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Comment by onethought | Hacker News Reader

That’s not true though. The shareholders are people so what they want are as varied as what people want.

Does Elon want SpaceX to be super profitable or does he want to make life multi planetary? (They aren’t mutually exclusive, but it’s weird to think that he is just trying to make as much profit as possible).

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People in control have much more ability to have the company execute their vision. As an investor the only thing you can do is say yes or no to management. Since the group of investors all have different side goals the one thing they agree on is making money, so management optimizes for that. Then everyone sees that the company exists to make money, so people that are interested in other things self select out. In the end all the shareholders are interested in maximizing the share price.

> but it’s weird to think that he is just trying to make as much profit as possible

Why is it weird to think that?

More wealth isn’t enough to satiate his ego, he absolutely craves legacy. As of now he’ll still be a small footnote in history, kids will likely learn about Henry Ford 150 years from now but Musk isn’t worth much of an appearance. Tesla is just an iterative step in EV / battery manufacturing, and is likely to be dwarfed by competition over the next 50 years, even if it does really well.

SpaceX gives him the chance to truly make history. People will learn about our first manned trip to Mars and the first colony. Perhaps even for thousands of years.

I wasn’t trying to guess his motives. More his actions don’t match someone trying to maximise profit.

Because all their profits come from NASA and starlink… so building a mars capable vehicle doesn’t really make sense from the profit motive perspective. It won’t be profitable in his lifetime.

One can also consider that the state is also a party because they license and privilege corporations and stockholders.

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