SpaceX真的值1.77万亿美元吗？

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🤔️小作业：

1. What is the primary purpose of the passage?

A. To argue that SpaceX's valuation is justified by its potential in AI and space industries.

B. To compare the financial performance of SpaceX with that of Twitter and Meta.

C. To highlight concerns among investors about SpaceX's high valuation and Musk's history of overpromising.

D. To explain the process of SpaceX's initial public offering and its market impact.

无注释原文：

Is SpaceX Worth $1.77 Trillion? It's a Pie in the Sky, Some Investors Say

From: The New York Times

In a pitch to private investors, Elon Musk once predicted that one of his companies would quintuple its revenue to more than $26 billion and nearly quintuple its customer base by 2028.

That company was Twitter and those projections were made as Mr. Musk prepared to buy the social media company for $44 billion in 2022.

Today, Twitter, which has been renamed X, has fallen far short of what Mr. Musk said would happen. The social media platform's ad revenue plunged 65 percent last year. And it was ultimately folded into SpaceX, Mr. Musk's rocket company, this year.

Now as SpaceX readies for a blockbuster initial public offering, Mr. Musk and his investment bankers are selling even loftier propositions about what the rocket and artificial intelligence company will achieve. But those proclamations, coupled with Mr. Musk's history of overpromising, have some investors increasingly worried that SpaceX — which priced its offering at a $1.77 trillion valuation and is set to begin trading on Friday — may burn them.

“It really does feel very much a 'don't look at the man behind the curtain' situation,” said Jim Chanos, the founder of the investment firm Chanos and Company, who predicted the 2001 collapse of Enron, the energy company that was found to have engaged in accounting fraud.

Mr. Chanos and others said they were concerned with SpaceX's finances. The company lost $4.3 billion in the first three months of the year alone and is spending heavily on A.I. development. Revenue was $4.7 billion and growing, but it was far lower than that of tech giants like Meta, which brought in $56.3 billion in the same period and has a stock market valuation of $1.4 trillion.

At the same time, SpaceX has promised that its total addressable market — which is its revenue opportunity if it captured all the demand across its various industries — is the largest “in human history” at $28.5 trillion. The figure, which depends on SpaceX proving that it can put A.I. data centers in space and develop factories on the moon, dwarfs China's annual gross domestic product by more than $8 trillion.

Michael Burry, a hedge fund investor featured in the book “The Big Short” for his predictions on the 2008 financial crisis, said in a Substack discussion last month that any increase in SpaceX's stock after its I.P.O. would “be on hype and technicals.”

“Nothing in that S-1 suggests it is worth $1 trillion let alone $2 trillion,” Mr. Burry wrote, referring to the company's I.P.O. filing.

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注：完整题目见本文开头；中文文本为纽约时官方译文，仅供参考

含注释全文：

Is SpaceX Worth $1.77 Trillion? It's a Pie in the Sky, Some Investors Say

From: The New York Times

In a pitch to private investors, Elon Musk once predicted that one of his companies would quintuple its revenue to more than $26 billion and nearly quintuple its customer base by 2028.

在一次面向私人投资者的推介中，埃隆·马斯克曾预言，他旗下的一家公司到2028年营收将增至五倍、超过260亿美元，用户群也将接近增至五倍。

pitch /pɪtʃ/ 作名词 1）表示“投球”，英文解释为“a throw in a baseball game”如：a good/bad pitch 质量好/差的投球。

2）表示“运动场地；（尤指）足球场”，英文解释为“an area painted with lines for playing particular sports, especially football”如：a football / hockey / cricket pitch 足球 / 曲棍球 / 板球赛场。

3）表示“（尤指乐音的）音高”，英文解释为“how high or low a sound is, especially a musical note”举个🌰：A basic sense of rhythm and pitch is essential in a music teacher. 基本的韵律感和音高感是音乐教师的必备素质。

4）表示“（感情、活动等的）程度，力度；（事物的）最高点”，英文解释为“the degree or strength of a feeling or activity; the highest point of sth”举个🌰：By this time their disagreement had reached such a pitch that there was no hope of an amicable conclusion. 此时，他们的分歧已如此之大，不可能善罢罢休。

5）表示“摊位”，英文解释为“a place in a public area where a person regularly sells goods or performs”

作动词，pitch /pɪtʃ/ 表示“竭力劝说”，英文解释为“to try to persuade someone to do something”举个🌰：She pitched her idea to me over a business lunch. 她在一次吃工作午餐时竭力向我游说她的想法。

6）be pitched into sth表示“突然有（某种不好的感觉）”，英文解释为“to suddenly experience a bad feeling”举个🌰：He was pitched (headlong) into despair by what happened to him in his final year at college. 大学最后一年发生的事使他一下子绝望了。

📍“pitch”还是一个商业术语，通常用于描述提出一个想法、产品、服务或企业给潜在的投资者、客户或合作伙伴的过程。可以将它翻译为“推销”，“销售提案”或“推介”。

quintuple /kwɪnˈtʃuː.pl/ 表示“五部分的；包括五部分的”，英文解释为“affecting or involving five different things or parts of something”举个🌰：He had a quintuple heart bypass operation. 他做了一个五重心脏搭桥手术。

That company was Twitter and those projections were made as Mr. Musk prepared to buy the social media company for $44 billion in 2022.

那家公司就是Twitter，上述预测是马斯克在2022年斥资440亿美元收购这家社交媒体公司前夕作出的。

Today, Twitter, which has been renamed X, has fallen far short of what Mr. Musk said would happen. The social media platform's ad revenue plunged 65 percent last year. And it was ultimately folded into SpaceX, Mr. Musk's rocket company, this year.

如今，已更名为X的Twitter远远没有实现马斯克当年的预测。去年这家社交媒体平台的广告收入暴跌65%。而在今年，它最终被并入了马斯克的火箭公司SpaceX。

表示“未达到数量（或要求）”，英文解释为“to fail to reach an amount or standard that was expected or hoped for, causing disappointment”举个🌰：August car sales fell short of the industry's expectations. 8月汽车销量未达到业界的期望。

plunge /plʌndʒ/ 可以作动词，也可以作名词，1）表示“使突然前冲（或下落）”，英文解释为“to move or make sb/sth move suddenly forwards and/or downwards”举个🌰：She lost her balance and plunged 100 feet to her death.她没有站稳，从100英尺的高处跌下摔死了。

2）表示“骤降”，英文解释为“If an amount or rate plunges, it decreases quickly and suddenly.”举个🌰：His weight began to plunge.（动词）他的体重开始骤然下降。Japan's banks are in trouble because of bad loans and the stock market plunge.（名词）日本各家银行处于困境，缘于不良贷款以及股市的暴跌。

📍2020年4月瑞幸咖啡怎么了？文中就提到了CNN的标题China's Luckin Coffee plunges 75% on accounting probe用的是plunge一词，表示股价暴跌。

3）plunge (sb/sth) into sth表示“（使）陷入；（使）经历”，英文解释为“to suddenly experience a bad situation or unhappiness, or to make someone or something suddenly experience a bad situation or unhappiness”举个🌰：He was plunged into despair when his wife left him. 他妻子离开他时，他一下子陷入绝望之中。

📍类似的表达「暴跌」的词有：plummet，tank，sink，slump，...

📍slump表示“（价值等）暴跌”，英文解释为“If something such as the value of something slumps, it falls suddenly and by a large amount.”举个🌰：Net profits slumped by 25%. 净利润暴跌了25%。

📍plummet /ˈplʌmɪt/ 表示“（数量、比率、价格）暴跌”，英文解释为“If an amount, rate, or price plummets, it decreases quickly by a large amount.”举个🌰：Her spirits plummeted at the thought of meeting him again. 一想到又要见到他，她的心情便直往下沉。

📍tank，熟词僻义，作名词是坦克的意思，作动词有“表现得很糟糕，快速减少，衰落，下跌”的含义，英文解释为“If something such as a stock price or a movie tanks, it performs very badly, for example because it loses a lot of money.”举个🌰：Tech stocks have tanked. 科技股票暴跌了。

Now as SpaceX readies for a blockbuster initial public offering, Mr. Musk and his investment bankers are selling even loftier propositions about what the rocket and artificial intelligence company will achieve. But those proclamations, coupled with Mr. Musk's history of overpromising, have some investors increasingly worried that SpaceX — which priced its offering at a $1.77 trillion valuation and is set to begin trading on Friday — may burn them.

眼下，随着SpaceX筹备轰动一时的首次公开募股，马斯克和他的投资银行家们正在兜售更为宏大的愿景，描绘这家火箭和人工智能公司的未来蓝图。但这些豪言壮语和马斯克过度承诺的惯常作风正让一些投资者越来越担心：估值达到1.77万亿美元、计划于周五开始交易的SpaceX可能会让他们遭受损失。

blockbuster /ˈblɒkˌbʌs.tər/ 表示“轰动；巨型炸弹；一鸣惊人的事物；轰动一时的书籍/电影”，英文解释为“a book or film that is very good or successful informal”如：the latest Hollywood blockbuster 好莱坞最新大片。此前在《流浪地球》（The Wandering Earth）一文中的标题就为：The Wandering Earth is China's biggest sci-fi blockbuster.

🎬电影《创：战纪》（Tron: Legacy）中的台词提到：I would like you to meet, our next blockbuster. 我很乐意向大家呈现我们的巨作。

首次公开募股（Initial Public Offering, IPO）是指一家企业第一次将它的股份向公众出售。一旦首次公开上市完成后，这家公司就可以申请到证券交易所或报价系统挂牌交易。

1）表示“高傲的，自大的”，英文解释为“If you have a lofty way of behaving or talking, etc., you act as if you think you are better than other people.”如：a lofty attitude/air/tone 高傲的态度/神情/语气。

2）表示“崇高的，高尚的”，英文解释为“Lofty ideas, etc. are of a high moral standard.”如：lofty sentiments/ideals 崇高的情操/理想。

proposition /ˌprɒp.əˈzɪʃ.ən/ 1）表示“（通常指商业上的）提议，建议”，英文解释为“an offer or suggestion, usually in business”

2）表示“命题：需要求解的题目或需通过论证而得出真值的陈述句”，英文解释为“a statement or problem that must be solved or proved to be true or not true”

3）表示“主张；观点；见解”，英文解释为“A proposition is a statement or an idea that people can consider or discuss to decide whether it is true.”举个🌰：They were debating the proposition that "All people are created equal". 他们正就“人人生而平等”这一命题展开辩论。

proclamation /ˌprɒk.ləˈmeɪ.ʃən/ 表示“公告；宣言；声明”，英文解释为“an official announcement”如：to issue a proclamation 发表声明。

“It really does feel very much a 'don't look at the man behind the curtain' situation,” said Jim Chanos, the founder of the investment firm Chanos and Company, who predicted the 2001 collapse of Enron, the energy company that was found to have engaged in accounting fraud.

“这给人的感觉确实很像‘障眼法'，”投资公司Chanos and Company的创始人吉姆·查诺斯说。他曾预测安然公司会在2001年倒闭——那家能源公司后来被发现存在会计欺诈。

Mr. Chanos and others said they were concerned with SpaceX's finances. The company lost $4.3 billion in the first three months of the year alone and is spending heavily on A.I. development. Revenue was $4.7 billion and growing, but it was far lower than that of tech giants like Meta, which brought in $56.3 billion in the same period and has a stock market valuation of $1.4 trillion.

查诺斯等人表示，他们担忧的是SpaceX的财务状况。仅今年第一季度，公司就亏损了43亿美元，而且仍在人工智能研发方面大举投入；其营收达到47亿美元并保持增长，但与Meta等科技巨头相比仍相差甚远——Meta同期营收高达563亿美元，市值约为1.4万亿美元。

At the same time, SpaceX has promised that its total addressable market — which is its revenue opportunity if it captured all the demand across its various industries — is the largest “in human history” at $28.5 trillion. The figure, which depends on SpaceX proving that it can put A.I. data centers in space and develop factories on the moon, dwarfs China's annual gross domestic product by more than $8 trillion.

与此同时，SpaceX声称其总潜在市场规模——即在其涉足的所有行业中独占全部需求的营收上限——是“人类历史上”最大的，高达28.5万亿美元。这一数字比中国全年国内生产总值高出逾8万亿美元，其前提是SpaceX能够证明它可以将人工智能数据中心送入太空，并在月球上建厂。

addressable market 表示“（商务或产品可获得的总收益金额）潜在市场范围”，英文解释为“The addressable market for a business or product is the total amount of money that it could possibly make.”举个🌰：The plan needs to clearly identify the addressable market for the product. 该计划需要明白地确定产品的潜在市场范围。

dwarf /dwɔːf/ 表示“使显得矮小；使相形见绌”，英文解释为“to make sth seem small or unimportant compared with sth else”举个🌰：The old houses were dwarfed by the huge new tower blocks. 这些旧房子在新建的高楼大厦的映衬下显得十分矮小。

GDP, gross domestic product /ˌɡrəʊs dəˌmes.tɪk ˈprɒd.ʌkt/ 表示“国内生产总值”，英文解释为“the total value of goods and services produced by a country in one year”

Michael Burry, a hedge fund investor featured in the book “The Big Short” for his predictions on the 2008 financial crisis, said in a Substack discussion last month that any increase in SpaceX's stock after its I.P.O. would “be on hype and technicals.”

因准确预测2008年金融危机而出现在《大空头》一书中的对冲基金投资人迈克尔·贝里上个月在Substack讨论中表示，如果SpaceX上市后股价上涨，“靠的将是炒作和技术面因素”。

hedge fund /ˈhedʒ ˌfʌnd/ 表示“对冲基金”，英文解释为“a type of investment that can make a lot of profit but involves a large risk”如：a hedge fund manager 对冲基金经理人。

1）作名词，表示“大肆的宣传广告；炒作”，英文解释为“Hype is the use of a lot of publicity and advertising to make people interested in something such as a product.”举个🌰：We are certainly seeing a lot of hype by some companies. 我们的确看到一些公司天花乱坠的广告宣传。

2）作动词，等同于“hype up”，表示“大肆宣传”，英文解释为“To hype a product means to advertise or praise it a lot.”举个🌰：The media seems obsessed with hyping up individuals or groups. 传媒界似乎热衷于对某些个人或团体进行大肆炒作。

📍2020年8月《经济学人》（The Economist）一篇讲述卡车业文章的标题就叫：The trucking industry is in the midst of upheaval—and hype 卡车运输业正在经历剧变，以及炒作。

“Nothing in that S-1 suggests it is worth $1 trillion let alone $2 trillion,” Mr. Burry wrote, referring to the company's I.P.O. filing.

“那份S-1文件中没有任何内容能够表明它值1万亿美元，更遑论2万亿美元，”贝里写道。

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