Alphabet bought more SpaceX shares and simultaneously began paying Musk's company for computing capacity. The shareholding report was filed with the SEC on November 6.
Alphabet is the holding company that owns Google. SpaceX is Elon Musk's space company; its shares have been trading publicly since June.
Why this matters to a trader: such a stake is revalued at market every quarter. Over four months, the paper value of the stake declined, even though Alphabet held more shares.
What did the report show?
- 555,043,560 Class A shares - Alphabet's stake as of September 30, that's 555.04 million shares.
- 551,189,500 shares as of June 30.
- 3.85 million shares purchased during the third quarter, a stake increase of 0.7%.
- November 6 - the document was sent to the SEC.
Form 13F is a quarterly report that large shareholders are required to file with the SEC.
Why did the stake's valuation fall?
The share price went down. At the close on September 30, the share cost $150.86, and the stake was valued at $83.73 billion. At the end of June, the valuation was $94.18 billion.
By November 5, the price had dropped to $123.62, and the stake's value to $68.6 billion.
- about $25 billion - that's how much the valuation fell over four months, even though there were more shares.
How much does Alphabet pay SpaceX?
- $920 million monthly. That's how much Alphabet pays SpaceX for access to computing capacity on Nvidia chips.
- Gemini Enterprise. This capacity goes toward Alphabet's corporate AI platform.
- Since October. That's when the first payments began.
For scale. In 2015, Google invested about $900 million in SpaceX. Now that's a single monthly payment for capacity.
What happens next?
Key point: part of the stake remains subject to a sales restriction, and the report did not disclose the price of the newly purchased shares. So the paper valuation and the actual return on this position diverge.
The next revaluation will come with the new quarterly report: SpaceX shares have been trading publicly since June, and the stake will again be calculated at market.
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