April 2025 statements by founder Chris Kemp only deepen my conviction that public shareholders were deliberately misled while insiders ultimately benefited from the company’s orchestrated failure and privatization.
The buyout price of $0.50 per share represented a near-total loss for those who invested during or after the SPAC merger, when the company claimed a multi-billion dollar valuation. The timing is deeply suspicious: only after the company finalized its take-private transaction in the March-July 2024 timeframe, acquiring valuable assets built with public shareholder funds (including the profitable satellite engine business acquired via Apollo Fusion) for pennies on the dollar through what founder Chris Kemp cynically termed a “Founder Led Acquisition Company” (FLAC) โ bullshit terminology for which I have video evidence โ did they announce, in May 2024, winning a U.S. Space Force Space Systems Command contract for the ‘Ascent’ mission. This sequence strongly suggests that public investors were used and discarded once the valuable core of the business could be secured privately by the founders, conveniently timed with securing new government contracts.
Furthermore, I ask scrutiny of all revenues generated while Astra was a public entity or using assets developed with public funds, including any proceeds from deals with HBO Max for documentaries, United Airlines for in-flight content, or Amazon for book deals. These profits were derived from a company capitalized by shareholders who were ultimately left with nothing. Please be aware that according to reporting based on accounts from former employees, Chris Kemp was alleged to have hosted parties, which purportedly included drugs, at a company warehouse. These allegations surfaced during a period when Astra was facing significant operational and financial challenges, and were part of broader criticisms directed at Kemp’s leadership style and the company’s culture at the time.
I politely ask the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to launch a full investigation into Astra Space, its executives including Chris Kemp, the Holicity SPAC merger process, and Mr. Kemp’s cynical FLAC process, for potential securities fraud, manipulation, and breach of fiduciary duty. Furthermore, I hope that all profits and assets unjustly obtained by insiders through this process, including revenues from content deals like HBO and United Airlines, be confiscated and potentially used for restitution to the defrauded shareholders.
Public markets rely on trust and transparency, both of which appear to have been violated egregiously in the case of Astra Space. We need regulators to act decisively to punish such conduct and deter it in the future.
P.S. This playbook โ bankruptcy wiping out public investors while valuable assets get snapped up โ is exactly what happened when Pfizer acquired Lucira Health and their COVID-19 and flu tests. Both happened during the BIDEN ADMINISTRATION.
For Astra, it was the DoD with inside knowledge, the key contract given after bankruptcy.
For Lucira, it was the FDA with inside knowledge, the key approval was given after bankruptcy.
They both knew MAGA held these stocks.
SOURCE:
“Chris Kemp on Astra’s Comeback, Cheap Rockets and Drones From Space”
Core Memory Podcast
The “Taking Astra Private” section a little before 8:09 to a little after 10:25 is what I watched.
“If youโve seen HBOโs Wild, Wild Space or read When the Heavens Went on Sale (links below), then Chris Kemp needs no introduction. Kemp is one of the stars in both works. For the less familiar, Kemp is the co-founder and CEO of Astra Space, a maker of rockets based in Alameda, Calif. For several years now, Astra has been on a quest to create the cheapest, easiest to launch rocket in the market and to turn rocket-making into a mass production affair. The company has enjoyed glorious highs all the way to orbit and lows where it verged on bankruptcy. Over the past year, Kemp and Astra co-founder Adam London took the company private and raised a fresh $80 million as they head toward flying Rocket 4 – their next-generation machine. We have lots more on that story on
and the link below. In this episode with Kemp, we get into Astraโs tumultuous journey, his disdain for some of my filmmaking choices and the future of rockets. Kemp envisions a world with rocket launch sites in many countries and rockets ferrying things like drones into battles in far-off places in a matter of seconds. As always, you can listen here or via your favorite podcast provider. Leave a review. Like and subscribe. Calm our souls.”
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