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   From: backstabbers@democrats.org   
      
   Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently broke a world record for the largest loss of   
   a personal fortune in history, having shed an estimated $182 billion since   
   November 2021 (another estimate puts it closer to $200 billion). But he   
   could enjoy a major turnaround this year, according to Silicon Valley   
   insiders, and it would be thanks to one of his other companies, SpaceX.   
      
   These insiders are two prominent Bay Area venture capitalists, Jason   
   Calacanis and Chamath Palihapitiya, who once garnered the nickname “SPAC   
   King” for his numerous investments in special purpose acquisition   
   companies. Both longtime Musk associates, they were speaking on the All-In   
   podcast about the outlook for 2023. Calacanis’ closeness to Musk was   
   revealed in court, when his private text messages to the Twitter CEO were   
   disclosed as part of the Twitter acquisition lawsuit, including his oath   
   of fealty: “Board member, advisor, whatever… you have my sword. Put me in   
   the game coach! Twitter CEO is my dream job.” So they are likely biased in   
   favor of Musk, but they see one clear way the world’s second-richest man   
   can recover some swagger in 2023.   
      
   Asked what would be the biggest business deal of the year, Palihapitiya   
   said on the podcast, “This one is easy. Starlink will go public.”   
      
   Starlink is the satellite-broadband unit of SpaceX, which dominates the   
   market for commercial space launch. It gained attention last year due to   
   the war in Ukraine, where its user terminals proved crucial to resisting   
   Russia’s invasion, helping troops stay in touch with each other and   
   leaders in Kyiv despite attacks on infrastructure.   
      
   The Starlink valuation “will be at least half of SpaceX’s current private   
   worth,” Palihapitiya predicted.   
      
   That would put it at roughly $75 billion, host Calacanis noted. In mid-   
   November, Bloomberg reported that SpaceX was in funding talks that would   
   value it at more than $150 billion.   
      
   Musk himself said in early 2021 that Starlink would go public once its   
   cash flow could be predicted “reasonably well.”   
      
   “I think it’s gonna go public and I think it’s gonna be the best chance we   
   have of opening up the capital markets in 2023,” said Palihapitiya on the   
   podcast.   
      
   As Fortune’s Term Sheet newsletter noted this week, “the American IPO   
   market was basically dead last year.”   
      
   Matt Kennedy, senior IPO strategist at Renaissance Capital, a provider of   
   pre-IPO research, told Fortune in December that the equity capital markets   
   environment was “the worst it’s been since the great recession.”   
      
   Musk has appeared on the All In podcast himself a number of times. Besides   
   Calacanis’ name being floated as a potential new CEO for Twitter, which   
   Musk acquired for $44 billion in late October, the same goes for another   
   of the four “besties” on the podcast: David Sacks, who was along with Musk   
   was a member of the “PayPal Mafia” as a founding member of that firm.   
      
   Palihapitiya noted that he himself is a Starlink customer, as did   
   Calacanis, who said:   
      
   “People are underestimating the TAM [total addressable market] of this   
   product. The TAM is not existing broadband connections, it’s second   
   connections, it’s connection where connections didn’t exist. It’s on RVs,   
   buses, in villages.”   
      
   Palihapitiya noted that, for users of private jets, Starlink can provide   
   broadband at a fraction of the cost of other offerings.   
      
   But he also provided another reason for a Starlink IPO in 2023.   
      
   “I think the reason why is that in order for Elon to have complete   
   financial flexibility and to do what he needs to do and—he talked about   
   this on our pod, about the difficulties and the dangers of margin loans   
   and all of that stuff—he’s gonna create breathing room for himself. This   
   is the simplest and most obvious way for him to do it. It’ll give him a   
   ton of more dry powder.”   
      
   In early December, Bloomberg reported that Musk’s bankers were mulling   
   providing him with new margin loans backed by Tesla stock to replace some   
   of the high-interest debt on his Twitter deal.   
      
   That followed Musk personally putting up billions when he purchased   
   Twitter and selling Tesla shares to help make it happen.   
      
   Last month, in an appearance on the podcast, Musk reiterated his take that   
   the economy is overdue for recession and said, “I would really advise   
   people not to have margin debt in a volatile stock market and you know,   
   from a cash standpoint, keep powder dry. You can get some pretty extreme   
   things happening in a down market.”   
      
   This story was originally featured on Fortune.com   
      
      
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)