We previously “looked under the hood” — to see that this set of companies (previously privately held under Musk’s cone of silence — as to GAAP financials) are very much about sizzle — and very little actual… steak, today.

Some financial pundits are loudly decrying the relative dearth of the original issuance shares in the IPO set aside — the “allocation”, reserved for retail / mom and pop investors. [Personally, I am glad. Most will own it anyway, at least in small portions — in a blended form — through mutual funds / institutions that will buy in tonight, and start trading tomorrow.] Some are also upset about the “take it or leave it” (unprecedented) approach to pricing the offering. I concur — that is… stupid (for the retail investors).

While Musk clearly re-invented the auto industry, over a decade ago, making electric vehicles both practical, and sought after, that may be his only truly revolutionary legacy. All the rest, to my eye — looks mostly like… snake oil. And it comes in a very misogynistic / racism-laced package. So — for me, that’s a hard pass, as I said.

In any event, here’s the latest, from a tech/financial expert panel, at the NYT, tonight:

…MIKE ISAAC: A lot of folks are (rightly) wowed by the astronomical valuations Musk’s bankers are proposing, which reach into the trillions. I’m more fascinated with the products he claims SpaceX will build to get them there.

They feel plucked straight out of a Philip K. Dick novel: Asteroid mining. Unlimited energy to power data centers. And those data centers, mind you, will not be situated on the ground, but rather in low-earth orbit. And last but not least, fashioning himself the first hotelier in charge of your vacations on the moon. [Ed. Note: All here know I am a huge booster of real space science — this from Musk is anything but that.]

All of that is built into forward-looking revenue projections for this company. This feels irrationally exuberant even for Musk, who is practically defined by rattling off things that feel ridiculous to even consider….

[T]he reason you’re seeing Musk and his bankers tout these high trillion-dollars figures for what is called the total addressable market, or TAM. Retail investors need to believe that the stock will grow if they are considering buying it, and Musk needs to convince them that we’re in early innings. But the company’s filings show it is losing money and spending a lot.

RYAN: If you believe in Musk’s vision, then you may think that the $1.77 trillion valuation is a great deal because eventually SpaceX will control orbital A.I. data centers, factories on the moon and a human colony on Mars. But Musk has a history of making promises and falling short….

RYAN: Much of what Musk says he or his companies will do simply does not come to fruition. Our colleagues recently tracked some of his promises over the years and how they’ve panned out. On the other hand, some achievements — Tesla’s mainstreaming of electric vehicles, or SpaceX’s development of semi-reusable rockets — have developed or shifted industries….

So, he’s had some successes, true — but in many ways, this feels like he is laying his least sensible private bets off, on a gullible set of external investors. We shall see. But it should pop tyomorrow — with the main question being whether the exuberance will still be evident. . . in a week’s — or a month’s — or a year’s… time. Hmmm.

नमस्ते