Umer Khan

SVP Software & CIO @relativityspace | Former VP @SpaceX | Islamic Scholar | Seminary Teacher @officialASI & @iokdiamondbar | Exec Member @fiqhcouncil

[Umer Khan @umer_khan]

@muadhchati @TheUsuli Absolutely love this! All hallucinations can be attributed to the author and the author alone 😀

[Umer Khan @umer_khan]

AI has pushed the skill floor so low that even a novice "prompt kiddie" is dangerous. A low-skill attacker used Claude and Codex with vague prompts and still breached 14 companies. The session logs are a wild read! https://t.co/Q0tgQ9SQvR

[Umer Khan @umer_khan]

@thesubmitter_ @SafdarAlam @orangeummah @inshAllahfi @pureFI @arshanmahmad Describing it muḍārabah only explains that profits are split between Goldsand and its customers. How the profits are generated (how exactly is the rabb al-māl’s capital utilized) is unclear. I look forward to transparency and details in ~1 week.

[Relativity Space @relativityspace]

We're going to conduct science at Mars.🔴 Yesterday we announced the Interplanetary Sciences Program. Today, let’s take a closer look at the ground-breaking technology we're developing and launching to the Red Planet:
📡 A shallow radar sounder built by us to map subsurface ice and geology, revealing climate and geologic history, habitability conditions, and high-value landing sites
🖥️A Relay Data Center built by us to deliver networked optical and RF communication, run advanced algorithms and AI models, support autonomous responsive science operations, and return massive data volumes to Earth.
🔬 An atmospheric profiling suite built by @NASAAmes to measure winds, temperatures, clouds, dust and planetary energy balance.

[NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman @NASAAdmin]

The quest to discover the secrets of the universe is a shared endeavor, and not exclusive to the world’s space agencies. At @NASA we are grateful to partner with and support @ericschmidt and the @relativityspace team, and hope this mission can be a model for future privately funded, philanthropic efforts in space.

[Umer Khan @umer_khan]

So awesome!!!!

[Relativity Space @relativityspace]

💫 More missions. More science. More discovery. Today, we're launching the Interplanetary Sciences Program to advance deep space science missions through foundational technologies and payloads.

Proud to partner with @NASA , industry, and academic institutions on a science orbiter mission to Mars in 2028 for philanthropic customer.

What we discover belongs to everyone. All scientific data will be released to the world, fostering open collaboration.

Learn more: https://t.co/91Z2s2rogC

[Umer Khan @umer_khan]

𝗟𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗟 𝗨𝗣! The Messenger ﷺ said: “If I am alive next year, I will definitely fast the 9th as well (meaning, in addition to the 10th)” So add a fast on the 9th (Wed, June 24) or 11th (Fri, June 26) if you can!

[Umer Khan @umer_khan]

ʿ𝗔̄𝘀𝗵𝘂̄𝗿𝗮̄ʾ (𝟭𝟬𝘁𝗵 𝗠𝘂𝗵̣𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗮𝗺) 𝗶𝘀 𝗧𝗵𝘂, 𝗝𝘂𝗻𝗲 𝟮𝟱. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗚𝗼𝗱 ﷺ 𝘀𝗮𝗶𝗱: “𝗙𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗻 ʿ𝗔̄𝘀𝗵𝘂̄𝗿𝗮̄ʾ. 𝗗𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗼 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗶𝗻𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗻”

[Umer Khan @umer_khan]

𝗪𝗛𝗬 𝗙𝗔𝗦𝗧? Ibn ʿAbbās mentioned that the Jews of Madīnah used to fast on ʿĀshūrāʾ because the Exodus, the day Moses escaped with the Israelites from the reign of the Pharaoh, occurred on that day. The Messenger ﷺ said: “We have more right to Moses, so fast (on this day)”

[Nasdaq @Nasdaq]

.@SpaceX listing day is here. Watch live. $SPCX https://t.co/VTXg0N2TBc

[hari raghavan @haridigresses]

Alright here's my SpaceX valuation take.

First, what an epic day. We should all be celebrating the fact that we're debating whether SpaceX defies the laws of financial gravity... when the much cooler part is that they're aiming to defy the laws of actual gravity.

SpaceX's listing price is right around what I would have expected from a valuation standpoint, accounting for the moat & business premium of other n-of-1 companies... but NOT accounting for an "Elon multiple".

1. Virtually all companies can be valued via a multiple... just NOT a revenue or earnings multiple. And certainly not on any trailing multiple. After all: a DCF is a distillation of future cash flows, why would ignoring growth be a smart idea?

The multiple that works shockingly well for me is a 2-year forward gross profit multiple.

2. Beyond the market-average multiple, the category-defining, n-of-1 companies carry a massive premium (2-3x) to the "typical" players in a space.
- Apple (17x vs. 6x for consumer hardware)
- Palantir (21x vs. 7x for enterprise software)
- Coca-Cola (12x vs. 4x for consumer goods)
- American Express (12x vs. 6x for financial services)

It's not an accident that Buffett has historically loved names like this (obvious moat, pricing power, absurd durability).

Now, back to SpaceX.

Based on the original S-1, I was surprised by how low the growth rate had been in the trailing 12 months. Based on the trailing growth rate, there is no way SpaceX could have justified the $1.77T listing price... except via an Elon-multiple.

But then the Anthropic & Alphabet compute contracts came out. As always, the narrative was crafted and timed to a T.

That information totally flips the valuation story, because of the implications for the 2-year forward gross profit.

$19B annualized revenue as of Q1
+ $26B of annualized compute contracts coming online
= $45B of visible forward revenue run-rate, before any incremental Starlink growth, launch growth, possible Cursor acquisition / partnership revenue, or additional compute commitments.

Let's assume:
• Their growth slows to ~1.5-2x the following year = $70-90B in revenue
• Current gross margin at 50%, revenue / GPU-hour indicates that it will be closer to 60% so let's assume it averages out to 55% = $40-50B

Aerospace multiples — Lockheed, RTX, Boeing — on this 2-year forward GP methodology are roughly 14-18x. The data center business is different, and we don’t have many clean pure-play comps aside from maybe CRWV, which clocks in lower at 6-7x. So let’s be conservative and use 12x as a blended average for the SpaceXAI conglomerate.

That brings us to $480B-600B. So yes, as a standard aerospace + data center company SpaceX could not clear a $1.8T valuation hurdle.

But SpaceX is not a standard aerospace + data center company.

Lockheed, RTX, and Boeing are — to put it charitably — dinosaurs. SpaceX, on the other hand, has one of the strongest moats of any business in the world. And as discussed above, truly category-defining n-of-1 companies often carry a 3x premium to normal players in their space (and SpaceX is special even amongst those players). This reasonably argues for a 36x multiple on forward gross profit for SpaceX.

Which means that — completely forgetting the fact that SpaceX is an Elon stock, and solely based on the 3x — the business quality / moat argument easily justifies a $1.44-1.8T valuation.

They priced right in that range, at $1.77T.

/fin

Side note on the Elon multiple... Tesla trades on a completely different plane. Their multiple of 2-year forward gross profit (based on current revenue trajectory) is >70x, compared to the market at 8x. So Tesla, as the only other public Elon company, doesn't trade at a 3x premium (like other extremely special, n-of-1 companies)... it trades at a 9x premium.

I'm not going to speculate on what that means for SpaceX because, well, that would be absurd. But it's quite possible that the "Elon multiple" may make it seem cheap in retrospect over the coming years.

[Umer Khan @umer_khan]

@cody_yanniello @cstanley What a blessing to have had you both on my team. I am the one who is grateful. And I totally forgot that the two of you would sit next to each other in the main building.

Lol. "Umer hot"!!! I forgot about that.

[Matthieu Richard @SpaceMatthieu]

We've been building this for months with @julienvm at @dynamikorbits: a full interactive model of the SpaceX business, ahead of the IPO.

The most valuable part for me was being forced to understand how this company actually works.

What I learned 🧵

[Furhan Zubairi @FurhanZubairi]

Alḥamdulillah, yesterday we had our Seminary Commencement, where we celebrated and acknowledged:

24 students who completed the 1-year Diploma in Arabic and Islamic Studies

19 Students who completed the 2-year Associate's in Arabic and Islamic Studies

10 Students who completed the 3-year Bachelor's in Arabic and Islamic Studies

4 students who completed the full 5-year ʿĀlimiyyah Program, receiving their Shahādah ʿĀlimiyyah along with a Master's in Islamic Law and Tradition.

May Allah increase them in knowledge, practice, and use them to serve His dīn. Shaykh Dr. @YasirQadhi joined us and gave a beautiful reminder to our graduates.

[Gavin Baker @GavinSBaker]

Really fun to interview my old friend Bret Johnsen in Mission Control.

Three parts of the @SpaceX story that I wish were more widely discussed:

SpaceX has created thousands of good blue-collar jobs: welders, machinists, electricians. Everyone talks about the need to bring high-paying, blue-collar jobs back to America. SpaceX and Tesla are making that happen. To the best of my knowledge, they have created more manufacturing jobs in the US than just about any other American company over the last ten years. It’s hard to imagine our nascent industrial renaissance succeeding without these companies.

SpaceX was started with the goal of putting humans on Mars. And along the way, they have massively improved life for many humans on Earth. Mars may be a starter planet, but Earth is our planet, and the technologies developed at SpaceX are already in use today connecting and safeguarding the people of Earth. Starlink is a really efficient way to bring internet to low-income countries. In Kenya’s remote Murang’a County, Starlink has made it possible for patients in rural villages to consult with medical specialists via telemedicine. In the rainforests of Brazil, Starlink has connected schools to reliable high-speed internet that will provide more educational opportunities to students. Here in America, Starlink has proven vital to emergency teams responding to natural disasters. During Hurricane Helene, the Starlink hubs dropped into North Carolina and East Tennessee were often the only contact point between cut-off towns and the outside world. Literally life-saving.

This IPO will be a big milestone for the company. It’s important to celebrate this, while also remembering that making humanity multi-planetary is the ultimate goal. Going to Mars is really hard. There have been many setbacks thus far, ranging from fiery explosions to failed landings. There will be many more. Ad Astra Per Aspera. But SpaceX is at its best *after* a setback imo. Their first 3 launches were “failures”. Had the 4th not succeeded, there might not be a SpaceX today. The company’s success in the face of such daunting odds is a testament to the resilience of the culture and absolute commitment to the mission shared by every employee I’ve ever spoken with. Some of the world’s most talented engineers have chosen to live in Airstreams at Starbase away from their families for weeks on end in service of this goal. I will never forget the welders who told me they signed every weld because they wanted to be accountable if they were responsible for a failure. True missionaries, all of them.

I am grateful to every single person at SpaceX for helping to make the future as inspirational as possible. And I will be even more grateful if I get to see a blue sunset on Mars!

More info on https://t.co/dLOPlKr0Un

[Sawyer Merritt @SawyerMerritt]

Here's what 10,000 Starlink satellites look like in orbit:

[SpaceX @SpaceX]

Watch @ElonMusk provide a technical update on SpaceX’s capability to manufacture, launch, and operate AI satellites at scale → https://t.co/PSCyWrNsOg