$135 per share, 5.556 billion shares, $1.77 trillion.
SpaceX has set its IPO price at this level. According to the S-1/A filed with the SEC on June 3 and the FWP roadshow materials submitted on June 4, the company plans to issue 555.6 million shares of Class A common stock at a price of $135 per share, with the stock expected to be listed on Nasdaq and Nasdaq Texas under the ticker symbol SPCX. After deducting underwriting discounts and offering expenses, the company expects net proceeds of approximately $74.4 billion, or approximately $85.7 billion if the underwriters fully exercise their overallotment option.
The real question being posed to the market by the roadshow is not “How much is a rocket company worth?” SpaceX repeatedly emphasizes in its materials that space transportation, satellite connectivity, and AI computing power are being consolidated onto a single balance sheet.
According to the same FWP pitch deck, SpaceX claims to be the only company building the three layers of hardware and software infrastructure—space, connectivity, and AI. Its space business reduces the cost of accessing orbit, Starlink extends connectivity beyond terrestrial, maritime, aerial, and mobile networks, and its AI business unifies xAI, Grok, X, and the Colossus computing clusters under one narrative.
The data provided is substantial. According to pitch materials, SpaceX has accounted for over 80% of global orbital mass since 2023, with approximately 650 launches, over 9,600 operational Starlink satellites, around 10.3 million Starlink users, and coverage in 164 countries and regions. Grok and X have approximately 550 million monthly active users, with about 350 million daily posts on X, and AI computing infrastructure with a nominal power consumption exceeding 1 GW.
This is currently the point of greatest divergence on Wall Street.
SpaceX claims it is selling infrastructure. Skeptics say it is bundling infrastructure, AI, and Musk’s personal premium together for sale.
First, let’s look at the strongest segment in the pitch: Connectivity is now the most like a “public company business.” According to the pitch materials, Connectivity’s 2025 revenue is $11.4 billion, with an adjusted EBITDA of $7.2 billion, compared to $7.6 billion in revenue and $3.8 billion in adjusted EBITDA in 2024. The Space segment is projected to generate $4.1 billion in revenue and $700 million in adjusted EBITDA in 2025. The AI segment is expected to report $3.2 billion in revenue and an adjusted EBITDA loss of $1.2 billion in 2025.
Together, these three bills present a highly imbalanced SpaceX: Starlink is profitable, rockets provide deployment capabilities, and AI is burning cash while contributing to valuation flexibility.
According to the pitch deck, SpaceX's total revenue for 2025 was $18.7 billion, with an adjusted EBITDA of $6.6 billion, but a GAAP net loss of $4.9 billion. Capital expenditures increased from $4.4 billion in 2023 to $11.2 billion in 2024, and further to $20.7 billion in 2025. As of the first quarter of 2026, the company still reported a GAAP net loss of $4.3 billion.
In stock market terms, this is not a mature profit-generating stock. This is a stock that is selling ahead of future infrastructure control to the public market.
The first reaction from Wall Street was to acknowledge that the story had changed.
In an article by fund manager Mike Alves, investors should not focus solely on the $1.75 trillion to $2 trillion valuation; the real question is whether SpaceX is building the infrastructure layer of the next-generation economy. Associate Professor of Finance Shaun Davies from the University of Colorado Boulder also describes SpaceX as a hybrid of aerospace, communications infrastructure, defense technology, and AI. Scott Pace, Director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, offers a perspective closer to pitch deck language, stating that growth is driven by communications, data, and AI coming together in new ways through space.
This is the core logic behind the bullish case. Don’t compare SpaceX to Boeing, AT&T, or traditional aerospace companies—it’s selling an irreplaceable entry point to a unique infrastructure.
Reuters noted that at least one large institutional investor privately does not view SpaceX as comparable to Boeing or AT&T, but rather as similar to companies like Palantir, GE Vernova, and Vertiv—firms being revalued due to AI infrastructure. PitchBook analyst Franco Granda offered a straightforward assessment in the same report: investors today are paying a platform premium, betting on tomorrow’s infrastructure monopoly economy.
However, this valuation system has its own awkwardness. At a $1.75 trillion valuation, SpaceX equates to roughly 110 times its projected 2025 revenue, making it cheaper than Palantir on certain metrics. According to calculations based on S&P Capital IQ data, using a market capitalization range of $1.75 trillion to $2 trillion and the trailing 12-month revenue as of March 31, 2026, SpaceX’s price-to-sales ratio is approximately 90 to 103 times—exceeding all seven major tech companies and significantly surpassing Tesla’s price-to-sales ratio of about 16 times at the time.
Bullish investors can accept this price because they don’t view SpaceX as just a rocket company. Bearish investors cannot accept this price because SpaceX is no longer just a rocket company.
The divergence in valuation becomes clear from here.
The first line is $780 billion. Morningstar analyst Nicolas Owens, in his initial coverage of SpaceX, estimated its fair value at $780 billion—less than half of the IPO target valuation. Owens’s concerns center on the AI business, as he believes Grok is not currently a leading AI lab and technologies such as orbital data centers remain unproven; investors may find a more attractive buying opportunity with greater margin of safety after the IPO.
The second line is $1.22 trillion to $1.29 trillion. Aswath Damodaran, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, used a valuation model that yielded a baseline valuation of $1.22 trillion based on limited financial data at the time, with a median of $1.29 trillion after 10,000 simulations. He acknowledged SpaceX as an engineering marvel and recognized its significant competitive advantages, but his bottom line was clear: if priced at $1.75 trillion or even $2 trillion, buyers would have little upside potential.
The third line is $1.25 trillion. Baillie Gifford’s Scottish Mortgage, as of March 31, 2026, valued its stake in SpaceX at $1.25 trillion, emphasizing that this valuation is based on verifiable transactions, not media rumors. This figure is noteworthy. Scottish Mortgage is a long-term holder—it is not bearish on SpaceX—but it also did not directly follow the valuation up to $1.75 trillion.
Above that is the $1.77 trillion valuation that SpaceX itself provided to the public market.
These four numbers together represent the real SpaceX of Wall Street today.
It’s not about shouting “buy” on one side and “sell” on the other. It’s more like a price band: $780 billion is the conservative anchor assigned by fundamentals, $1.22 trillion to $1.29 trillion represents Damodaran’s compromise between narrative and cash flow, $1.25 trillion is the holding marker for existing institutional positions, and $1.77 trillion is the price SpaceX is preparing to hand over to the public markets.
Trading sentiment on social platforms is more direct. Accounts like Ticker Wire, Surmount, and VirtualBacon on X focus not on discounted cash flow, but on $75 billion in fundraising, a $1.75 trillion valuation, potential index buying, and the likelihood that OpenAI and Anthropic may follow SpaceX as the next IPOs. They treat SpaceX as a liquidity event, not a company to be slowly dissected in an Excel spreadsheet.
This is also the warning issued by Scott Sacknoff. Scott Sacknoff, manager of the SPADE Defense Index, believes that SpaceX’s IPO has pushed mainstream investor enthusiasm close to irrational exuberance, with publicly traded space company stocks rising 60% to 100% this year. At a $1.75 trillion valuation, those most likely to profit are more likely to be traders than buy-and-hold investors.
Traders focus on supply and demand; long-term investors focus on the path to valuation realization.
There are three checkpoints along this path.
The first checkpoint is Starlink. It must continue converting user growth, ARPU, mobile connectivity, and enterprise and government customers into cash flow. SpaceX’s pitch positioned Connectivity within a $1.6 trillion potential market, with Starlink Broadband accounting for $870 billion and Starlink Mobile for $740 billion. While this market is substantial, public markets will first focus on revenue quality, not TAM.
The second checkpoint is AI. SpaceX’s pitch outlined a long-term AI opportunity of $26.5 trillion and proposed a roadmap to deploy AI computing satellites starting in 2028. On April 24, Reuters’ BreakingViews labeled this market claim “planetary nonsense,” simply because the $28.5 trillion total addressable market exceeds one-fifth of global GDP. This is not to say AI lacks value, but rather that SpaceX has bet its valuation elasticity on the hardest-to-verify segment.
The third checkpoint is governance discount. According to SpaceX’s S-1/A, following the completion of this offering, Musk will control approximately 82.4% of the voting power of the common stock. Class B common stock carries 10 votes per share, while Class A carries one vote per share. On May 13, public letters from the Comptroller of the City of New York, the Comptroller of New York State, and the CEO of CalPERS—representing combined assets under management exceeding $1 trillion—urged SpaceX to adopt a one-share-one-vote structure or implement a sunset clause limiting super-voting rights to no more than seven years.
Mike Alves of Kiplinger offered a bullish interpretation of this situation. He believes that while such control in a typical company might be a dealbreaker, SpaceX’s market may view “gaining exposure” as more important than governance. The underlying implication is that investors are not buying governance rights, but rather an option on Musk continuing to lead.
This pitch transformed SpaceX from a rocket company into an infrastructure conglomerate. Wall Street now needs to determine how much of this conglomerate consists of actual cash flow, how much is a future technology roadmap, and how much is the Musk premium.
If you only look at the pitch, SpaceX has already told a very complete story: rockets bring down costs, Starlink connects users, AI absorbs computing demand, and orbital calculations continue to raise the ceiling.
After seeing Wall Street's reaction, another story is also complete.
Morningstar is waiting for a lower price; Damodaran is waiting for a major correction; Scottish Mortgage has not marked its holdings to IPO target prices; PitchBook and some institutions are willing to find justification for platform premiums; trading accounts are monitoring potential index buying and short-term liquidity; pension systems are watching for control.
SpaceX's rockets are not controversial. The controversy lies in how much investors are willing to pay for the entire sky behind the rockets.