Podcast · Puheenaihe 676 · 2026-06-21 · 1:18:59 · In Finnish
SpaceX, Elon Musk and Envy — Sami Miettinen on Puheenaihe
Published as “SpaceX, Elon Musk, vasemmisto ja kateus (Sami Miettinen) | Puheenaihe 676”
Hosted by: Rami Kurimo
Sami Miettinen joined Puheenaihe host Rami Kurimo the week SpaceX listed and Elon Musk became the first person on record to hold a trillion dollars, for a conversation that runs from the mechanics of the listing to what the Finnish reaction to it reveals.
The financial argument is the sharper half. SpaceX listed at something on the order of a hundred times revenue against the 1.8× a company like Reactor trades on — and the point Sami makes is that this tells you nothing about when the price comes down. A relative multiple is not a timing signal. What the multiple is actually pricing is optionality: Musk’s companies are best read as a stack of long-dated options, many of them unexercised, several of them created out of nothing at all. There was no electric car category before Tesla built one. The market kept modelling Tesla as an EV company and SpaceX as a launch business with modest revenue, and kept missing the next option each time. Sami’s counterpoint on the discipline side is equally blunt: holding an index while muttering that it is all a bubble is not a position, it is theatre — either put real money behind the call or stop making it.
The second half is about Finland rather than Musk. Sami’s reading is that the hostility is largely imported: a Marxist class-hatred frame, repurposed as identity politics, in a country where none of this is actually happening. Finland has no genuine appreciation even for its own successes, and that, not Musk, is the problem worth discussing. On billionaires he is close to neutral — a fortune the size of Nokia held by someone committed to the national project would be an enormous asset, because data centres and AI businesses get built by people who can write the cheque. Running underneath is a warning about the subsidiary economy: a country whose companies are all somebody else’s branch office has handed away the decisions that matter.
Chapters
- 0:00 — SpaceX lists; the first trillionaire, and X folded into xAI
- 1:40 — The listing itself: an $80bn raise, lock-ups, and a $2,500bn valuation
- 8:56 — Musk as a creator of long-dated options, not always an exerciser
- 16:46 — “Bubble”: a hundred times revenue against 1.8×, and why that is not a timing signal
- 22:54 — Markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay liquid
- 28:16 — Portfolio weighting; why sitting in cash is a losing game
- 36:26 — The left and a rich man: imported class hatred as identity politics
- 37:58 — Envy, and what it costs a country
- 41:28 — Identity: Finland does not appreciate even its own successes
- 43:41 — Brand loyalty, and using X because it is not Twitter
- 46:33 — Billionaires: neutral in themselves, an asset when committed to the place
- 54:14 — Risk-taking: private capital against the state investing taxpayers’ money
- 57:16 — Wealth, money as a unit of account, and the tax on unlisted shares
- 1:05:41 — Decision power: 40% ownership, the Twitter layoffs, and the cult inside the firms
- 1:11:40 — Critics: pure-play pressure would have killed Tesla years ago
- 1:13:13 — “Tech bro”: the patriarchy framing, and the two criticisms Sami does accept
The recording lives on Puheenaihe’s own channel and they own it. This page is a record of the appearance and a pointer to the original, not a copy of it. Timestamps follow the chapter marks Puheenaihe published with the episode; the episode was recorded on 18 June 2026 and published on 21 June 2026.
Rami Kurimo has also appeared on the Neuvottelija channel — on the podcast and video strategy companies keep getting wrong and, earlier, on ownership.
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