The Exploding Whale returns. :)

The exploding whale

Back in 1970, an historic event took place. Man tried to remove a sperm whale carcass using modern technology, dynamite, a noble effort that unfortunately went sideways. :)

Why relive this paean to human ingenuity? Because the SpaceX IPO and the exploding whale are truly complementary if one takes a little time to see why. :)

To whit.

The hairs of one's neck rising with accompanying chills applies when facing something ominous and this feeling applies to both events. With the whale, the explosion came from without when dynamite tossed out chunks of same 800 feet into the air with an end result of one particularly large chunk crushing the roof of a car located in a parking lot several hundred yards away. With SpaceX,  the explosion will come from within because investors are beginning to pucker as the assumptions of untold profitability are beginning to be questioned in earnest as we speak. 

Liu Yanan / Xinhua via Getty Images; Futurism

The SpaceX IPO has been a windfall for investors — or most of them, at any rate.

But there’s a fear at the back of their minds that they just can’t shake off. What if a significant number of buyers turn tail and become sellers, dumping their SpaceX stock and leaving the most loyal Elon Musk fans holding the bag?

It hasn’t happened yet, since the vast majority of investors for the time being are locked into their shares. Nonetheless, top venture capitalists feel then need to assure that there won’t be a mass selloff when selling opens, betraying a persistent anxiety beneath the bonanza.

“That is the bet now facing the market,” writes Edward Ludlow in Bloomberg’s Tech In Depth newsletter. “Not whether investors want to own SpaceX, but whether the people who already own it will keep owning it.” 

The pucker ...

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism.
Source: Tom Brenner For The Washington Post via Getty Images; Google

While it’s still far too early to tell if Musk’s space AI behemoth is headed for a prolonged downturn — we’re fully in uncharted and almost purely speculative territory here — its ongoing dip has once again reignited fears that the stock may be massively overvalued. As many critics have pointed out, SpaceX is far from demonstrating a path to profitability, instead burning through billions of dollars per year.

The merger with Musk’s AI startup xAI, in particular, has raised eyebrows. The firm’s losses mounted considerably over the last couple years, with SpaceX’s IPO filing showing that the startup had lost a whopping $6.4. billion in 2025 — and that’s without getting into the AI venture’s seemingly endless PR headaches.

Musk’s grand vision for a million-strong megaconstellation of enormous data center satellites has also been met with plenty of skepticism. SpaceX still has to prove that it’s financially feasible — or even practically possible — to run solar-powered data centers in the Earth’s orbit.

And we haven't even discussed Colossus and it's connect to the The Black Body Problem.

Regarding the whale ...

The explosion

A widely reported case of an exploding whale occurred in Florence, Oregon, in November 1970, when the Oregon Highway Division (now the Oregon Department of Transportation) blew up a decaying sperm whale with dynamite to dispose of its rotting carcass. The explosion threw whale flesh up to 800 feet (240 metres) away, and its odor lingered for some time. American humorist Dave Barry wrote about it in his newspaper column in 1990 after viewing television footage of the explosion, and later the same footage from news station KATU circulated on the Internet. I 

Yours truly laughed to tears seeing this cosmic event unfold back in 1990. Investors may cry if the IPO for the ages does the same thing. One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller