Billionaire Yuri Milner Explains $100 Million Extraterrestrial Search
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Russian Billionaire Yuri Milner, founder of growth equity firm DST Global, explained his $100 million investment in the search for extraterrestrial life to CNBC's Kelly Evans on "Closing Bell" Thursday evening.
Although the results of Milner's new venture, dubbed Breakthrough Starshot, will likely not be seen in his lifetime, he says he is "trailblazing" the way to opening the secrets of the universe.
"The really big frontier is going beyond the solar system and trying to find out what's going on out there," Milner stated.
The nearest star, Alpha Centauri, is four light years away and "we believe in this century" a robotic probe can be sent there, he continued.
Milner has always been an early backer of startups, being one of the first investors to buy stakes in Facebook (FB) - Get Report and Twitter (TWTR). He later invested in Spotify and Airbnb.
Evans asked whether Milner thinks of Amazon.com (AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos and Tesla Motors (TSLA)CEO Elon Musk as competitors or allies to his cause.
Both entrepreneurs have founded startups designed to aid space exploration. In April, Bezos' company, Blue Origin, successfully launched a reusable rocket prototype into space and landed it back to Earth.
"Well I'm not competing at all because we are separated by a lot of space. The solar system is big enough for a lot of people," Milner replied.
Shares of Facebook are flat at $114.28 before Friday's opening bell.
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Separately, TheStreet Ratings rated Facebook as a "buy" with a score of A-.
This is based on the convergence of positive investment measures, which can be seen in multiple areas, such as its robust revenue growth, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures, impressive record of earnings per share growth, compelling growth in net income and expanding profit margins.
TheStreet Ratings feels its strengths outweigh the fact that the company is trading at a premium valuation based on our review of its current price compared to such things as earnings and book value.
You can view the full analysis from the report here: FB
TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this articles's author.