Song Li

The founder & former CEO of Zhenai, Asia's largest internet dating platform provider with over 250 million members. Ex- Morgan Stanley exec.

[Song Li @songl]

SpaceX is the most ambitious company of our time. But it is also asking retail investors to pay 94x price-to-revenue for an AI race it isn’t leading currently. Both are true, only one is in the headlines. I wrote a letter to Elon Musk on X, urging him to reconsider the pricing of the upcoming SpaceX IPO offering to mitigate risk for retail investors. He hasn’t replied. The full letter is below:

@elonmusk
, SpaceX IPO on June 12! Congratulations on building another extraordinary, mission-driven company that will likely have a profound and positive impact on humanity for decades to come. You have done it again. I am also an entrepreneur, though vanishingly insignificant compared with what you have achieved. I once built Asia’s largest dating platform, helping 250 million registered members search for the other half of their lives. You have long been a shining model and an endless source of inspiration for me and for millions of entrepreneurs around the world. That said, as a former Morgan Stanley banker, I feel deeply uncomfortable with the way SpaceX appears to be priced for its IPO, especially given the enormous risk that euphoric retail investors may take in their rush to buy shares. At a staggering 94x price-to-revenue ratio, SpaceX would be valued at roughly five times Tesla’s multiple --- and Tesla itself is already priced close to perfection. In the “Our Market Opportunity” section of SpaceX’s prospectus, the company projects a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion, with its three core businesses --- Space, Connectivity, and AI --- accounting for roughly 1% ($370 billion), 6% ($1.6 trillion), and 93% ($26.5 trillion) of that opportunity, respectively. In other words, even though SpaceX clearly dominates Space and Connectivity, public investors would essentially be betting on SpaceX’s eventual dominance in AI at a 94x price-to-revenue valuation. Given your track record, I have every reason to believe SpaceX may one day become one of the world’s leading AI companies, especially in space AI. But today, its AI business is not yet a clear leader, while competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini are objectively far ahead. That means retail investors would be buying into an AI dream that may indeed come true --- but at what could be the highest valuation in financial history. That bothers me. Some may argue that investors understand the risks and that no one is forcing them to buy the stock. But as a former investment banker, I know, in our heart of hearts, that most retail investors are unlikely to read the Risk section of the prospectus carefully, if they read it at all. Many will buy because of you, and you alone. I believe in you too. I trust that you and your team may eventually accomplish what seems impossible, as you have done time and again. But many of these goals may take years, even decades, to fully materialize. As with many visionary companies, aggressive timelines can be delayed by many years, as has been the case with Tesla. In the meantime, many retail investors may put their life savings into SpaceX stock without fully understanding the magnitude of the risk they are assuming. So I plead with you: please consider lowering the price-to-revenue multiple by one-third or even one-quarter, to reduce the risk and time-cost burden on ordinary mom-and-pop investors. If SpaceX indeed reaches the originally implied valuation, its market capitalization will not be diminished, but such a change in the reward/risk ratio will matter a great deal to those retail investors. The company may simply need to issue somewhat more equity to raise the same amount of capital. The dilution to your own stake would likely be modest, and you control 85% of the company’s voting right anyway. You are on your way to becoming history’s first trillionaire, and you have already proven yourself to be the greatest entrepreneur of our time --- perhaps in a league of your own. Not even Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, or the Google founders occupy quite the same place in history. But now you have an opportunity to show the world that you are not only the greatest and most consequential entrepreneur humanity has ever seen, but also one of the kindest and most generous to the ordinary people on Earth who are eager to join you on your ambitious journey to Mars and beyond. Respectively, Song Li, investment banker-turned internet entrepreneur

[Song Li @songl]

SpaceX is the most ambitious company of our time. But it is also asking retail investors to pay 94x price-to-revenue for an AI race it isn’t leading currently. Both are true, only one is in the headlines. I wrote a letter to Elon Musk on X, urging him to reconsider the pricing of the upcoming SpaceX IPO offering to mitigate risk for retail investors. He hasn’t replied. The full letter is below:

@elonmusk, SpaceX IPO on June 12! Congratulations on building another extraordinary, mission-driven company that will likely have a profound and positive impact on humanity for decades to come. You have done it again. I am also an entrepreneur, though vanishingly insignificant compared with what you have achieved. I once built Asia’s largest dating platform, helping 250 million registered members search for the other half of their lives. You have long been a shining model and an endless source of inspiration for me and for millions of entrepreneurs around the world.
That said, as a former Morgan Stanley banker, I feel deeply uncomfortable with the way SpaceX appears to be priced for its IPO, especially given the enormous risk that euphoric retail investors may take in their rush to buy shares. At a staggering 94x price-to-revenue ratio, SpaceX would be valued at roughly five times Tesla’s multiple --- and Tesla itself is already priced close to perfection.
In the “Our Market Opportunity” section of SpaceX’s prospectus, the company projects a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion, with its three core businesses --- Space, Connectivity, and AI --- accounting for roughly 1% ($370 billion), 6% ($1.6 trillion), and 93% ($26.5 trillion) of that opportunity, respectively. In other words, even though SpaceX clearly dominates Space and Connectivity, public investors would essentially be betting on SpaceX’s eventual dominance in AI at a 94x price-to-revenue valuation.
Given your track record, I have every reason to believe SpaceX may one day become one of the world’s leading AI companies, especially in space AI. But today, its AI business is not yet a clear leader, while competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini are objectively far ahead. That means retail investors would be buying into an AI dream that may indeed come true --- but at what could be the highest valuation in financial history. That bothers me.
Some may argue that investors understand the risks and that no one is forcing them to buy the stock. But as a former investment banker, I know, in our heart of hearts, that most retail investors are unlikely to read the Risk section of the prospectus carefully, if they read it at all. Many will buy because of you, and you alone. I believe in you too. I trust that you and your team may eventually accomplish what seems impossible, as you have done time and again. But many of these goals may take years, even decades, to fully materialize.
As with many visionary companies, aggressive timelines can be delayed by many years, as has been the case with Tesla. In the meantime, many retail investors may put their life savings into SpaceX stock without fully understanding the magnitude of the risk they are assuming. So I plead with you: please consider lowering the price-to-revenue multiple by one-third or even one-quarter, to reduce the risk and time-cost burden on ordinary mom-and-pop investors. If SpaceX indeed reaches the originally implied valuation, its market capitalization will not be diminished, but such a change in the reward/risk ratio will matter a great deal to those retail investors.
The company may simply need to issue somewhat more equity to raise the same amount of capital. The dilution to your own stake would likely be modest, and you control 85% of the company’s voting right anyway. You are on your way to becoming history’s first trillionaire, and you have already proven yourself to be the greatest entrepreneur of our time --- perhaps in a league of your own. Not even Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, or the Google founders occupy quite the same place in history. But now you have an opportunity to show the world that you are not only the greatest and most consequential entrepreneur humanity has ever seen, but also one of the kindest and most generous to the ordinary people on Earth who are eager to join you on your ambitious journey to Mars and beyond.
Respectively, Song Li, investment banker-turned internet entrepreneur

[Song Li @songl]

SpaceX is the most ambitious company of our time. But it is also asking retail investors to pay 94x price-to-revenue for an AI race it isn’t leading currently. Both are true, only one is in the headlines. I wrote a letter to Elon Musk on X, urging him to reconsider the pricing of the upcoming SpaceX IPO offering to mitigate risk for retail investors. He hasn’t replied. The full letter is below:

@elonmusk
, SpaceX IPO on June 12! Congratulations on building another extraordinary, mission-driven company that will likely have a profound and positive impact on humanity for decades to come. You have done it again. I am also an entrepreneur, though vanishingly insignificant compared with what you have achieved. I once built Asia’s largest dating platform, helping 250 million registered members search for the other half of their lives. You have long been a shining model and an endless source of inspiration for me and for millions of entrepreneurs around the world. That said, as a former Morgan Stanley banker, I feel deeply uncomfortable with the way SpaceX appears to be priced for its IPO, especially given the enormous risk that euphoric retail investors may take in their rush to buy shares. At a staggering 94x price-to-revenue ratio, SpaceX would be valued at roughly five times Tesla’s multiple --- and Tesla itself is already priced close to perfection. In the “Our Market Opportunity” section of SpaceX’s prospectus, the company projects a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion, with its three core businesses --- Space, Connectivity, and AI --- accounting for roughly 1% ($370 billion), 6% ($1.6 trillion), and 93% ($26.5 trillion) of that opportunity, respectively. In other words, even though SpaceX clearly dominates Space and Connectivity, public investors would essentially be betting on SpaceX’s eventual dominance in AI at a 94x price-to-revenue valuation. Given your track record, I have every reason to believe SpaceX may one day become one of the world’s leading AI companies, especially in space AI. But today, its AI business is not yet a clear leader, while competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini are objectively far ahead. That means retail investors would be buying into an AI dream that may indeed come true --- but at what could be the highest valuation in financial history. That bothers me. Some may argue that investors understand the risks and that no one is forcing them to buy the stock. But as a former investment banker, I know, in our heart of hearts, that most retail investors are unlikely to read the Risk section of the prospectus carefully, if they read it at all. Many will buy because of you, and you alone. I believe in you too. I trust that you and your team may eventually accomplish what seems impossible, as you have done time and again. But many of these goals may take years, even decades, to fully materialize. As with many visionary companies, aggressive timelines can be delayed by many years, as has been the case with Tesla. In the meantime, many retail investors may put their life savings into SpaceX stock without fully understanding the magnitude of the risk they are assuming. So I plead with you: please consider lowering the price-to-revenue multiple by one-third or even one-quarter, to reduce the risk and time-cost burden on ordinary mom-and-pop investors. If SpaceX indeed reaches the originally implied valuation, its market capitalization will not be diminished, but such a change in the reward/risk ratio will matter a great deal to those retail investors. The company may simply need to issue somewhat more equity to raise the same amount of capital. The dilution to your own stake would likely be modest, and you control 85% of the company’s voting right anyway. You are on your way to becoming history’s first trillionaire, and you have already proven yourself to be the greatest entrepreneur of our time --- perhaps in a league of your own. Not even Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, or the Google founders occupy quite the same place in history. But now you have an opportunity to show the world that you are not only the greatest and most consequential entrepreneur humanity has ever seen, but also one of the kindest and most generous to the ordinary people on Earth who are eager to join you on your ambitious journey to Mars and beyond. Respectively, Song Li, investment banker-turned internet entrepreneur

[Song Li @songl]

SpaceX is the most ambitious company of our time. But it is also asking retail investors to pay 94x price-to-revenue for an AI race it isn’t leading currently. Both are true, only one is in the headlines. I wrote a letter to Elon Musk on X, urging him to reconsider the pricing of the upcoming SpaceX IPO offering to mitigate risk for retail investors. He hasn’t replied. The full letter is below:

@elonmusk
, SpaceX IPO on June 12! Congratulations on building another extraordinary, mission-driven company that will likely have a profound and positive impact on humanity for decades to come. You have done it again. I am also an entrepreneur, though vanishingly insignificant compared with what you have achieved. I once built Asia’s largest dating platform, helping 250 million registered members search for the other half of their lives. You have long been a shining model and an endless source of inspiration for me and for millions of entrepreneurs around the world. That said, as a former Morgan Stanley banker, I feel deeply uncomfortable with the way SpaceX appears to be priced for its IPO, especially given the enormous risk that euphoric retail investors may take in their rush to buy shares. At a staggering 94x price-to-revenue ratio, SpaceX would be valued at roughly five times Tesla’s multiple --- and Tesla itself is already priced close to perfection. In the “Our Market Opportunity” section of SpaceX’s prospectus, the company projects a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion, with its three core businesses --- Space, Connectivity, and AI --- accounting for roughly 1% ($370 billion), 6% ($1.6 trillion), and 93% ($26.5 trillion) of that opportunity, respectively. In other words, even though SpaceX clearly dominates Space and Connectivity, public investors would essentially be betting on SpaceX’s eventual dominance in AI at a 94x price-to-revenue valuation. Given your track record, I have every reason to believe SpaceX may one day become one of the world’s leading AI companies, especially in space AI. But today, its AI business is not yet a clear leader, while competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini are objectively far ahead. That means retail investors would be buying into an AI dream that may indeed come true --- but at what could be the highest valuation in financial history. That bothers me. Some may argue that investors understand the risks and that no one is forcing them to buy the stock. But as a former investment banker, I know, in our heart of hearts, that most retail investors are unlikely to read the Risk section of the prospectus carefully, if they read it at all. Many will buy because of you, and you alone. I believe in you too. I trust that you and your team may eventually accomplish what seems impossible, as you have done time and again. But many of these goals may take years, even decades, to fully materialize. As with many visionary companies, aggressive timelines can be delayed by many years, as has been the case with Tesla. In the meantime, many retail investors may put their life savings into SpaceX stock without fully understanding the magnitude of the risk they are assuming. So I plead with you: please consider lowering the price-to-revenue multiple by one-third or even one-quarter, to reduce the risk and time-cost burden on ordinary mom-and-pop investors. If SpaceX indeed reaches the originally implied valuation, its market capitalization will not be diminished, but such a change in the reward/risk ratio will matter a great deal to those retail investors. The company may simply need to issue somewhat more equity to raise the same amount of capital. The dilution to your own stake would likely be modest, and you control 85% of the company’s voting right anyway. You are on your way to becoming history’s first trillionaire, and you have already proven yourself to be the greatest entrepreneur of our time --- perhaps in a league of your own. Not even Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, or the Google founders occupy quite the same place in history. But now you have an opportunity to show the world that you are not only the greatest and most consequential entrepreneur humanity has ever seen, but also one of the kindest and most generous to the ordinary people on Earth who are eager to join you on your ambitious journey to Mars and beyond. Respectively, Song Li, investment banker-turned internet entrepreneur

[Song Li @songl]

SpaceX is the most ambitious company of our time. But it is also asking retail investors to pay 94x price-to-revenue for an AI race it isn’t leading currently. Both are true, only one is in the headlines. I wrote a letter to Elon Musk on X, urging him to reconsider the pricing of the upcoming SpaceX IPO offering to mitigate risk for retail investors. He hasn’t replied. The full letter is below:

@elonmusk
, SpaceX IPO on June 12! Congratulations on building another extraordinary, mission-driven company that will likely have a profound and positive impact on humanity for decades to come. You have done it again. I am also an entrepreneur, though vanishingly insignificant compared with what you have achieved. I once built Asia’s largest dating platform, helping 250 million registered members search for the other half of their lives. You have long been a shining model and an endless source of inspiration for me and for millions of entrepreneurs around the world. That said, as a former Morgan Stanley banker, I feel deeply uncomfortable with the way SpaceX appears to be priced for its IPO, especially given the enormous risk that euphoric retail investors may take in their rush to buy shares. At a staggering 94x price-to-revenue ratio, SpaceX would be valued at roughly five times Tesla’s multiple --- and Tesla itself is already priced close to perfection. In the “Our Market Opportunity” section of SpaceX’s prospectus, the company projects a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion, with its three core businesses --- Space, Connectivity, and AI --- accounting for roughly 1% ($370 billion), 6% ($1.6 trillion), and 93% ($26.5 trillion) of that opportunity, respectively. In other words, even though SpaceX clearly dominates Space and Connectivity, public investors would essentially be betting on SpaceX’s eventual dominance in AI at a 94x price-to-revenue valuation. Given your track record, I have every reason to believe SpaceX may one day become one of the world’s leading AI companies, especially in space AI. But today, its AI business is not yet a clear leader, while competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini are objectively far ahead. That means retail investors would be buying into an AI dream that may indeed come true --- but at what could be the highest valuation in financial history. That bothers me. Some may argue that investors understand the risks and that no one is forcing them to buy the stock. But as a former investment banker, I know, in our heart of hearts, that most retail investors are unlikely to read the Risk section of the prospectus carefully, if they read it at all. Many will buy because of you, and you alone. I believe in you too. I trust that you and your team may eventually accomplish what seems impossible, as you have done time and again. But many of these goals may take years, even decades, to fully materialize. As with many visionary companies, aggressive timelines can be delayed by many years, as has been the case with Tesla. In the meantime, many retail investors may put their life savings into SpaceX stock without fully understanding the magnitude of the risk they are assuming. So I plead with you: please consider lowering the price-to-revenue multiple by one-third or even one-quarter, to reduce the risk and time-cost burden on ordinary mom-and-pop investors. If SpaceX indeed reaches the originally implied valuation, its market capitalization will not be diminished, but such a change in the reward/risk ratio will matter a great deal to those retail investors. The company may simply need to issue somewhat more equity to raise the same amount of capital. The dilution to your own stake would likely be modest, and you control 85% of the company’s voting right anyway. You are on your way to becoming history’s first trillionaire, and you have already proven yourself to be the greatest entrepreneur of our time --- perhaps in a league of your own. Not even Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, or the Google founders occupy quite the same place in history. But now you have an opportunity to show the world that you are not only the greatest and most consequential entrepreneur humanity has ever seen, but also one of the kindest and most generous to the ordinary people on Earth who are eager to join you on your ambitious journey to Mars and beyond. Respectively, Song Li, investment banker-turned internet entrepreneur

[Song Li @songl]

SpaceX is the most ambitious company of our time. But it is also asking retail investors to pay 94x price-to-revenue for an AI race it isn’t leading currently. Both are true, only one is in the headlines. I wrote a letter to Elon Musk on X, urging him to reconsider the pricing of the upcoming SpaceX IPO offering to mitigate risk for retail investors. He hasn’t replied. The full letter is below:

@elonmusk, SpaceX IPO on June 12! Congratulations on building another extraordinary, mission-driven company that will likely have a profound and positive impact on humanity for decades to come. You have done it again. I am also an entrepreneur, though vanishingly insignificant compared with what you have achieved. I once built Asia’s largest dating platform, helping 250 million registered members search for the other half of their lives. You have long been a shining model and an endless source of inspiration for me and for millions of entrepreneurs around the world.
That said, as a former Morgan Stanley banker, I feel deeply uncomfortable with the way SpaceX appears to be priced for its IPO, especially given the enormous risk that euphoric retail investors may take in their rush to buy shares. At a staggering 94x price-to-revenue ratio, SpaceX would be valued at roughly five times Tesla’s multiple --- and Tesla itself is already priced close to perfection.
In the “Our Market Opportunity” section of SpaceX’s prospectus, the company projects a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion, with its three core businesses --- Space, Connectivity, and AI --- accounting for roughly 1% ($370 billion), 6% ($1.6 trillion), and 93% ($26.5 trillion) of that opportunity, respectively. In other words, even though SpaceX clearly dominates Space and Connectivity, public investors would essentially be betting on SpaceX’s eventual dominance in AI at a 94x price-to-revenue valuation.
Given your track record, I have every reason to believe SpaceX may one day become one of the world’s leading AI companies, especially in space AI. But today, its AI business is not yet a clear leader, while competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini are objectively far ahead. That means retail investors would be buying into an AI dream that may indeed come true --- but at what could be the highest valuation in financial history. That bothers me.
Some may argue that investors understand the risks and that no one is forcing them to buy the stock. But as a former investment banker, I know, in our heart of hearts, that most retail investors are unlikely to read the Risk section of the prospectus carefully, if they read it at all. Many will buy because of you, and you alone. I believe in you too. I trust that you and your team may eventually accomplish what seems impossible, as you have done time and again. But many of these goals may take years, even decades, to fully materialize.
As with many visionary companies, aggressive timelines can be delayed by many years, as has been the case with Tesla. In the meantime, many retail investors may put their life savings into SpaceX stock without fully understanding the magnitude of the risk they are assuming. So I plead with you: please consider lowering the price-to-revenue multiple by one-third or even one-quarter, to reduce the risk and time-cost burden on ordinary mom-and-pop investors. If SpaceX indeed reaches the originally implied valuation, its market capitalization will not be diminished, but such a change in the reward/risk ratio will matter a great deal to those retail investors.
The company may simply need to issue somewhat more equity to raise the same amount of capital. The dilution to your own stake would likely be modest, and you control 85% of the company’s voting right anyway. You are on your way to becoming history’s first trillionaire, and you have already proven yourself to be the greatest entrepreneur of our time --- perhaps in a league of your own. Not even Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, or the Google founders occupy quite the same place in history. But now you have an opportunity to show the world that you are not only the greatest and most consequential entrepreneur humanity has ever seen, but also one of the kindest and most generous to the ordinary people on Earth who are eager to join you on your ambitious journey to Mars and beyond.
Respectively, Song Li, investment banker-turned internet entrepreneur

[Song Li @songl]

SpaceX is the most ambitious company of our time. But it is also asking retail investors to pay 94x price-to-revenue for an AI race it isn’t leading currently. Both are true, only one is in the headlines. I wrote a letter to Elon Musk on X, urging him to reconsider the pricing of the upcoming SpaceX IPO offering to mitigate risk for retail investors. He hasn’t replied. The full letter is below:

@elonmusk, SpaceX IPO on June 12! Congratulations on building another extraordinary, mission-driven company that will likely have a profound and positive impact on humanity for decades to come. You have done it again. I am also an entrepreneur, though vanishingly insignificant compared with what you have achieved. I once built Asia’s largest dating platform, helping 250 million registered members search for the other half of their lives. You have long been a shining model and an endless source of inspiration for me and for millions of entrepreneurs around the world.
That said, as a former Morgan Stanley banker, I feel deeply uncomfortable with the way SpaceX appears to be priced for its IPO, especially given the enormous risk that euphoric retail investors may take in their rush to buy shares. At a staggering 94x price-to-revenue ratio, SpaceX would be valued at roughly five times Tesla’s multiple --- and Tesla itself is already priced close to perfection.
In the “Our Market Opportunity” section of SpaceX’s prospectus, the company projects a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion, with its three core businesses --- Space, Connectivity, and AI --- accounting for roughly 1% ($370 billion), 6% ($1.6 trillion), and 93% ($26.5 trillion) of that opportunity, respectively. In other words, even though SpaceX clearly dominates Space and Connectivity, public investors would essentially be betting on SpaceX’s eventual dominance in AI at a 94x price-to-revenue valuation.
Given your track record, I have every reason to believe SpaceX may one day become one of the world’s leading AI companies, especially in space AI. But today, its AI business is not yet a clear leader, while competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini are objectively far ahead. That means retail investors would be buying into an AI dream that may indeed come true --- but at what could be the highest valuation in financial history. That bothers me.
Some may argue that investors understand the risks and that no one is forcing them to buy the stock. But as a former investment banker, I know, in our heart of hearts, that most retail investors are unlikely to read the Risk section of the prospectus carefully, if they read it at all. Many will buy because of you, and you alone. I believe in you too. I trust that you and your team may eventually accomplish what seems impossible, as you have done time and again. But many of these goals may take years, even decades, to fully materialize.
As with many visionary companies, aggressive timelines can be delayed by many years, as has been the case with Tesla. In the meantime, many retail investors may put their life savings into SpaceX stock without fully understanding the magnitude of the risk they are assuming. So I plead with you: please consider lowering the price-to-revenue multiple by one-third or even one-quarter, to reduce the risk and time-cost burden on ordinary mom-and-pop investors. If SpaceX indeed reaches the originally implied valuation, its market capitalization will not be diminished, but such a change in the reward/risk ratio will matter a great deal to those retail investors.
The company may simply need to issue somewhat more equity to raise the same amount of capital. The dilution to your own stake would likely be modest, and you control 85% of the company’s voting right anyway. You are on your way to becoming history’s first trillionaire, and you have already proven yourself to be the greatest entrepreneur of our time --- perhaps in a league of your own. Not even Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, or the Google founders occupy quite the same place in history. But now you have an opportunity to show the world that you are not only the greatest and most consequential entrepreneur humanity has ever seen, but also one of the kindest and most generous to the ordinary people on Earth who are eager to join you on your ambitious journey to Mars and beyond.
Respectively, Song Li, investment banker-turned internet entrepreneur

[Song Li @songl]

SpaceX is the most ambitious company of our time. But it is also asking retail investors to pay 94x price-to-revenue for an AI race it isn’t leading currently. Both are true, only one is in the headlines. I wrote a letter to Elon Musk on X, urging him to reconsider the pricing of the upcoming SpaceX IPO offering to mitigate risk for retail investors. He hasn’t replied. The full letter is below:

@elonmusk, SpaceX IPO on June 12! Congratulations on building another extraordinary, mission-driven company that will likely have a profound and positive impact on humanity for decades to come. You have done it again. I am also an entrepreneur, though vanishingly insignificant compared with what you have achieved. I once built Asia’s largest dating platform, helping 250 million registered members search for the other half of their lives. You have long been a shining model and an endless source of inspiration for me and for millions of entrepreneurs around the world.
That said, as a former Morgan Stanley banker, I feel deeply uncomfortable with the way SpaceX appears to be priced for its IPO, especially given the enormous risk that euphoric retail investors may take in their rush to buy shares. At a staggering 94x price-to-revenue ratio, SpaceX would be valued at roughly five times Tesla’s multiple --- and Tesla itself is already priced close to perfection.
In the “Our Market Opportunity” section of SpaceX’s prospectus, the company projects a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion, with its three core businesses --- Space, Connectivity, and AI --- accounting for roughly 1% ($370 billion), 6% ($1.6 trillion), and 93% ($26.5 trillion) of that opportunity, respectively. In other words, even though SpaceX clearly dominates Space and Connectivity, public investors would essentially be betting on SpaceX’s eventual dominance in AI at a 94x price-to-revenue valuation.
Given your track record, I have every reason to believe SpaceX may one day become one of the world’s leading AI companies, especially in space AI. But today, its AI business is not yet a clear leader, while competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini are objectively far ahead. That means retail investors would be buying into an AI dream that may indeed come true --- but at what could be the highest valuation in financial history. That bothers me.
Some may argue that investors understand the risks and that no one is forcing them to buy the stock. But as a former investment banker, I know, in our heart of hearts, that most retail investors are unlikely to read the Risk section of the prospectus carefully, if they read it at all. Many will buy because of you, and you alone. I believe in you too. I trust that you and your team may eventually accomplish what seems impossible, as you have done time and again. But many of these goals may take years, even decades, to fully materialize.
As with many visionary companies, aggressive timelines can be delayed by many years, as has been the case with Tesla. In the meantime, many retail investors may put their life savings into SpaceX stock without fully understanding the magnitude of the risk they are assuming. So I plead with you: please consider lowering the price-to-revenue multiple by one-third or even one-quarter, to reduce the risk and time-cost burden on ordinary mom-and-pop investors. If SpaceX indeed reaches the originally implied valuation, its market capitalization will not be diminished, but such a change in the reward/risk ratio will matter a great deal to those retail investors.
The company may simply need to issue somewhat more equity to raise the same amount of capital. The dilution to your own stake would likely be modest, and you control 85% of the company’s voting right anyway. You are on your way to becoming history’s first trillionaire, and you have already proven yourself to be the greatest entrepreneur of our time --- perhaps in a league of your own. Not even Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, or the Google founders occupy quite the same place in history. But now you have an opportunity to show the world that you are not only the greatest and most consequential entrepreneur humanity has ever seen, but also one of the kindest and most generous to the ordinary people on Earth who are eager to join you on your ambitious journey to Mars and beyond.
Respectively, Song Li, investment banker-turned internet entrepreneur

[Song Li @songl]

SpaceX is the most ambitious company of our time. But it is also asking retail investors to pay 94x price-to-revenue for an AI race it isn’t leading currently. Both are true, only one is in the headlines. I wrote a letter to Elon Musk on X, urging him to reconsider the pricing of the upcoming SpaceX IPO offering to mitigate risk for retail investors. He hasn’t replied. The full letter is below:

@elonmusk, SpaceX IPO on June 12! Congratulations on building another extraordinary, mission-driven company that will likely have a profound and positive impact on humanity for decades to come. You have done it again. I am also an entrepreneur, though vanishingly insignificant compared with what you have achieved. I once built Asia’s largest dating platform, helping 250 million registered members search for the other half of their lives. You have long been a shining model and an endless source of inspiration for me and for millions of entrepreneurs around the world.
That said, as a former Morgan Stanley banker, I feel deeply uncomfortable with the way SpaceX appears to be priced for its IPO, especially given the enormous risk that euphoric retail investors may take in their rush to buy shares. At a staggering 94x price-to-revenue ratio, SpaceX would be valued at roughly five times Tesla’s multiple --- and Tesla itself is already priced close to perfection.
In the “Our Market Opportunity” section of SpaceX’s prospectus, the company projects a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion, with its three core businesses --- Space, Connectivity, and AI --- accounting for roughly 1% ($370 billion), 6% ($1.6 trillion), and 93% ($26.5 trillion) of that opportunity, respectively. In other words, even though SpaceX clearly dominates Space and Connectivity, public investors would essentially be betting on SpaceX’s eventual dominance in AI at a 94x price-to-revenue valuation.
Given your track record, I have every reason to believe SpaceX may one day become one of the world’s leading AI companies, especially in space AI. But today, its AI business is not yet a clear leader, while competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini are objectively far ahead. That means retail investors would be buying into an AI dream that may indeed come true --- but at what could be the highest valuation in financial history. That bothers me.
Some may argue that investors understand the risks and that no one is forcing them to buy the stock. But as a former investment banker, I know, in our heart of hearts, that most retail investors are unlikely to read the Risk section of the prospectus carefully, if they read it at all. Many will buy because of you, and you alone. I believe in you too. I trust that you and your team may eventually accomplish what seems impossible, as you have done time and again. But many of these goals may take years, even decades, to fully materialize.
As with many visionary companies, aggressive timelines can be delayed by many years, as has been the case with Tesla. In the meantime, many retail investors may put their life savings into SpaceX stock without fully understanding the magnitude of the risk they are assuming. So I plead with you: please consider lowering the price-to-revenue multiple by one-third or even one-quarter, to reduce the risk and time-cost burden on ordinary mom-and-pop investors. If SpaceX indeed reaches the originally implied valuation, its market capitalization will not be diminished, but such a change in the reward/risk ratio will matter a great deal to those retail investors.
The company may simply need to issue somewhat more equity to raise the same amount of capital. The dilution to your own stake would likely be modest, and you control 85% of the company’s voting right anyway. You are on your way to becoming history’s first trillionaire, and you have already proven yourself to be the greatest entrepreneur of our time --- perhaps in a league of your own. Not even Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, or the Google founders occupy quite the same place in history. But now you have an opportunity to show the world that you are not only the greatest and most consequential entrepreneur humanity has ever seen, but also one of the kindest and most generous to the ordinary people on Earth who are eager to join you on your ambitious journey to Mars and beyond.
Respectively, Song Li, investment banker-turned internet entrepreneur

[Song Li @songl]

SpaceX is the most ambitious company of our time. But it is also asking retail investors to pay 94x price-to-revenue for an AI race it isn’t leading currently. Both are true, only one is in the headlines. I wrote a letter to Elon Musk on X, urging him to reconsider the pricing of the upcoming SpaceX IPO offering to mitigate risk for retail investors. He hasn’t replied. The full letter is below:

@ElonMusk

SpaceX IPO on June 12! Congratulations on building another extraordinary, mission-driven company that will likely have a profound and positive impact on humanity for decades to come. You have done it again.

I am also an entrepreneur, though vanishingly insignificant compared with what you have achieved. I once built Asia’s largest dating platform, helping 250 million registered members search for the other half of their lives. You have long been a shining model and an endless source of inspiration for me and for millions of entrepreneurs around the world.

That said, as a former Morgan Stanley banker, I feel deeply uncomfortable with the way SpaceX appears to be priced for its IPO, especially given the enormous risk that euphoric retail investors may take in their rush to buy shares.

At a staggering 94x price-to-revenue ratio, SpaceX would be valued at roughly five times Tesla’s multiple --- and Tesla itself is already priced close to perfection. In the “Our Market Opportunity” section of SpaceX’s prospectus, the company projects a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion, with its three core businesses --- Space, Connectivity, and AI --- accounting for roughly 1% ($370 billion), 6% ($1.6 trillion), and 93% ($26.5 trillion) of that opportunity, respectively. In other words, even though SpaceX clearly dominates Space and Connectivity, public investors would essentially be betting on SpaceX’s eventual dominance in AI at a 94x price-to-revenue valuation.

Given your track record, I have every reason to believe SpaceX may one day become one of the world’s leading AI companies, especially in space AI. But today, its AI business is not yet a clear leader, while competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini are objectively far ahead. That means retail investors would be buying into an AI dream that may indeed come true --- but at what could be the highest valuation in financial history. That bothers me.

Some may argue that investors understand the risks and that no one is forcing them to buy the stock. But as a former investment banker, I know, in our heart of hearts, that most retail investors are unlikely to read the Risk section of the prospectus carefully, if they read it at all. Many will buy because of you, and you alone. I believe in you too. I trust that you and your team may eventually accomplish what seems impossible, as you have done time and again.

But many of these goals may take years, even decades, to fully materialize. As with many visionary companies, aggressive timelines can be delayed by many years, as has been the case with Tesla. In the meantime, many retail investors may put their life savings into SpaceX stock without fully understanding the magnitude of the risk they are assuming.

So I plead with you: please consider lowering the price-to-revenue multiple by one-third or even one-quarter, to reduce the risk and time-cost burden on ordinary mom-and-pop investors. If SpaceX indeed reaches the originally implied valuation, its market capitalization will not be diminished, but such a change in the reward/risk ratio will matter a great deal to those retail investors. The company may simply need to issue somewhat more equity to raise the same amount of capital. The dilution to your own stake would likely be modest, and you control 85% of the company’s voting right anyway.

You are on your way to becoming history’s first trillionaire, and you have already proven yourself to be the greatest entrepreneur of our time --- perhaps in a league of your own. Not even Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, or the Google founders occupy quite the same place in history.

But now you have an opportunity to show the world that you are not only the greatest and most consequential entrepreneur humanity has ever seen, but also one of the kindest and most generous to the ordinary people on Earth who are eager to join you on your ambitious journey to Mars and beyond.

Respectively, Song Li, investment banker-turned internet entrepreneur

[Song Li @songl]

@SenWarren @Jason SpaceX is the most ambitious company of our time. But it is also asking retail investors to pay 94x price-to-revenue for an AI race it isn’t leading currently. Both are true, only one is in the headlines.

I wrote a letter to Elon Musk on X, urging him to reconsider the pricing of the upcoming SpaceX IPO offering to mitigate risk for retail investors. He hasn’t replied. The full letter is below:

@ElonMusk

SpaceX IPO on June 12! Congratulations on building another extraordinary, mission-driven company that will likely have a profound and positive impact on humanity for decades to come. You have done it again.

I am also an entrepreneur, though vanishingly insignificant compared with what you have achieved. I once built Asia’s largest dating platform, helping 250 million registered members search for the other half of their lives. You have long been a shining model and an endless source of inspiration for me and for millions of entrepreneurs around the world.

That said, as a former Morgan Stanley banker, I feel deeply uncomfortable with the way SpaceX appears to be priced for its IPO, especially given the enormous risk that euphoric retail investors may take in their rush to buy shares.

At a staggering 94x price-to-revenue ratio, SpaceX would be valued at roughly five times Tesla’s multiple --- and Tesla itself is already priced close to perfection. In the “Our Market Opportunity” section of SpaceX’s prospectus, the company projects a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion, with its three core businesses --- Space, Connectivity, and AI --- accounting for roughly 1% ($370 billion), 6% ($1.6 trillion), and 93% ($26.5 trillion) of that opportunity, respectively. In other words, even though SpaceX clearly dominates Space and Connectivity, public investors would essentially be betting on SpaceX’s eventual dominance in AI at a 94x price-to-revenue valuation.

Given your track record, I have every reason to believe SpaceX may one day become one of the world’s leading AI companies, especially in space AI. But today, its AI business is not yet a clear leader, while competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini are objectively far ahead. That means retail investors would be buying into an AI dream that may indeed come true --- but at what could be the highest valuation in financial history. That bothers me.

Some may argue that investors understand the risks and that no one is forcing them to buy the stock. But as a former investment banker, I know, in our heart of hearts, that most retail investors are unlikely to read the Risk section of the prospectus carefully, if they read it at all. Many will buy because of you, and you alone. I believe in you too. I trust that you and your team may eventually accomplish what seems impossible, as you have done time and again.

But many of these goals may take years, even decades, to fully materialize. As with many visionary companies, aggressive timelines can be delayed by many years, as has been the case with Tesla. In the meantime, many retail investors may put their life savings into SpaceX stock without fully understanding the magnitude of the risk they are assuming.

So I plead with you: please consider lowering the price-to-revenue multiple by one-third or even one-quarter, to reduce the risk and time-cost burden on ordinary mom-and-pop investors. If SpaceX indeed reaches the originally implied valuation, its market capitalization will not be diminished, but such a change in the reward/risk ratio will matter a great deal to those retail investors. The company may simply need to issue somewhat more equity to raise the same amount of capital. The dilution to your own stake would likely be modest, and you control 85% of the company’s voting right anyway.

You are on your way to becoming history’s first trillionaire, and you have already proven yourself to be the greatest entrepreneur of our time --- perhaps in a league of your own. Not even Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, or the Google founders occupy quite the same place in history.

But now you have an opportunity to show the world that you are not only the greatest and most consequential entrepreneur humanity has ever seen, but also one of the kindest and most generous to the ordinary people on Earth who are eager to join you on your ambitious journey to Mars and beyond.

Respectively, Song Li, investment banker-turned internet entrepreneur

[Song Li @songl]

SpaceX is the most ambitious company of our time. But it is also asking retail investors to pay 94x price-to-revenue for an AI race it isn’t leading currently. Both are true, only one is in the headlines. I wrote a letter to Elon Musk on X, urging him to reconsider the pricing of the upcoming SpaceX IPO offering to mitigate risk for retail investors. He hasn’t replied. The full letter is below: @ElonMusk SpaceX IPO on June 12! Congratulations on building another extraordinary, mission-driven company that will likely have a profound and positive impact on humanity for decades to come. You have done it again. I am also an entrepreneur, though vanishingly insignificant compared with what you have achieved. I once built Asia’s largest dating platform, helping 250 million registered members search for the other half of their lives. You have long been a shining model and an endless source of inspiration for me and for millions of entrepreneurs around the world. That said, as a former Morgan Stanley banker, I feel deeply uncomfortable with the way SpaceX appears to be priced for its IPO, especially given the enormous risk that euphoric retail investors may take in their rush to buy shares. At a staggering 94x price-to-revenue ratio, SpaceX would be valued at roughly five times Tesla’s multiple --- and Tesla itself is already priced close to perfection. In the “Our Market Opportunity” section of SpaceX’s prospectus, the company projects a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion, with its three core businesses --- Space, Connectivity, and AI --- accounting for roughly 1% ($370 billion), 6% ($1.6 trillion), and 93% ($26.5 trillion) of that opportunity, respectively. In other words, even though SpaceX clearly dominates Space and Connectivity, public investors would essentially be betting on SpaceX’s eventual dominance in AI at a 94x price-to-revenue valuation. Given your track record, I have every reason to believe SpaceX may one day become one of the world’s leading AI companies, especially in space AI. But today, its AI business is not yet a clear leader, while competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini are objectively far ahead. That means retail investors would be buying into an AI dream that may indeed come true --- but at what could be the highest valuation in financial history. That bothers me. Some may argue that investors understand the risks and that no one is forcing them to buy the stock. But as a former investment banker, I know, in our heart of hearts, that most retail investors are unlikely to read the Risk section of the prospectus carefully, if they read it at all. Many will buy because of you, and you alone. I believe in you too. I trust that you and your team may eventually accomplish what seems impossible, as you have done time and again. But many of these goals may take years, even decades, to fully materialize. As with many visionary companies, aggressive timelines can be delayed by many years, as has been the case with Tesla. In the meantime, many retail investors may put their life savings into SpaceX stock without fully understanding the magnitude of the risk they are assuming. So I plead with you: please consider lowering the price-to-revenue multiple by one-third or even one-quarter, to reduce the risk and time-cost burden on ordinary mom-and-pop investors. If SpaceX indeed reaches the originally implied valuation, its market capitalization will not be diminished, but such a change in the reward/risk ratio will matter a great deal to those retail investors. The company may simply need to issue somewhat more equity to raise the same amount of capital. The dilution to your own stake would likely be modest, and you control 85% of the company’s voting right anyway. You are on your way to becoming history’s first trillionaire, and you have already proven yourself to be the greatest entrepreneur of our time --- perhaps in a league of your own. Not even Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, or the Google founders occupy quite the same place in history. But now you have an opportunity to show the world that you are not only the greatest and most consequential entrepreneur humanity has ever seen, but also one of the kindest and most generous to the ordinary people on Earth who are eager to join you on your ambitious journey to Mars and beyond. Respectively, Song Li, investment banker-turned internet entrepreneur

[Song Li @songl]

SpaceX is the most ambitious company of our time. But it is also asking retail investors to pay 94x price-to-revenue for an AI race it isn’t leading currently. Both are true, only one is in the headlines. I wrote a letter to Elon Musk on X, urging him to reconsider the pricing of the upcoming SpaceX IPO offering to mitigate risk for retail investors. He hasn’t replied. The full letter is below: @ElonMusk SpaceX IPO on June 12! Congratulations on building another extraordinary, mission-driven company that will likely have a profound and positive impact on humanity for decades to come. You have done it again. I am also an entrepreneur, though vanishingly insignificant compared with what you have achieved. I once built Asia’s largest dating platform, helping 250 million registered members search for the other half of their lives. You have long been a shining model and an endless source of inspiration for me and for millions of entrepreneurs around the world. That said, as a former Morgan Stanley banker, I feel deeply uncomfortable with the way SpaceX appears to be priced for its IPO, especially given the enormous risk that euphoric retail investors may take in their rush to buy shares. At a staggering 94x price-to-revenue ratio, SpaceX would be valued at roughly five times Tesla’s multiple --- and Tesla itself is already priced close to perfection. In the “Our Market Opportunity” section of SpaceX’s prospectus, the company projects a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion, with its three core businesses --- Space, Connectivity, and AI --- accounting for roughly 1% ($370 billion), 6% ($1.6 trillion), and 93% ($26.5 trillion) of that opportunity, respectively. In other words, even though SpaceX clearly dominates Space and Connectivity, public investors would essentially be betting on SpaceX’s eventual dominance in AI at a 94x price-to-revenue valuation. Given your track record, I have every reason to believe SpaceX may one day become one of the world’s leading AI companies, especially in space AI. But today, its AI business is not yet a clear leader, while competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini are objectively far ahead. That means retail investors would be buying into an AI dream that may indeed come true --- but at what could be the highest valuation in financial history. That bothers me. Some may argue that investors understand the risks and that no one is forcing them to buy the stock. But as a former investment banker, I know, in our heart of hearts, that most retail investors are unlikely to read the Risk section of the prospectus carefully, if they read it at all. Many will buy because of you, and you alone. I believe in you too. I trust that you and your team may eventually accomplish what seems impossible, as you have done time and again. But many of these goals may take years, even decades, to fully materialize. As with many visionary companies, aggressive timelines can be delayed by many years, as has been the case with Tesla. In the meantime, many retail investors may put their life savings into SpaceX stock without fully understanding the magnitude of the risk they are assuming. So I plead with you: please consider lowering the price-to-revenue multiple by one-third or even one-quarter, to reduce the risk and time-cost burden on ordinary mom-and-pop investors. If SpaceX indeed reaches the originally implied valuation, its market capitalization will not be diminished, but such a change in the reward/risk ratio will matter a great deal to those retail investors. The company may simply need to issue somewhat more equity to raise the same amount of capital. The dilution to your own stake would likely be modest, and you control 85% of the company’s voting right anyway. You are on your way to becoming history’s first trillionaire, and you have already proven yourself to be the greatest entrepreneur of our time --- perhaps in a league of your own. Not even Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, or the Google founders occupy quite the same place in history. But now you have an opportunity to show the world that you are not only the greatest and most consequential entrepreneur humanity has ever seen, but also one of the kindest and most generous to the ordinary people on Earth who are eager to join you on your ambitious journey to Mars and beyond. Respectively, Song Li, investment banker-turned internet entrepreneur

[Song Li @songl]

SpaceX is the most ambitious company of our time. But it is also asking retail investors to pay 94x price-to-revenue for an AI race it isn’t leading currently. Both are true, only one is in the headlines. I wrote a letter to Elon Musk on X, urging him to reconsider the pricing of the upcoming SpaceX IPO offering to mitigate risk for retail investors. He hasn’t replied. The full letter is below: @ElonMusk SpaceX IPO on June 12! Congratulations on building another extraordinary, mission-driven company that will likely have a profound and positive impact on humanity for decades to come. You have done it again. I am also an entrepreneur, though vanishingly insignificant compared with what you have achieved. I once built Asia’s largest dating platform, helping 250 million registered members search for the other half of their lives. You have long been a shining model and an endless source of inspiration for me and for millions of entrepreneurs around the world. That said, as a former Morgan Stanley banker, I feel deeply uncomfortable with the way SpaceX appears to be priced for its IPO, especially given the enormous risk that euphoric retail investors may take in their rush to buy shares. At a staggering 94x price-to-revenue ratio, SpaceX would be valued at roughly five times Tesla’s multiple --- and Tesla itself is already priced close to perfection. In the “Our Market Opportunity” section of SpaceX’s prospectus, the company projects a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion, with its three core businesses --- Space, Connectivity, and AI --- accounting for roughly 1% ($370 billion), 6% ($1.6 trillion), and 93% ($26.5 trillion) of that opportunity, respectively. In other words, even though SpaceX clearly dominates Space and Connectivity, public investors would essentially be betting on SpaceX’s eventual dominance in AI at a 94x price-to-revenue valuation. Given your track record, I have every reason to believe SpaceX may one day become one of the world’s leading AI companies, especially in space AI. But today, its AI business is not yet a clear leader, while competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini are objectively far ahead. That means retail investors would be buying into an AI dream that may indeed come true --- but at what could be the highest valuation in financial history. That bothers me. Some may argue that investors understand the risks and that no one is forcing them to buy the stock. But as a former investment banker, I know, in our heart of hearts, that most retail investors are unlikely to read the Risk section of the prospectus carefully, if they read it at all. Many will buy because of you, and you alone. I believe in you too. I trust that you and your team may eventually accomplish what seems impossible, as you have done time and again. But many of these goals may take years, even decades, to fully materialize. As with many visionary companies, aggressive timelines can be delayed by many years, as has been the case with Tesla. In the meantime, many retail investors may put their life savings into SpaceX stock without fully understanding the magnitude of the risk they are assuming. So I plead with you: please consider lowering the price-to-revenue multiple by one-third or even one-quarter, to reduce the risk and time-cost burden on ordinary mom-and-pop investors. If SpaceX indeed reaches the originally implied valuation, its market capitalization will not be diminished, but such a change in the reward/risk ratio will matter a great deal to those retail investors. The company may simply need to issue somewhat more equity to raise the same amount of capital. The dilution to your own stake would likely be modest, and you control 85% of the company’s voting right anyway. You are on your way to becoming history’s first trillionaire, and you have already proven yourself to be the greatest entrepreneur of our time --- perhaps in a league of your own. Not even Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, or the Google founders occupy quite the same place in history. But now you have an opportunity to show the world that you are not only the greatest and most consequential entrepreneur humanity has ever seen, but also one of the kindest and most generous to the ordinary people on Earth who are eager to join you on your ambitious journey to Mars and beyond. Respectively, Song Li, investment banker-turned internet entrepreneur

[Song Li @songl]

SpaceX is the most ambitious company of our time. But it is also asking retail investors to pay 94x price-to-revenue for an AI race it isn’t leading currently. Both are true, only one is in the headlines. I wrote a letter to Elon Musk on X, urging him to reconsider the pricing of the upcoming SpaceX IPO offering to mitigate risk for retail investors. He hasn’t replied. The full letter is below:
@ElonMusk SpaceX IPO on June 12! Congratulations on building another extraordinary, mission-driven company that will likely have a profound and positive impact on humanity for decades to come. You have done it again. I am also an entrepreneur, though vanishingly insignificant compared with what you have achieved. I once built Asia’s largest dating platform, helping 250 million registered members search for the other half of their lives. You have long been a shining model and an endless source of inspiration for me and for millions of entrepreneurs around the world. That said, as a former Morgan Stanley banker, I feel deeply uncomfortable with the way SpaceX appears to be priced for its IPO, especially given the enormous risk that euphoric retail investors may take in their rush to buy shares. At a staggering 94x price-to-revenue ratio, SpaceX would be valued at roughly five times Tesla’s multiple --- and Tesla itself is already priced close to perfection. In the “Our Market Opportunity” section of SpaceX’s prospectus, the company projects a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion, with its three core businesses --- Space, Connectivity, and AI --- accounting for roughly 1% ($370 billion), 6% ($1.6 trillion), and 93% ($26.5 trillion) of that opportunity, respectively. In other words, even though SpaceX clearly dominates Space and Connectivity, public investors would essentially be betting on SpaceX’s eventual dominance in AI at a 94x price-to-revenue valuation. Given your track record, I have every reason to believe SpaceX may one day become one of the world’s leading AI companies, especially in space AI. But today, its AI business is not yet a clear leader, while competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini are objectively far ahead. That means retail investors would be buying into an AI dream that may indeed come true --- but at what could be the highest valuation in financial history. That bothers me. Some may argue that investors understand the risks and that no one is forcing them to buy the stock. But as a former investment banker, I know, in our heart of hearts, that most retail investors are unlikely to read the Risk section of the prospectus carefully, if they read it at all. Many will buy because of you, and you alone. I believe in you too. I trust that you and your team may eventually accomplish what seems impossible, as you have done time and again. But many of these goals may take years, even decades, to fully materialize. As with many visionary companies, aggressive timelines can be delayed by many years, as has been the case with Tesla. In the meantime, many retail investors may put their life savings into SpaceX stock without fully understanding the magnitude of the risk they are assuming. So I plead with you: please consider lowering the price-to-revenue multiple by one-third or even one-quarter, to reduce the risk and time-cost burden on ordinary mom-and-pop investors. If SpaceX indeed reaches the originally implied valuation, its market capitalization will not be diminished, but such a change in the reward/risk ratio will matter a great deal to those retail investors. The company may simply need to issue somewhat more equity to raise the same amount of capital. The dilution to your own stake would likely be modest, and you control 85% of the company’s voting right anyway. You are on your way to becoming history’s first trillionaire, and you have already proven yourself to be the greatest entrepreneur of our time --- perhaps in a league of your own. Not even Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, or the Google founders occupy quite the same place in history. But now you have an opportunity to show the world that you are not only the greatest and most consequential entrepreneur humanity has ever seen, but also one of the kindest and most generous to the ordinary people on Earth who are eager to join you on your ambitious journey to Mars and beyond. Respectively, Song Li, investment banker-turned internet entrepreneur

[Song Li @songl]

SpaceX is the most ambitious company of our time. But it is also asking retail investors to pay 94x price-to-revenue for an AI race it isn’t leading currently. Both are true, only one is in the headlines.

I wrote a letter to Elon Musk on X, urging him to reconsider the pricing of the upcoming SpaceX IPO offering to mitigate risk for retail investors. He hasn’t replied. The full letter is below:

@elonmusk, SpaceX IPO on June 12!

Congratulations on building another extraordinary, mission-driven company that will likely have a profound and positive impact on humanity for decades to come. You have done it again.

I am also an entrepreneur, though vanishingly insignificant compared with what you have achieved. I once built Asia’s largest dating platform, helping 250 million registered members search for the other half of their lives. You have long been a shining model and an endless source of inspiration for me and for millions of entrepreneurs around the world.

That said, as a former Morgan Stanley banker, I feel deeply uncomfortable with the way SpaceX appears to be priced for its IPO, especially given the enormous risk that euphoric retail investors may take in their rush to buy shares. At a staggering 94x price-to-revenue ratio, SpaceX would be valued at roughly five times Tesla’s multiple --- and Tesla itself is already priced close to perfection.

In the “Our Market Opportunity” section of SpaceX’s prospectus, the company projects a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion, with its three core businesses --- Space, Connectivity, and AI --- accounting for roughly 1% ($370 billion), 6% ($1.6 trillion), and 93% ($26.5 trillion) of that opportunity, respectively. In other words, even though SpaceX clearly dominates Space and Connectivity, public investors would essentially be betting on SpaceX’s eventual dominance in AI at a 94x price-to-revenue valuation. Given your track record, I have every reason to believe SpaceX may one day become one of the world’s leading AI companies, especially in space AI. But today, its AI business is not yet a clear leader, while competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini are objectively far ahead. That means retail investors would be buying into an AI dream that may indeed come true --- but at what could be the highest valuation in financial history. That bothers me.

Some may argue that investors understand the risks and that no one is forcing them to buy the stock. But as a former investment banker, I know, in our heart of hearts, that most retail investors are unlikely to read the Risk section of the prospectus carefully, if they read it at all. Many will buy because of you, and you alone. I believe in you too. I trust that you and your team may eventually accomplish what seems impossible, as you have done time and again. But many of these goals may take years, even decades, to fully materialize.

As with many visionary companies, aggressive timelines can be delayed by many years, as has been the case with Tesla. In the meantime, many retail investors may put their life savings into SpaceX stock without fully understanding the magnitude of the risk they are assuming. So I plead with you: please consider lowering the price-to-revenue multiple by one-third or even one-quarter, to reduce the risk and time-cost burden on ordinary mom-and-pop investors. If SpaceX indeed reaches the originally implied valuation, its market capitalization will not be diminished, but such a change in the reward/risk ratio will matter a great deal to those retail investors.

The company may simply need to issue somewhat more equity to raise the same amount of capital. The dilution to your own stake would likely be modest, and you control 85% of the company’s voting right anyway. You are on your way to becoming history’s first trillionaire, and you have already proven yourself to be the greatest entrepreneur of our time --- perhaps in a league of your own. Not even Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, or the Google founders occupy quite the same place in history. But now you have an opportunity to show the world that you are not only the greatest and most consequential entrepreneur humanity has ever seen, but also one of the kindest and most generous to the ordinary people on Earth who are eager to join you on your ambitious journey to Mars and beyond.

Respectively, Song Li, investment banker-turned internet entrepreneur

[Song Li @songl]

@elonmusk
SpaceX IPO on June 12! Congratulations on building another extraordinary, mission-driven company that will likely have a profound and positive impact on humanity for decades to come.
You have done it again.
I am also an entrepreneur, though vanishingly insignificant compared with what you have
achieved. I once built Asia’s largest dating platform, helping 250 million registered members
search for the other half of their lives. You have long been a shining model and an endless source
of inspiration for me and for millions of entrepreneurs around the world.
That said, as a former Morgan Stanley banker, I feel deeply uncomfortable with the way SpaceX
appears to be priced for its IPO, especially given the enormous risk that euphoric retail investors
may take in their rush to buy shares.
At a staggering 94x price-to-revenue ratio, SpaceX would be valued at roughly five times Tesla’s
multiple --- and Tesla itself is already priced close to perfection. In the “Our Market
Opportunity” section of SpaceX’s prospectus, the company projects a total addressable market of
$28.5 trillion, with its three core businesses --- Space, Connectivity, and AI --- accounting for
roughly 1% ($370 billion), 6% ($1.6 trillion), and 93% ($26.5 trillion) of that opportunity,
respectively. In other words, even though SpaceX clearly dominates Space and Connectivity,
public investors would essentially be betting on SpaceX’s eventual dominance in AI at a 94x
price-to-revenue valuation.
Given your track record, I have every reason to believe SpaceX may one day become one of the
world’s leading AI companies, especially in space AI. But today, its AI business is not yet a clear
leader, while competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini are objectively far
ahead. That means retail investors would be buying into an AI dream that may indeed come true
--- but at what could be the highest valuation in financial history. That bothers me.
Some may argue that investors understand the risks and that no one is forcing them to buy the
stock. But as a former investment banker, I know, in our heart of hearts, that most retail investors
are unlikely to read the Risk section of the prospectus carefully, if they read it at all. Many will
buy because of you, and you alone.
I believe in you too. I trust that you and your team may eventually accomplish what seems
impossible, as you have done time and again. But many of these goals may take years, even
decades, to fully materialize. As with many visionary companies, aggressive timelines can be
delayed by many years, as has been the case with Tesla. In the meantime, many retail investors
may put their life savings into SpaceX stock without fully understanding the magnitude of the
risk they are assuming.
So I plead with you: please consider lowering the price-to-revenue multiple by one-third or even
one-quarter, to reduce the risk and time-cost burden on ordinary mom-and-pop investors. If
SpaceX indeed reaches the originally implied valuation, its market capitalization will not be
diminished, but such a change in the reward/risk ratio will matter a great deal to those retail

investors. The company may simply need to issue somewhat more equity to raise the same
amount of capital. The dilution to your own stake would likely be modest, and you control 85%
of the company’s voting right anyway.
You are on your way to becoming history’s first trillionaire, and you have already proven
yourself to be the greatest entrepreneur of our time --- perhaps in a league of your own. Not even
Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, or the Google founders occupy quite the same
place in history.
But now you have an opportunity to show the world that you are not only the greatest and most
consequential entrepreneur humanity has ever seen, but also one of the kindest and most
generous to the ordinary people on Earth who are eager to join you on your ambitious journey to
Mars and beyond.
Respectively, Song Li, investment banker-turned internet entrepreneur

[Song Li @songl]

@roseluqiu I've come back to Twitter (X) for the first time since I registered on it 15 years ago back in 2009 :)

[Song Li @songl]

Coming back to Twitter (now X) after more than a decade! The platform has changed for the better - as far as I'm concerned.