SpaceX: Loony money joyride
Connoisseurs of the noble art of plucking large numbers out of thin air will be thrilled by the performance of SpaceX, which has been making noises about pitching its IPO at the robust valuation of $1.75-trillion.
Considering that the company last raised funds at a valuation of $200bn back in October 2024, this is the sort of growth spurt rarely seen without some hefty pharmaceutical assistance, and while it is clearly a remarkable company and a long way ahead of the competition in space exploration, it’s a big number to live up to.
Estimates suggest SpaceX booked around $8bn of ebitda last year on revenues of $16bn and that in the first nine months of 2025 it lost about $2.4bn. It has merged with xAI in a transaction that valued xAI at $250bn despite revenues of a mere $210m and a cash burn of a healthy $9.5bn in the last reported period. The aim appears to be to create a one-stop shop of space, AI, media and data centres in space.
Much is expected of its mighty new rocket, Starship, which dwarfs its current main rocket, Falcon 9, with significant benefits in cost and capacity, carrying a payload of 250Mt in a rocket that is fully reusable. This equates to being able to carry 50 Starlink communications satellites on every flight, and the intention is to deploy 1,200 satellites within six months of its launch in mid-2027.
For all the excitement and chatter about colonising the moon or joyriding to Mars, this is a money-maker.
Entain: Bookies take a beating
It remains unclear whether the theocrats of Tehran keep a close eye on Polymarket, but it might not be a bad idea.
The prediction market saw a large number of bets on imminent US military action in Iran placed a few hours before the balloon went up, prompting the theory that some Pentagon insiders might have popped out of a strategic planning meeting to stick a few dollars on and offering a strong hint to anybody on the receiving end that it might be time to stick on the tin hat and hurry on down to the shelter.
Entain, the owner of betting shops Ladbrokes Coral, suffered an attack of its own at the hands of the dreaded chancellor Rachel Reeves, who used the November budget to tax the bejesus out of online gambling. She raised the levy for remote betting from 15% to 25% and the remote gaming duty on online casino games from 21% to 40%, and this was enough to force Entain to take a £488m impairment charge that accounted for the bulk of its 2025 post-tax loss of £681m.
The worry for the industry is that the increased tax burden will encourage the punters to abandon the regulated market for the wild west of illicit gambling. Entain is hoping that the higher levies will squeeze out the smaller players and increase the market share of the bigger groups, which have the bandwidth to absorb the additional costs.
The group is looking to AI to cut its marketing costs, and its US joint venture BetMGM returned to profit as it reported revenue growth of 33%.
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