SpaceX’s Moon-First Pivot Could Cut Tens Of Billions From Mars Bill, Ark Analyst Says: Musk Thinks The Same

Cathie Wood’s futurist argues a lunar city unlocks cheaper AI compute, faster cash flow, and a stronger path to Mars.

• In a post on X, Musk said on Sunday that SpaceX has started to focus on building a city on the Moon rather than Mars for now.
• Winton said that, before recognizing the AI orbital compute opportunity, optimizing free cash flow generation for Mars yields an optimization.
• Winton added that if, rather than throwing the cash flow at Mars, one were to invest in the moon, the costs to service the constellation would be lowered to $200 million.

The talk of the town is now about Elon Musk’s plans to build a Moon city before his longtime ambitious plan of building a city on Mars, and Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Chief Futurist Brett Winton has a clear insight to share: this helps shave costs.

Winton said in a post on X that, under the earth-based starship cost structure, the cost to service AI orbital compute would be $40 billion per year in the medium term. But if the aim is to build a Mars City by operating from the moon, “you can shave $10s of billions off the cost structure and, more importantly, unlock substantially larger potential markets.”

Solving Cash Flow Generation Issue

Winton said that, before recognizing the AI orbital compute opportunity, optimizing free cash flow generation for Mars yields an optimization. He added that the time to develop earth satellite servicing from the moon is riskier and “by no means dominates continuing earth-based launch development.”

“… constellation maintenance and servicing of Starlink can be achieved with 100 to 200 starship launches annually, incurring $2 billion in costs vs a $300 billion Starlink revenue opportunity,” Winton said.

“If rather than throwing the cashflow at Mars one were to invest in the moon, you could lower cost to service the constellation to $200 million, but that wouldn't meaningfully increase capital available to launch towards Mars (but would certainly set back timeline),” he added in the post.

Moon City Vs Mars City

“We’re still going to Mars and the timeframe for building a self-growing city there is still about the same at 20 to 30 years,” Musk said on Monday in a post as a response to Winton. “It’s possible that revenue from lunar activities might actually accelerate Mars,” he added.

“Measured over a time scale consistent with the scope of the undertaking, the moon and AI compute yield a more meaningful cumulative capital lofted to Mars than one would get on the prior state of play (Starlink + Starship) or on a Starship + AI compute but no moon playbook,” Winton noted in his post on Monday.

In a post on X, Musk said on Sunday that SpaceX has started to focus on building a city on the Moon rather than Mars for now. “For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years,” the post read.

What Is Retail Thinking?

Retail sentiment on SpaceX was in the ‘extremely bullish’ territory, with message volumes at ‘extremely high’ levels, according to data from Stocktwits.

In the last 24 hours, retail message volumes on Stocktwits jumped 350%, and the platform saw a nearly 2% spike in followers.

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