SpaceX employee #13 Eric Romo: "The idea that launch prices are going to fall significantly in the next 5 years is nonsense." "There are an awful lot of business models that are predicated on 'when Starship allows me to launch for $200 a kilogram…'" "I think they’re all broken,... and all those companies are going to fail." "We’ve seen this play out already with Falcon 9 and the pricing around it, where the costs of Falcon 9 allowed SpaceX to deliver the Starlink constellation at a cost per CapEx that made them profitable." "But they set the price in the market at something that just barely made it an okay investment to think about OneWeb or Kuiper or anything like that." "They’re going to do the same thing on Starship, because why wouldn’t they?" "Their internal costs on Starship are going to be whatever they need to be to deploy Starlink and orbital data centers, but they’re going to set the price so that anybody trying to do comms, anybody trying to do orbital data centers—the price is going to be too high." "If you’re a third party relying on them for a lower price of access to space, I think you’re hosed." Elon Musk Recorded at NYSE 🏛 x Payload 🚀 Space Summitshow more

@_Eric_Romo Most comments are missing the point. Eric is just saying spacex will allow cost effective launch for spacex ai in space and Starlink but they won’t do cost plus pricing for competitors. They have pricing power. Why leave money on the table.

@_Eric_Romo "Your margin is my opportunity" (JB)

@_Eric_Romo Falcon 9 rideshare prices are way lower than what it used to be before spacex...

@_Eric_Romo The entire non @spacex space companies are basically hosed. It will be a monopoly eventually

@_Eric_Romo He's wrong. The competition is hot on SpaceX's heels right now. The cost of launch is going to fall even if Starship never does anything except Starlink and Artemis missions.

@_Eric_Romo he's basically saying spaceX has monopoly in space and could charge their customer whatever they want. not that cost of launch will be imposible to go down.

@_Eric_Romo This is why real space enthusiasts should be hoping Blue Origin succeeds as well, so competition forces them both into a utility-like role, shifting the profits into the applications layer like space mining and manufacturing.

@_Eric_Romo Space x has been launching Amazon Leo for the the same cost as their own starlink satellites. Deliberately I guess to avoid any legal trouble. It must be killing Jeff how cheap it is compared to doing it himself.

@_Eric_Romo This talk about SpaceX using their launch dominance to control whether competitors can get to orbit inexpensively keeps ignoring the likely reality of anti-trust actions crashing down on them.

@_Eric_Romo “SpaceX launch costs are too damn high.” “SpaceX launch costs are an order of magnitude (or more) cheaper than the next cheapest competitor.”

@_Eric_Romo I agree, same with Teslas. they did this exact trick, super affordable cars yet to be seen. They will milk this dominance as long as they can, and that's a long dominance for sure, the pace they are expanding is off charts, already 3 starship pads in construction and growing...

@_Eric_Romo I disagree. Elon will force a premium price on third party launches but Elon and Shotwell will not hose anybody.

@_Eric_Romo Reasonable take: Yr 1: starship prototype Yr 2: starship good enough for real missions Yr 3: starship reliable, cost to spacex decline Yr 4: spacex offers $800kg, uses most capacity Yr 5: spacex offers $500kg or preferred pricing for partners.

@_Eric_Romo Got good points but it feels like hes a hater low-key hahahahahaha. Starship will revolutionize multiple industries on top of access to space. The rocket is what makes it so cheap. 👌

@_Eric_Romo hmmm.

@_Eric_Romo Launch prices not fall within five years? That's a way too SpaceX centric view of the marketplace. You'd have to accept that ALL the new reusable launch vehicles flying or soon to fly, will all fail to reduce launch costs compared to Falcon 9 pricing!

@_Eric_Romo As it should be ... ! @elonmusk @SpaceX

@_Eric_Romo 🎯 been saying this for a long time

@_Eric_Romo SpaceX cannot launch rockets or deploy satellites without government approval. What will happen when democrats control the government again and seek revenge on Musk and his companies?

@_Eric_Romo @Starcloud_ thoughts ?

@C_S_Skeptic @_Eric_Romo Predatory pricing with the help of the US taxpayer?

@_Eric_Romo Until theirs competitors. They’ll pay up at first

@_Eric_Romo great. who could’ve seen this coming🤔

@_Eric_Romo Smart man did the head shave. He knows if the stalker gangs get ahold of some of your hair they can viciously voodoo you.

@_Eric_Romo He is exactly right. This is a true monopoly.

@_Eric_Romo correct

@_Eric_Romo He’s right They did with starlink on commercial airlines $20k I believe

@_Eric_Romo Supply and demand, folks. Bezos saw this too and started building his own rockets. It's not easy-- SpaceX has a comfortable moat.

@_Eric_Romo Voldemort lookin mutha

@_Eric_Romo Hopefully not. But SpaceX indeed sat on a lot of the benefits of F9 efficiency.

@_Eric_Romo $100. And finally $20.

@_Eric_Romo If there’s only one company with Starship-tier launch capability, there’s no reason for the price to be lower than other methods of LEO deployment. What’s needed is competition. A monopoly isn’t going to reduce its prices out of charity.

@_Eric_Romo FYI - @stephensopko

@_Eric_Romo If they dropped their price barebones, the left would blame them for a monopoly.

@_Eric_Romo Duh