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SpaceX on track to become third most valuable private company in the world
SpaceX is on track to become the third most valuable private company in the world if it successfully raises a new round of funding.
First reported and confirmed by CNBC, SpaceX hopes to raise between $500 million and $1 billion via a new investment offering. The Series N round would ultimately value the company at $44 billion – second only to China’s Didi and Bytedance (known in the US for TikTok) – if SpaceX finds significant investor interest at the upgraded $270 share price. Based on the ~$3.4 billion SpaceX has raised over more than a dozen rounds in just the last several years, strong investor demand is all but guaranteed.
The confidence and interest of investors can be explained in large part by SpaceX’s spectacular success in the face of countless systemic and technological challenges, as well as its association with founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Perhaps even more at odds with success than SpaceX’s near-term goals, Tesla’s meteoric rise and iron grip on the global consumer electric vehicle industry has unsurprisingly helped convince many that success is often just a matter of time for Musk’s calculated ventures.
Like several recent fundraising rounds, SpaceX is seeking investors willing to support the company’s long-term vision in the hopes that its Starship and Starlink programs will be as disruptive and revolutionary as they aim to be. CNBC reports that SpaceX is telling prospective investors that Starlink aims to become a major player in a range of industries with a potential global market of more than $1 trillion per year. That figure is almost certainly a best-case theoretical value assuming that SpaceX has completed a vast ~40,000-satellite Starlink constellation and is able to capture almost every single prospective customer.
It’s still within the realm of possibility, though. On its own, Starlink holds the potential to become one of the largest companies in the world – public or private – if SpaceX achieves every ambitious goal it’s set itself to. In that context, there’s a chance that acquiring a stake in SpaceX at a valuation of ~$44 billion will set investors up for unprecedented returns on the order of Tesla investors buying shares for $100-200 in the early 2010s.
Of course, that investment rationale doesn’t even touch on Starship, aside from the fact that Starship will be a necessity if SpaceX is to have any chance of launching and maintaining a constellation of tens of thousands of satellites. Beyond the Starship/Super Heavy launch vehicle’s integral role in future plans for Starlink, the next-generation rocket is arguably a much thornier technical challenge than Starlink while also offering far less return-on-investment (ROI) certainty. Relative to other industries, particularly those with demand for communications services, the global demand for commercial launch services is minuscule, representing just a few billion dollars per year.
Even if Falcon 9 – let alone Starship – dramatically cuts the cost of access to orbit, there’s no guarantee beyond basic economic theory that lowering the barrier to entry will necessarily expand the market for launches. For a radical expansion in demand, entire new space-adjacent industries will have to be created given that the vast majority of modern demand comes from space-based communications companies.
SpaceX has known that this would be the case for at least half a decade, however, and is thus intelligently positioning Starlink as a primary investor focus as far as revenue and profit are concerned. Starlink would thus help SpaceX complete the Starship launch vehicle, which is far more focused on the company’s foundational goal of making humanity a multiplanetary species by enabling the creation of a self-sustaining city on Mars. Still, Starship will need to be revolutionarily affordable, reliable, and reusable for SpaceX to ever even dream of achieving that founding goal.
In the process of tackling those technical challenges, Starship could very well expand the global space industry by one or several magnitudes, but it will remain a major wildcard up until the day it does.
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Tesla Robotaxi Safety Monitor seems to doze off during Bay Area ride
We won’t try to blame the camera person for the incident, because it clearly is not their fault. But it seems somewhat interesting that they did not try to wake the driver up and potentially contact Tesla immediately to alert them of the situation.
A Tesla Robotaxi Safety Monitor appeared to doze off during a ride in the California Bay Area, almost ironically proving the need for autonomous vehicles.
The instance was captured on camera and posted to Reddit in the r/sanfrancisco subreddit by u/ohmichael. They wrote that they have used Tesla’s ride-hailing service in the Bay Area in the past and had pleasant experiences.
However, this one was slightly different. They wrote:
“I took a Tesla Robotaxi in SF just over a week ago. I have used the service a few times before and it has always been great. I actually felt safer than in a regular rideshare.
This time was different. The safety driver literally fell asleep at least three times during the ride. Each time the car’s pay attention safety alert went off and the beeping is what woke him back up.
I reported it through the app to the Robotaxi support team and told them I had videos, but I never got a response.
I held off on posting anything because I wanted to give Tesla a chance to respond privately. It has been more than a week now and this feels like a serious issue for other riders too.
Has anyone else seen this happen?”
My Tesla Robotaxi “safety” driver fell asleep
byu/ohmichael insanfrancisco
The driver eventually woke up after prompts from the vehicle, but it is pretty alarming to see someone like this while they’re ultimately responsible for what happens with the ride.
We won’t try to blame the camera person for the incident, because it clearly is not their fault. But it seems somewhat interesting that they did not try to wake the driver up and potentially contact Tesla immediately to alert them of the situation.
They should have probably left the vehicle immediately.
Tesla’s ride-hailing service in the Bay Area differs from the one that is currently active in Austin, Texas, due to local regulations. In Austin, there is no Safety Monitor in the driver’s seat unless the route requires the highway.
Tesla plans to remove the Safety Monitors in Austin by the end of the year.
Tesla has officially opened Robotaxi access to everyone and everyone, but there is one catch: you have to have an iPhone.
Tesla’s Robotaxi service in Austin and its ride-hailing service in the Bay Area were both officially launched to the public today, giving anyone using the iOS platform the ability to simply download the app and utilize it for a ride in either of those locations.
It has been in operation for several months: it launched in Austin in late June and in the Bay Area about a month later. In Austin, there is nobody in the driver’s seat unless the route takes you on the freeway.
In the Bay Area, there is someone in the driver’s seat at all times.
The platform was initially launched to those who were specifically invited to Austin to try it out.
Tesla confirms Robotaxi is heading to five new cities in the U.S.
Slowly, Tesla launched the platform to more people, hoping to expand the number of rides and get more valuable data on its performance in both regions to help local regulatory agencies relax some of the constraints that were placed on it.
Additionally, Tesla had its own in-house restrictions, like the presence of Safety Monitors in the vehicles. However, CEO Elon Musk has maintained that these monitors were present for safety reasons specifically, but revealed the plan was to remove them by the end of the year.
Now, Tesla is opening up Robotaxi to anyone who wants to try it, as many people reported today that they were able to access the app and immediately fetch a ride if they were in the area.
We also confirmed it ourselves, as it was shown that we could grab a ride in the Bay Area if we wanted to:
🚨 Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing Service in Austin and the Bay Area has opened up for anyone on iOS
Go download the app and, if you’re in the area, hail a ride from Robotaxi pic.twitter.com/1CgzG0xk1J
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 18, 2025
The launch of a more public Robotaxi network that allows anyone to access it seems to be a serious move of confidence by Tesla, as it is no longer confining the service to influencers who are handpicked by the company.
In the coming weeks, we expect Tesla to then rid these vehicles of the Safety Monitors as Musk predicted. If it can come through on that by the end of the year, the six-month period where Tesla went from launching Robotaxi to enabling driverless rides is incredibly impressive.
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Tesla analyst sees Full Self-Driving adoption rates skyrocketing: here’s why
“You’ll see increased adoption as people are exposed to it. I’ve been behind the wheel of several of these and the different iterations of FSD, and it is getting better and better. It’s something when people experience it, they will be much more comfortable utilizing FSD and paying for it.”
Tesla analyst Stephen Gengaro of Stifel sees Full Self-Driving adoption rates skyrocketing, and he believes more and more people will commit to paying for the full suite or the subscription service after they try it.
Full Self-Driving is Tesla’s Level 2 advanced driver assistance suite (ADAS), and is one of the most robust on the market. Over time, the suite gets better as the company accumulates data from every mile driven by its fleet of vehicles, which has swelled to over five million cars sold.
The suite features a variety of advanced driving techniques that many others cannot do. It is not your typical Traffic-Aware Cruise Control (TACC) and Lane Keeping ADAS system. Instead, it can handle nearly every possible driving scenario out there.
It still requires the driver to pay attention and ultimately assume responsibility for the vehicle, but their hands are not required to be on the steering wheel.
It is overwhelmingly impressive, and as a personal user of the FSD suite on a daily basis, I have my complaints, but overall, there are very few things it does incorrectly.
Tesla Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.1.7 real-world drive and review
Gengaro, who increased his Tesla price target to $508 yesterday, said in an interview with CNBC that adoption rates of FSD will increase over the coming years as more people try it for themselves.
At first, it is tough to feel comfortable with your car literally driving you around. Then, it becomes second nature.
Gengaro said:
“You’ll see increased adoption as people are exposed to it. I’ve been behind the wheel of several of these and the different iterations of FSD, and it is getting better and better. It’s something when people experience it, they will be much more comfortable utilizing FSD and paying for it.”
Tesla Full Self-Driving take rates also have to increase as part of CEO Elon Musk’s recently approved compensation package, as one tranche requires ten million active subscriptions in order to win that portion of the package.
The company also said in the Q3 2025 Earnings Call in October that only 12 percent of the current ownership fleet are paid customers of Full Self-Driving, something the company wants to increase considerably moving forward.
Tesla Robotaxi Safety Monitor seems to doze off during Bay Area ride
Tesla opens Robotaxi access to everyone — but there’s one catch
