15 APPENDIX 3
15 附录3
From: Elon Musk
发件人：埃隆·马斯克
Date: June 7, 2013, 12:43:06 AM PDT
日期：2013年6月7日，上午12:43:06，太平洋夏令时
To: All
收件人：SpaceX全体员工
Subject: Going Public
主题：上市
Per my recent comments, I am increasingly concerned about SpaceX going public before the Mars transport system is in place. Creating the technology needed to establish life on Mars is and always has been the fundamental goal of SpaceX. If being a public company diminishes that likelihood, then we should not do so until Mars is secure. This is something that I am open to reconsidering, but, given my experiences with Tesla and SolarCity, I am hesitant to foist being public on SpaceX, especially given the long term nature of our mission.
根据我最近的评论，我越来越担心SpaceX在火星运输系统就位之前谈上市的问题。SpaceX的根本目标一直是创造能够在火星上生存的技术。如果成为一家上市公司会降低创造这种技术的可能性，那么我们在火星计划确定以前就不应该上市。上市议题当然是可供讨论的，但根据我在特斯拉和太阳城的经验，特别是鉴于我们长期使命的本质，我在犹豫到底要不要让SpaceX上市。
Some at SpaceX who have not been through a public company experience may think that being public is desirable. This is not so. Public company stocks, particularly if big step changes in technology are involved, go through extreme volatility, both for reasons of internal execution and for reasons that have nothing to do with anything except the economy. This causes people to be distracted by the manic-depressive nature of the stock instead of creating great products.
那些没有上市公司工作经验的员工可能认为公司上市肯定会带来好处。答案并非如此。尤其是如果涉及技术上的巨大变化，上市公司的股票价格会由于内部执行和外部经济原因而剧烈震荡。这会让人们因为股价涨跌而分心，对开发新产品造成影响。
It is important to emphasize that Tesla and SolarCity are public because they didn't have any choice. Their private capital structure was becoming unwieldy and they needed to raise a lot of equity capital. SolarCity also needed to raise a huge amount of debt at the lowest possible interest rate to fund solar leases. The banks who provide that debt wanted SolarCity to have the additional and painful scrutiny that comes with being public. Those rules, referred to as Sarbanes-Oxley, essentially result in a tax being levied on company execution by requiring detailed reporting right down to how your meal is expensed during travel and you can be penalized even for minor mistakes.
我想要强调的是，特斯拉和太阳城之所以上市，是因为它们别无选择。这两家公司的私人资本结构已经变得很难处理，需要筹集很多股本。太阳城还需要以最低的利率筹集很大一笔资金来支持太阳能的租赁业务。给太阳城提供贷款的银行希望太阳城能够上市，因为上市后会有更多、更严格的监管。《萨班斯-奥克斯利法案》的规定导致公司执行项目需要征税，你甚至得详细报告出差期间每顿饭的费用，哪怕有一点小错误，你也得接受惩罚。
YES, BUT I COULD MAKE MORE MONEY IF WE WERE PUBLIC
是的，如果我们上市的话，我可以挣更多钱
For those who are under the impression that they are so clever that they can outsmart public market investors and would sell SpaceX stock at the “right time,” let me relieve you of any such notion. If you really are better than most hedge fund managers, then there is no need to worry about the value of your SpaceX stock, as you can just invest in other public company stocks and make billions of dollars in the market.
对于那些认为自己比公开市场投资者更聪明，能够在“适当时机”卖掉SpaceX股票的人来说，让我来打消你的这种想法吧。如果你真的比大多数对冲基金经理还要聪明，那么你无须担心你持有的SpaceX股票价值，因为你可以投资其他上市公司的股票，在市场上赚个几十亿美元。
If you think: “Ah, but I know what's really going on at SpaceX and that will give me an edge,” you are also wrong. Selling public company stock with insider knowledge is illegal. As a result, selling public stock is restricted to narrow time windows a few times per year. Even then, you can be prosecuted for insider trading. At Tesla, we had both an employee and an investor go through a grand jury investigation for selling stock over a year ago, despite them doing everything right in both the letter and spirit of the law. Not fun.
如果你认为：“我知道SpaceX真实的动态，这会给我带来优势。那你就错了。利用内部消息出售上市公司股票是违法的。因此，每年出售上市股票的时机受到限制。即使那样，你也可能因为内幕交易而遭到起诉。在特斯拉，大陪审团曾分别调查我们一位员工和一位投资人一年前的股票出售情况，尽管他们的这些交易在法律条文和立法精神层面上都符合法律。这不是开玩笑。”
Another thing that happens to public companies is that you become a target of the trial lawyers who create a class action lawsuit by getting someone to buy a few hundred shares and then pretending to sue the company on behalf of all investors for any drop in the stock price. Tesla is going through that right now even though the stock price is relatively high, because the drop in question occurred last year.
发生在上市公司的另一件事是，你会被诉讼律师盯上，他们会找人买入几百股股票，然后在股价下跌时假装代表所有投资者起诉公司，发起集体诉讼。特斯拉就因为去年的股票下跌问题刚刚经历过这种事，即使现在我们的股价还相对比较高。
It is also not correct to think that because Tesla and SolarCity share prices are on the lofty side right now, that SpaceX would be too. Public companies are judged on quarterly performance. Just because some companies are doing well, doesn't mean that all would. Both of those companies (Tesla in particular) had great first quarter results. SpaceX did not. In fact, financially speaking, we had an awful first quarter. If we were public, the short sellers would be hitting us over the head with a large stick.
因为特斯拉和太阳城的股价目前比较高，所以SpaceX的股价也不会低，这样的想法也是不对的。上市公司的股价是根据季度表现来确定的。如果仅仅是几家公司业绩不错，并不代表所有公司都会有较高的股价。这两家公司(尤其是特斯拉)的第一季度表现都不错，但SpaceX却表现不佳。事实上，从财务状况来说，我们的第一季度表现很糟糕。如果我们是上市公司的话，买空型投资者会给我们造成很大的损失。
We would also get beaten up every time there was an anomaly on the rocket or spacecraft, as occurred on flight 4 with the engine failure and flight 5 with the Dragon prevalves. Delaying launch of V1.1, which is now over a year behind schedule, would result in particularly severe punishment, as that is our primary revenue driver. Even something as minor as pushing a launch back a few weeks from one quarter to the next gets you a spanking. Tesla vehicle production in Q4 last year was literally only three weeks behind and yet the market response was brutal.
如果我们的火箭或者宇宙飞船出现任何异常，比如第四次发射中遇到的引擎问题和第五次发射中遇到的单向进火阀问题，都会给我们带来极大的损失。“猎鹰9号”V1.1火箭的发射已经推迟了一年，这会招致严重的惩罚，因为这个项目是我们主要的收入来源。即使是把一次发射推迟几个星期，把它从这一季度推迟到下一季度，我们也会遭受损失。特斯拉去年第四季度的生产只是比原计划晚了三个星期而已，市场反应都已经让我们招架不住了。
BEST OF BOTH WORLDS
两全其美
My goal at SpaceX is to give you the best aspects of a public and private company. When we do a financing round, the stock price is keyed off of approximately what we would be worth if publicly traded, excluding irrational exuberance or depression, but without the pressure and distraction of being under a hot public spotlight. Rather than have the stock be up during one liquidity window and down during another, the goal is a steady upward trend and never to let the share price go below the last round. The end result for you (or an investor in SpaceX) financially will be the same as if we were public and you sold a steady amount of stock every year.
对于SpaceX，我的目标是把上市公司和私营公司的好处都带给你们。当我们做一轮融资的时候，我们的股票价格将和公开交易时一样高(除去非理性的市场繁荣或萧条因素)，但既不会产生作为一家备受瞩目的上市公司那样的压力，也不会受到干扰。我们不想让股价在一个变现窗口期间上升，然后在另一个窗口期间下降，我们的目标是让股价处于稳步上升趋势，不让股价低于最后一轮的水准。对你(或者SpaceX的投资者)来说，你获得的经济回报和上市公司是一样的，你每年可以出售固定数量的股票。
In case you are wondering about a specific number, I can say that I'm confident that our long term stock price will be over $100 if we execute well on Falcon 9 and Dragon. For this to be the case, we must have a steady and rapid cadence of launch that is far better than what we have achieved in the past. We have more work ahead of us than you probably realize. Let me give you a sense of where things stand financially: SpaceX expenses this year will be roug[h]ly $800 to $900 million (which blows my mind btw). Since we get revenue of $60M for every F9 flight or double that for a FH or F9-Dragon flight, we must have about twelve flights per year where four of those flights are either Dragon or Heavy merely in order to achieve 10% profitability!
如果你想知道具体数字，我可以告诉你，如果我们的“猎鹰9号”和“龙”飞船发射成功的话，我可以很自信地告诉你，长期股价将超过一百美元。为了实现这一目标，我们必须以稳定快速的步调进行发射，做得比我们过去的每一次都好。我们面前有很多工作要做，比你能想象的更多。让我来告诉你们大概的数字：SpaceX今年的支出将达到8亿~9亿美元(这让我有点吃惊)。因为我们每次发射“猎鹰9号”能够获得6 000万美元的收入，发射重型猎鹰或“猎鹰9号”加上“龙”飞船可获得1.2亿美元的收入，我们必须每年发射12次，其中4次得是“龙”飞船或者重型猎鹰，这样我们就能达到10%的利润率！
For the next few years, we have NASA commercial crew funding that helps supplement those numbers, but, after that, we are on our own. That is not much time to finish F9, FH, Dragon V2 and achieve an average launch rate of at least one per month. And bear in mind that is an average, so if we take an extra three weeks to launch a rocket for any reason (could even be due to the satellite), we have only one week to do the follow-on flight.
接下来的几年里，我们会有NASA商业宇航员项目的经费支持，能够帮助我们补充资金，但在此之后，我们就得靠自己了。完成“猎鹰9号”、猎鹰重型和第二代“龙”飞船的时间已经不多了，我们还得达到每月至少发射一次的频率。记住，这只是个平均值，所以，如果我们由于某种原因(通常是由于卫星的原因)花了三个星期来发射一枚火箭的话，那么我们只剩一个星期的时间来进行下一次发射了。
MY RECOMMENDATION
我的建议
Below is my advice about regarding selling SpaceX stock or options. No complicated analysis is required, as the rules of thumb are pretty simple.
下面是我对出售SpaceX股票或期权的建议。这不需要复杂的分析，因为经验法则很简单。
If you believe that SpaceX will execute better than the average public company, then our stock price will continue to appreciate at a rate greater than that of the stock market, which would be the next highest return place to invest money over the long term. Therefore, you should sell only the amount that you need to improve your standard of living in the short to medium term. I do actually recommend selling some amount of stock, even if you are certain it will appreciate, as life is short and a bit more cash can increase fun and reduce stress at home (so long as you don't ratchet up your ongoing personal expenditures proportionately).
如果你相信SpaceX将比一般上市公司经营得更好的话，那么我们的股价将持续上涨，且增速比股市还快，从长期来看，这会成为下一个最高投资回报点。 因此，你应该只出售中短期内能够改善你生活水平的那部分股票。我建议你们出售一部分股票，即使你确定它会升值。因为生命很短暂，多一点现金就能够多一点乐趣，并减轻压力(只要你不按比例逐渐增加个人支出)。
To maximize your post tax return, you are probably best off exercising your options to convert them to stock (if you can afford to do this) and then holding the stock for a year before selling it at our roughly biannual liquidity events. This allows you to pay the capital gains tax rate, instead of the income tax rate.
为了最大化你的税后所得，你最好能行使你的期权，把它们转成股票(如果你可以这么做的话)，然后持有这些股票一年，在我们两年一次的清偿时间再出售。这样你只需按资本收益税税率缴税，而不是按个人所得税税率缴税。
On a final note, we are planning to do a liquidity event as soon as Falcon 9 qualification is complete in one to two months. I don't know exactly what the share price will be yet, but, based on initial conversations with investors, I would estimate probably between $30 and $35. This places the value of SpaceX at $4 to $5 billion, which is about what it would be if we were public right now and, frankly, an excellent number considering that the new F9, FH and Dragon V2 have yet to launch.
最后，我们打算在“猎鹰9号”完成资格认证的一两个月内进行一次清偿。我不清楚具体的股价会是多少，但根据和投资者的初步讨论，我认为股价在30~35美元之间。这样一来，SpaceX的价值为40亿~50亿美元，跟上市以后的市值差不多了。说实话，考虑到新的“猎鹰9号”、猎鹰重型和第二代“龙”飞船还没发射，这个数字已经很不错了。
Elon
埃隆