants to take everything open source now, which he didn't before, he didn't say anything about that before, why would he do that? So I just think about that. Could it be the reason could be? Maybe. Maybe he.
Likes the idea of open AI. You know ChatGPT is not open for a paying customer, it's not open. You can do numerous things with a paid account. ChatGPT is open to the public. You can use it whenever you want to. There are limitations, but I mean, it's a free tool for everybody to use. But they don't open source their code, and that's where Elon is different than Open AI. He's going to open source the code, apparently. We don't know how much he's
going to open source though. So he could open source 100% of this and give everybody a free license to do whatever they want with Grok. Or he could open source certain segments of the code if he does the certain segments. And it's not really open source in my opinion as an open source developer myself. If you're going to open source something, open source the whole thing, make a tool for somebody, make the whole tool available to everybody.
So the way that he open sources, this is going to be a very, very interesting tell on what he's interested in. Could he be just opening, open sourcing, something to throw in Sam Altman and open the eye's face? There's a possibility. Is he spiteful? Is he a spiteful person? That's up to you to decide. But there's a there's going to be some interesting things happening around Open AI and Grok in the near future. Because I mean any open source competitor to ChatGPT is going
to be welcomed for everybody. If somebody could build off of Grok also, that's the other thing. If he open sources in some certain licenses, open sourcing, you can make derivatives. But you also have to make sure that eventually if Grok and Xai go private again, you take some of your money that you make from this thing 'cause you could open like an open source project. If it's fully open source, you can do whatever you want to with it. You can make as much money as you want to from it.
But if he rescinds the license at some point, there's a possibility you have to pay the guy or you have to pay Xai for the tools that you built and the money that you made from it. So we have to really be careful of these open source projects and which parts of them that he's open sourcing. So we'll have more information about the parts that he's open sourcing in the future. Of course, it's a strategic move, though. It could reshape the dynamics of
all AI development. There's alternative models now that prioritize accessibility and community involvement over control and profit. It's a potential to catalyze a new wave of innovation in AI. But also Meta has done this before too. Meta's open sourcing most of the stuff. So you know how much is going to change everything? We're not 100% sure, but there's tensions between Musk and Open AI. Power and control. It's going to be in the hands of tech giants now. Sam Altman?
You know, a rich guy. Elon Musk, super rich guy. They're tech giants. There's no difference between Xai if it's closed sourced and open AI if it's closed sourced or if Xai goes open source. It has to go full open source or it's not real true open source. So everything should be open source. The language model, that's that's up for debate. But the technology running the language model, if you supply your own language model, that's OK in my eyes. So it's got to be an interesting
next 3-4 weeks. That's supposed to happen sometime this month. And the outcome of Musk's lawsuit against Open AI and the impact of Grok's open sourcing remain to be seen. Now, it's going to happen in the next few weeks and we'll be here for you. This episode is going to be a little bit different. I'm going to be talking off the cuff about Space XS Starship, which will be doing its third test flight hopefully on
Thursday of this week. Now, either Thursday or Friday, we're still waiting for the FAA to approve Starship's flight, but everything else is in place. SpaceX has tested the rocket booster numerous times. They've done cryogenic testing, which means they fill up the booster with cryogenic fluid. And that makes it absolutely super cold, because when a rocket fires its engines, it gets extremely hot. Now the fuel inside is pumped through. They make sure that the cryogenics work.
They make sure that all the plumbing works on the base station down at stage zero. Stage zero is where they launched the rocket from. So they have the the rocket launching facility down at Boca Chica Beach, which is also known as Starbase, and the ground facilities. They've had a huge revamp recently. They've added new, they've added new fuel decks, They've added new plumbing to the thing. It's been millions of dollars in the making. And they've also added new
piping. They've added new electronics to the the launch deck. They've also added a water deluge. System, and if you're not. Familiar what a water deer system is. It basically pumps millions of gallons of water underneath the rocket for noise suppression and so basically the rocket doesn't explode the launchpad. This has kilotons worth of power. It is the most powerful rocket and the biggest rocket that's ever flown. They made it to space last time for the IFT 2 flight, IFT 1.
Didn't go too well, but it went, you know, better than expected. Elon has said numerous times he didn't think it was going to even get off the pad, but it cleared the pad, it launched and now the wonderful thing is they learned from the mistakes in IFT One from IFT One and both the rocket and the booster and the ship itself. Starship exploded during IFT One. Same thing happened during IFT 2, but during IFT 2 they started this thing called the hot
staging technique. And hot staging is when they ignite the rocket which is on top of the booster during stage separation. So about 50 seconds into the flight, I think it's about 50 seconds. About a minute into the flight, they start to separate the the rocket and the booster itself. And that's right after Max Q, which is the most dynamic pressure that's put on the rocket during this flight. And once they make it past Max Q, they know they can go to the next stage, which is stage
separation. Now stage separation is very important because you can't send the rocket booster and the Starship to space. The booster has to come back, land, get refurbished and then go up again. So what they did last time, hot staging at about a minute, ish into the flight, they separated, started separating the booster in the ship and when they did that they ignited the ship's rocket engines, which is in itself. This is a rarely done move in Space Flight because it's just
not needed. But something this powerful like need to push the booster away from the ship. And they need that extra kick that the ship can get from the booster 'cause it's pushing against the booster as the booster's still pushing forward and up. So they use that kick stage the the hot staging, to push it up even further and faster. So when they do that, the booster gets set back down towards Earth.
It does not flip, almost a full flip at that point, and then it's going to reignite its engines. The booster will reignite its engines, 33 Raptor engines when they started, but they're going to do a few of them on the way back in, what they do with a Falcon 9 rocket, very similar. And then they'll land the booster, this time IFT 3, which we're talking about, they're going to be landing that softly in the Gulf of Mexico. Now, if this all goes as planned, the booster won't blow up.
They'll do a very soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico because they have to learn how to land this. Elon said it took about 15 flights for the Falcon 9 to land properly. Now if that's the case, SpaceX has about 10 more flights before the booster will land properly and the ship will land properly. But for Falcon nine, they didn't have a top half of it. The fairing and anything on top of the booster is expendable, except when they send people to
space. So the fairing just falls back down to Earth for a Falcon 9. And with Starship, there's a whole upper stage that they have to land and they're going to land this thing vertically. Now the difference between IFT 2 and IFT 3, there's a couple, there's a few things we have to talk about as far as differences go, but before we do that, let's talk about what happened to the IFT 2 ship.
It's a few minutes into the flight after the stage separation, after the booster blew up, as it was doing the flip, they did the flight termination system because they figured that the booster wasn't going to make it, so they blew it up and few minutes into the flight after that, the ship was exploded as well because it wasn't going to make it. They released too much fuel. They were going to do, they're going to bleed some fuel out and then they had to terminate the
flight at that point. So booster didn't make it, ship didn't make it. But from the data that they gathered from both of those occurrences, they made improvements for IFT 3. So when IFT 3 happens, we're hoping for a full stage separation, hot staging, and the flip maneuver by the booster. This thing is. Massive, by the way. If you've never seen this thing,
it is about 250 feet tall. So think of a 25 story building, One of the biggest things that's ever flown to be honest with you, because it's so round as well. It's so big. It's 30 feet around, It's 9 meters in diameter, so The thing is massive. Massive. And they've got to do the flip maneuver, soft land it in the Gulf of Mexico, hopefully. And if they do that, that is a huge win.
That's huge for a SpaceX 'cause. Then they can move forward with a guided soft landing out to certain parts of the ocean, or they can have a or, sorry, the Gulf of Mexico. Or they could do a guided burn back towards Starbase. And eventually, I don't think they're going to be doing it right away. They have another launch tower that they want to build before I believe they're going to do a some sort of landing at Starbase. So having a landing pad at Starbase would be OK catching it
with the tower. That's what they're going for, because they can't do a landing on the booster without catching it, but. If you've never seen the. The catch tower, it's it's also massive, 400 foot tall, 410, I believe it is 413 feet tall. It's a massive structure and when they catch this thing 250 foot tall booster on a 400 foot tall tower, it's going to be absolutely amazing. So if they do that event, they'll do that eventually.
I'm probably going to give them about 10 more flights before they even try that. They have to do a bunch of guided flights, make sure that everything works perfectly fine, and then if they can get it nailed for five or six flights in a row, I believe there will be ready to catch it. But they need to get the second tower up, because if something does happen to the catch tower or the launch tower, it's the
same thing. Launch and catch is the same thing, so something happens to one of the towers. They need to have a backup because they can't just wait months if the booster comes in hot, breaks a bunch of stuff because there's hundreds of miles of cables and pipes that connect everything at Starbase. If anything goes wrong, this thing is made out of stainless steel too.
So if anything goes wrong, shards of stainless steel could explode and just devastate some of these pipes, some of the tankers, some of the tanks equipment nearby, it's it would be a massive process to get it back up and flying. And also at that point they have to deal with federal regulations, if FAA etcetera, and then that's gonna be a big deal. So if something happens that's a mishap, they have to do a full mishap investigation and it
could push them back a year. So they have to make sure this is absolutely perfect for IFT 3. They're going to try to land the booster in the Gulf of Mexico and they're going to, which this is a cool part. They're going to launch the Starship all the way to the Indian Ocean before they were going to go to the off the coast of Hawaii, Kauai for the first two flights. That was their plan and they switched it to the Indian Ocean for safety reasons.
We're not exactly sure, Elon and SpaceX hasn't released the details about the safety reasons, but they're gonna be landing in the Indian Ocean and when they land in the Indian Ocean with a ship, they would have done a few things in between the launch and the landing. One of those things is a fuel. It's they're moving fuel from one container to another container within the Starship itself. This is for a bigger problem that SpaceX is solving, which is they're gonna be doing in orbit
refueling. So they need to make sure that the fuel can actually move around the Starship. And also they're going to be checking the payload doors for Starship, and the payload doors are very important payload doors. It's a Pez dispenser at this point for the Starlink missions. Now Starlink, if you're not familiar, it's space XS, broadband, rural satellite, Internet service, and it's a massive moneymaker for SpaceX.
Now if they could launch hundreds of Starlinks in a month as opposed to 30, it would be a game changer for SpaceX, it would. The revenue would increase dramatically. They can have more coverage and more people using the service. Better service for everybody. It's just a no brainer. And Starship can hold an infinite amount more than a Falcon 9. There's just no comparison to it.
So if they can nail this time the next flight they may launch some Starlink satellites into orbit, adjust to test it and see if it works. So that might be an interesting one for IFT 4, but IFT 3, if they do, they're just gonna test the mechanism to launch those out and the Hatch, things like that. And as far as we know, that's. It. Except for landing in the Indian Ocean and getting to orbit, or getting the space for the Starship and. As far as we know, that's.
The Those are the big ones. Those are the big takeaways for this launch. I wanna, I wanna thank you, of course for listening to the show. If you are a Space Flight enthusiast, come check us out over on YouTube. Space News Pod. Space News Pod on YouTube is my Space Flight channel. Please take a second. Go over there. Subscribe. Gonna be doing a live launch for the Starship tomorrow morning, Thursday morning at 7:00 AM. So get ready for that. It's going to be wild.
Hopefully the FAA comes through with the launch license within the next 12 hours. That's all we got though, and that's all we're waiting for. Well, thanks again, everybody. Take care of yourselves and I will see you in the next one. And make sure to subscribe to this show too. And the space. News Pod on YouTube. Hey, thank you so much for listening today. I really do appreciate your support.
If you could take a second and hit the subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast platform that you're listening on right now, I greatly appreciate it. It helps out the show tremendously and you'll never miss an episode and each episode is about 10 minutes or less to get you caught up quickly. And please, if you want to support the show even more, go to patreon.com/stage Zero and please take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you
tomorrow. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk podcast. This is a show where we discuss the critical crossroads that shape SpaceX, Tesla X, The Boring Company, and Neuralink. And I'm your host Will Walden if you want uninterrupted episodes of the Elon Musk podcast. Please go to club. Elon.supercast.com to find out how there's a link in the show notes.
This morning SpaceX launched their massive Starship rocket and they completed 1/2 world journey after launching from South Texas Starbase Boca Chica. Now this is a low Earth orbit launch. It's a crucial capability for future launches for Starship, and the launch occurred from Starbase at about 8:25 AM Central time. This is the third iteration of the full stack Starship rocket flight. It's 397 feet tall. And its width. Is bigger than a 747 jumbo jet
is huge. It's about 30 feet around and it had its take off time adjusted to ensure the surrounding waters were clear of any vessels. So people in boats were hanging out in the no fly zone and SpaceX had to take extra little, a little bit extra time to move those boats.
Get those boats out of there. They were supposed to launch in about 7:30 AM Central time, so 8:30 AM my time and Eastern Time. And they had to push it back about an hour to get those boats out of there, which is very crucial, very beneficial to those boats because it's very dangerous to be under the giant shrapnel tube that is Starship. That is if it didn't work out right. But this launch went pretty well actually.
So this flight built on previous test, there's marked improvements, and now they're moving closer to operational satellite launches for the Starlink. They're going to accelerate Starlink satellite deployments, and this will contribute to the company's expansive network of satellites orbiting the Earth right now and also accelerate
their bottom line. They make money from Starlink and if they can deploy hundreds of Starlinks more per month, they will have more coverage and people will be able to get the the coverage more and they'll have better coverage for the people on the Earth and therefore make more money. So Elon Musk celebrated this launch. He's prideful about what happened with the team.
He said Starship reach orbital velocity, which is a huge deal for a Starship because the next, probably the next phase is to get it to orbit. IFT 4 to get it to orbit, make sure that everything works right. They open up the Hatch door today, they did a propellant transfer demonstration. They closed the Hatch door. It was a pretty big milestone, a bunch of little milestones that were pretty big. And there's several firsts that happened during this flight. And one of those was the payload
door. That happened. The payload door opens and closes sort of like a Pez dispenser. That's what they call it. And that was that happened for about 20 minutes straight, and there was also an internal transfer liquid oxygen propellant. They're stepping stones towards in orbit fuel refueling, which is a necessity for more extended space missions, including the Artemis missions for NASA lunar landings and also Mars missions. Now, not all objectives were
met, though. The Super Heavy booster failed to execute a controlled splashdown leading to an uncontrolled descent into the Gulf of Mexico, which is you know, they plan for these things and they'll learn from it. Additionally, a planned Raptor engine restart in space did not occur with SpaceX yet to provide any explanation about why that happened or why they didn't happen.
So Starship also allows for substantial payload capabilities, promising to deliver up to 150 metric tons to lower Earth orbit and an expendable configuration. This capacity nearly double S to about 300 metric tons, which is an absolutely massive amount of things to send to the Earth orbit. It's it's incredible how much 300 tons, 300 metric tons of things are. Now Musk is talking about Starship.
Recently he envisaged it as a cornerstone in his plan for interplanetary human settlement, particularly Mars, and in the shorter term, Starship will play a crucial role in satellite deployment in an integral role in NASA's Artemis program for lunar exploration. Starting with Artemis 3 in about 2028 probably, the flight demonstrated the reliability of the Super heavy booster's 33 Raptor engines, all of which
performed great. The thrust powered the rocket on its initial climb and subsequent trajectory over the Gulf of Mexico, now approximately 2 minutes and 42 seconds post launch, the booster began shutting down its engines, initiating a hot staging process. Now this technique, which was inspired by Russian rocketry, allows for a seamless transition between stages, avoiding any
interrupted thrust. So basically the booster is still going up and out and as that's happening the stages start separating, but when they separate the ship actually ignites its engines and it pushes the booster back a little bit while also pushing the second stage, the Starship vehicle itself up towards orbit faster. Now the upper stage is 6 Raptor engines then propelled the vehicle to a near orbital velocity reaching a peak altitude of 144 miles and like Elon said, they did get to
orbital velocity. Eventually the design trajectory ensured that the spacecraft would re enter the atmosphere before completing a full orbit, preventing it from becoming space debris. We don't want that. We don't want it to burn up. We want to test all the systems on the way back in. Now comparing the 1st 3 orbital test flights of Starship though, a clear trajectory of improvement is evident. The initial flight faced engine failures and caused huge damage to the launchpad.
The second flight saw no engine failures, though a propellant tank led to the Rockets destruction. Now also the reliability of the Raptor engines has been confirmed over the last two flights, addressing earlier concerns regarding their performance. This is a huge achievement for Space XS rocket technology. It shows that they can continue to build these and they're on the right track to build hundreds of these.
According to Elon Musk, now on boards, cameras during this flight were unprecedented, including the hot staging process and the rocket its whole journey across the globe. Their valuable insights into the rocket's performance and the behavior in various phases of the flight for SpaceX. But also we got to see them as well. So that was a really, really great treat for all of us rocket
fans out there. And this flight was a success, but it concluded over the Indian Ocean where Starship RE entered the Earth's atmosphere and was ultimately destroyed. But we also got great video of that. So if you haven't seen that yet, please check it out on Space XS X account. But despite all the failures, it was deemed the most successful today, fulfilling several crucial objectives. And NASA's anticipation for this mission stems from $4 billion investment in Starship for lunar
missions. The test represents a significant step forwards for humans to return to the moon, especially with that propellant transfer. That's something they'll have to do for the Artemis missions to get people back to the moon. Now SpaceX has several more starships in production. They're continuing to aim for test flights throughout the year. Elon said he wants to have nine test flights. Realistically, if they can get to 9 test flights, that would be
ridiculous. Everybody that I've talked to so far in the spaceflight category has said six at best. More than likely they'll have four more this year, but six at the best. But if they can get nine, they still have to get approval for the 9 as well, which they probably will get approval now with each subsequent flight, though, they're going to be refining Starships design and
capabilities every single time. The iterative process is crucial for developing the future success of Starship, and every single ship will be better, faster, more powerful, more reliable, and be able to get things to low Earth orbit in a more timely manner. And each test is a learning opportunity. Hardware is evolving. Software is evolving. The ground systems are all
evolving every single launch. And SpaceX advances its mission of space exploration, and they're inching closer to its goals of interplanetary travel and also habitation. Every single launch of Starship. So Reddit has recently adjusted CEO Steve Huffman's compensation structure in anticipation of its forthcoming initial public offering or its IPO.
Now this is a recalibration of its market value expectations, But previously Huffman's compensation included incentives tied to the company achieving a $25 billion market valuation. Upon going public, these incentives had been revised, reflecting a more conservative outlook on the company's IPO
performance. Now in a detailed review of companies documents, it was discovered that in December Reddit retracted specific executive awards contingent upon the company reaching A lofty market capitalization post IPO. This move shows a strategic pivot in the company's approach to execute compensation and valuation aspirations.
And despite the adjustment in valuation based incentives, Huffman maintains eligibility for restricted stock units, or Rs US, contingent on the company sustaining a $5 billion market valuation. Over. A 10 day period. A recent updates to the company's filing suggests that this revised valuation target aligns with Reddit's current market expectations, with a potential RSU value estimated at approximately $21 million.
Now, this recalibration of financial expectations is a significant tempering of ambition for Redis IPO posited as a notable event in the tech industry's market listings for the year. The company initially filed for an IPO confidentially in 2021, but decided to postpone, influenced by an environment of increasing interest rates in a downturn in tech stock valuations.
The company, Reddit, is poised to list shares on the New York Stock Exchange imminently, with pricing markedly low to its last private valuation of $10 billion. The strategy shows that the company's pragmatic adjustments to current market conditions in investor sentiment are 100% real. Now there's executive compensation amendments going on here, now there's concerns about
that, too. And there's Because there's late changes to Huffman's incentives, these adjustments might not adequately motivate the CEO towards substantial post IPO stock value growth. It's a potential issue for any investor's perspective going into this IPO. Now, while Huffman's compensation has been adjusted, some aspects of executive incentives remain tied to
ambitious valuation targets. Notably, Huffman and Chief Operating Officer Jennifer Wong retain eligibility for stock options and performance awards linked to the company reaching $25 billion valuation. This is a mix of conservative and aspirational targets within the executive compensation structure. Now Huffman, who's a Co founder of Reddit, known by the user name Spez, has been pivotal in the company's growth and strategic direction since its operation and his return in 2015.
And utter his leadership. Reddit has expanded this user base and enhanced its advertising revenue streams, navigating through periods of organizational challenges. And the delay in Reddit's IPO has afforded the company a little bit of additional time to diversify its revenue sources beyond traditional advertising, venturing into E com and also data licensing. And these initiatives had contributed to a revenue increase of over 20% last year,
totaling $804 million. Although the company has not yet achieved profitability with a reporting net loss of almost $91 million in 2023. Now, this data licensing is a key aspect of Reddit's future. With large language models and AI, they can use all the data from the users, all the posts, all the comments, all the up votes as data for AP is for AI
subsets. And as Reddit prepares for its IPO and a competitive and scrutinized market, its ability to attract investor interest remains a little bit uncertain right now, especially given its lack of profitability and the challenging landscape for digital advertising revenue. Company's performance in this regard will serve as a litmus test for the market's receptiveness to tech IPOs right
now. In anticipation of its stock market debut, Reddit has outlined strategic plans to bolster its fledgling advertising sector and diversify revenue streams, including content licensing. Company aims to leverage these initiatives to improve financial health and engage potential investors by offering IPO shares to its user base. A move that could generate considerable buzz and engagement.
Despite these growth efforts, potential investors face the prospect of buying into a company that has not yet reported a profitable year. And amidst fierce competition for advertising revenues from larger, more established companies, this context raises questions about Reddit's valuation and its appeal to investors seeking substantial and sustainable growth and profitability.
This IPO, with a targeted valuation significantly lower than previous estimates, is a cautious approach in a market environment that has growth increasingly wary of high valuations for unprofitable companies. This pricing decision underscores the company's adjustment to market realities and also investor sentiments.
Keep it low, people will invest, and the company's decision to reserve a portion of its IPO shares for its user community introduces a unique element to its public offering, potentially increasing stock volatility due to unpredictable trading behaviors of retail investors. And this approach, while fostering community engagement, introduces additional dynamics that can impact the stock market's performance. Now, I was invited to be part of those IPO shares.
I haven't reserved my shares quite yet, but I may be investing in this. And mind you, this is not investment advice from me or from the show or from the company, so just want to let you know that I got in. Hopefully you get it too. Now, Reddit's competitive positioning in the social media and digital advertising marketplaces will be scrutinized within the next week.
The company's ability to carve out a substantial niche amid formidable competitors will be critical to its long term success and attractiveness to new investors. After the IPO, the market conditions right now characterized by recent listings that are lacklustre in performance and an uncertain interest rate landscape, pose additional challenges for Reddit's IPO right now. The company's market debut will be closely watched all the way through 2024 and 2025. We've seen it happen before.
Tech stocks have been valued so high and within six months completely plummet off the face of the earth. So Reddit's a cool place. I enjoy it. I think it's fun. I don't know if you like it, Maybe it's a a good investment for you. Maybe you can help support the company, but as they navigate the public offerings, the company's performance will offer valuable insights into viability of new tech IPOs in the current
economic and market environment. The outcome of this IPO could influence the strategies of other tech companies that are similar to Reddit, considering public listings shaping the trajectory of the IPO market in the near term.
As part of NASA's Artemis campaign to return humans to the moon for the benefit of all, NASA is working with SpaceX to develop the company's large, gigantic Starship Human Landing system, the HLS, which will land astronauts near the moon's South Pole during the Artemis 3 and Artemis 4 missions. And on March 14th, SpaceX launched the third integrated flight test of its Super Heavy booster and Starship upper
stage. This is an important milestone toward providing NASA with a Starship HLS for its Artemis missions. A complement of 33 Raptor engines fueled by super cooled liquid methane and liquid oxygen powered this super heavy booster with Starship stacked atop from the company's Starbase orbital launchpad at 8:25 AM CDT.
Now Starship using 6 Raptor engines separated from the Super Heavy booster, employing a hot staging technique to fire the engines before separation and approximately 3 minutes into the flight in accordance with the flight plan. Now this was the 3rd flight test of the integrated Super Heavy Starship system. Now with each flight test, SpaceX attempts increasingly ambitious objectives for Starship to learn as much as possible for future mission
systems development. The ability to test key systems and processes and flight scenarios like these integrated tests allows both NASA and SpaceX to gather crucial data needed for the continued development of Starship HLS. Now, the test accomplished several important firsts that will contribute to the development of Starship. For Artemis lunar landing missions, the spacecraft reaches expected orbit and Starship completed the full duration
ascent burn. An objective closely tied to future Artemis missions is a transfer of thousands of pounds of cryogenic propellant between internal tanks during the spacecraft's coast phase as part of NASA's Space Technology Missions Directorate 2020 Tipping Point Awards. Now the propellant transfer demonstration operations were completed and the NASA SpaceX team is currently reviewing the flight data that was received during those tests.
This tipping point technology demonstration is one of more than 20 development activities that NASA is undertaking to solve the challenges of using cryogenic fluids during the future missions. NASA A key step forward understanding how super cool propellant sloshes within these tanks when the engines are shut down, and how that movement effects Starship stability while in orbit.
Engineers will study flight test data to assess the performance of thrusters that control starship's orientation in space. We're also interested to learn more about how the fluids movement within the tanks can be settled to maximize propellant transfer efficiency and ensure Raptor engines receive needed propellant conditions to support restart in orbit. Now, storing and transferring cryogenic propellant in orbit has never been attempted on this scale before.
But this is a game changing technology that must be developed and matured for science and exploration missions at the Moon, Mars and those that will venture even deeper into the solar system. Now NASA's Artemis program, the agency will land the first woman, the first person of color and its first international partner astronaut on the lunar surface and prepare for human expeditions to Mars.
And commercial human launch systems and landing system are critical to deep space exploration along with the SLS rocket, Orion spacecraft, advanced space suits, Rovers, exploration ground systems and also the Gateway space station.
Now for the second time during this flight, all 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster started up successfully and completed a full duration burn during ascent and Starship executed its second successful hot stage separation, powering down all but three of Super Heavy's Raptor engines and successfully igniting the six second stage Raptor engines
before separating the vehicles. Now following separation, the Super Heavy booster successfully completed its flip move and completed a full boost back burn to send it towards a splashdown point in the Gulf of Mexico. Super Heavy successfully lit several engines for its first ever landing burn before the vehicle experienced a Rudd, which is a rapid unscheduled disassembly now. The boosters flight concluded at approximately 462 meters in altitude and just under 7
minutes into the mission. Starship's six second stage Raptor engines all started successfully and powered the vehicle to its expected orbit, becoming the first Starship to complete its full duration ascent burn and while coasting Starship accomplished several of the flight tests. Additional objectives included the opening and closing of its payload door or the Pez dispenser if you will, and initiated A propellant transfer demonstration.
Starship did not attempt its planned on orbit relight of a single Raptor engine due to vehicle roll rates during coast. Our results from this demonstration will come after post flight data review is complete. Starship went on to experience its first over entry from space, providing valuable data on heating and vehicle control during hypersonic reentry. Now, live views of this were made possible due to Starlink terminals operating on the Starterm. They're absolutely brilliant
views. You have to check them out on Space XS X page now. The flight test conclusion came during entry with the last telemetry signals received via Starlink from Starship at approximately 49 minutes into the mission. And while the team receives and reviews the data collected from the flight, Starship and Super Heavy Vehicles are preparing for upcoming flights as they seek to increase launch cadence throughout the year. They want to do up to 9 launches this year.
Now, this is a rapid, iterative development approach. You build it, you fly it, something happens, you figure something out, you learn from that, then you fly the next one. It's the basis for all of Spacex's major innovative advancements, including Falcon, Dragon, and Starlink. It's called recursive improvement, and it's essential in the way the SpaceX builds spacecraft. They want to get Starship into Earth orbit. They want to transport humans. They want it. Completely. Reusable.
And they want to help. Humanity, return to the moon and ultimately travel to the Red Planet on Mars. Hey, thank you so much for listening today. I really do appreciate your support. If you could take a second and hit the subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast platform that you're listening on right now, I'd greatly appreciate it. It helps out the show tremendously and you'll never miss an episode. And each episode is about 10 minutes or less. To get you.
Caught U quickly and please, if you want to support the show even more, go to Atreon Stage Zero and please take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you tomorrow.