Four Valuation Anchors, One Musk Premium: The Real Disagreement Over the SpaceX IPO

$135 per share, 555.6 million shares, $1.77 trillion.

SpaceX has pegged its IPO price here. According to SpaceX's S-1/A filed with the SEC on June 3 and the FWP roadshow materials filed on June 4, the company plans to issue 555.6 million shares of Class A common stock at an offering price of $135 per share. The stock is expected to list on Nasdaq and Nasdaq Texas under the ticker SPCX. After deducting underwriting discounts and offering expenses, the company expects net proceeds of approximately $74.4 billion. If underwriters fully exercise their additional purchase option, net proceeds would be approximately $85.7 billion.

The real question the roadshow poses to the market isn't "how much is a rocket company worth." What SpaceX repeatedly emphasizes in the materials is something else: space transportation, satellite connectivity, and AI computing power are being consolidated into a single balance sheet.

According to the same FWP roadshow materials, SpaceX positions itself as the only company simultaneously building three layers of hardware and software infrastructure: space, connectivity, and AI. The space business is responsible for lowering the cost of reaching orbit, Starlink is tasked with extending connectivity beyond ground, sea, air, and mobile networks, while the AI business weaves xAI, Grok, X, and the Colossus computing cluster into a single narrative.

SpaceX Roadshow Document

The data it presents is substantial. According to the roadshow materials, SpaceX has handled over 80% of global mass to orbit since 2023, completed approximately 650 launches, operates over 9,600 Starlink satellites, has around 10.3 million Starlink users across 164 countries and regions. Grok and X have approximately 550 million monthly active users, X sees around 350 million daily posts, and the AI computing infrastructure's nominal power consumption exceeds 1GW.

This is precisely where Wall Street is most divided.

SpaceX claims it is selling infrastructure. Skeptics argue it is packaging infrastructure, AI, and Musk's personal premium together for sale.

First, let's look at the most solid part of the roadshow. Connectivity is currently the segment that most resembles a "public company business." According to the roadshow materials, Connectivity generated $11.4 billion in revenue in 2025, with adjusted EBITDA of $7.2 billion, up from $7.6 billion in revenue and $3.8 billion in adjusted EBITDA in 2024. The Space segment generated $4.1 billion in revenue in 2025, with adjusted EBITDA of $0.7 billion. The AI segment generated $3.2 billion in revenue in 2025, with an adjusted EBITDA loss of $1.2 billion.

These three financial statements together paint a very uneven picture of SpaceX. Starlink is profitable, rockets provide deployment capabilities, and AI is burning cash while contributing valuation flexibility.

According to the roadshow materials, SpaceX's total revenue in 2025 was $18.7 billion, with adjusted EBITDA of $6.6 billion, but a GAAP net loss of $4.9 billion. Capital expenditure rose 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 recorded a GAAP net loss of $4.3 billion.

In stock market terms, this is not a mature profit stock. It is a stock selling future infrastructure control to the public market in advance.

Wall Street's initial reaction is to acknowledge the narrative has changed.

Fund manager Mike Alves' article states that investors should not just focus on the headline valuation of $1.75 trillion to $2 trillion; the real question is whether SpaceX is building the infrastructure layer of the next-generation economy. Shaun Davies, Associate Professor of Finance at 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 judgment closer to the roadshow's narrative, believing the growth driver comes from the new combination of communications, data, and AI through space.

This is the core logic of the bullish camp. Don't benchmark SpaceX against Boeing, AT&T, or traditional aerospace companies. It is selling a unique, difficult-to-replicate infrastructure gateway.

Reuters reported that at least one large SpaceX institutional investor privately does not compare SpaceX to Boeing or AT&T, but rather to companies revalued by AI infrastructure, such as Palantir, GE Vernova, and Vertiv. PitchBook analyst Franco Granda's statement in the same report is direct: investors today are paying a platform premium, betting on tomorrow's infrastructure monopoly economics.

But this calculation also has its own awkwardness. At a $1.75 trillion valuation, SpaceX trades at approximately 110 times its 2025 revenue estimate. Even Palantir is cheaper on some metrics. Based on data from S&P Capital IQ, if calculated with a market cap between $1.75 trillion and $2 trillion and revenue for the trailing twelve months ending March 31, 2026, SpaceX's price-to-sales ratio is approximately 90x to 103x, exceeding all of the Magnificent Seven companies and significantly higher than Tesla's price-to-sales ratio of around 16x at the time.

Bulls can accept this price because they don't view SpaceX as a rocket company. Bears cannot accept this price precisely because SpaceX is no longer just a rocket company.

The valuation divergence becomes clear from this point.

The first line is $780 billion. Morningstar analyst Nicolas Owens, after initiating coverage on SpaceX, estimates a fair value of $780 billion, less than half of the IPO target valuation. Owens' concerns center on the AI business. He believes Grok is not currently a leading AI lab, technologies like orbital data centers are unproven, and investors may find a better entry point with a margin of safety after the IPO.

The second line is between $1.22 trillion and $1.29 trillion. Aswath Damodaran, Professor of Finance at NYU Stern School of Business, using limited financial data available, derived a base valuation of $1.22 trillion from his model, with a median of $1.29 trillion from 10,000 simulations. He acknowledges SpaceX is an engineering marvel with a significant competitive advantage, but his bottom line is clear: if priced at $1.75 trillion or even $2 trillion, there is little upside left for the buyer.

The third line is $1.25 trillion. Scottish Mortgage, managed by Baillie Gifford, holds SpaceX at a $1.25 trillion valuation as of March 31, 2026, emphasizing that the valuation is based on verifiable transactions, not media rumors. This number is interesting. Scottish Mortgage is a long-term holder; it is not bearish on SpaceX, but it hasn't directly followed the valuation up to $1.75 trillion either.

Further up is SpaceX's own $1.77 trillion price tag for the public market.

These four numbers together represent the real SpaceX on Wall Street today.

It's not a simple "buy" or "sell" scenario. It's more like a price band: $780 billion is the conservative anchor from fundamentalists, $1.22 trillion to $1.29 trillion is Damodaran's compromise between narrative and discounted cash flows, $1.25 trillion is the mark-to-market by an existing institutional holder, and $1.77 trillion is the price SpaceX is ready for the public market to accept.

Sentiment on social trading platforms is more direct. Accounts like Ticker Wire, Surmount, and VirtualBacon on X focus less on discounted cash flow models and more on the trading dynamics: the $75 billion raise, the $1.75 trillion valuation, potential index buying, and the possibility of OpenAI and Anthropic following SpaceX's IPO. They treat SpaceX as a liquidity event, not a company requiring painstaking analysis in an Excel spreadsheet.

This is also the warning from Scott Sacknoff. Manager of the SPADE Defense Index, Scott Sacknoff believes the SpaceX IPO has already pushed mainstream investor enthusiasm to near-irrationally exuberant levels, with stocks of publicly traded space companies up 60% to 100% year-to-date. At a $1.75 trillion valuation, those likely to profit are traders, not buy-and-hold long-term investors.

Traders watch supply and demand; long-term investors watch the valuation realization path.

This path has three checkpoints.

The first checkpoint is Starlink. It must continue converting user growth, ARPU, mobile connectivity, and enterprise/government customers into cash flow. The SpaceX roadshow places Connectivity within a $1.6 trillion total addressable market, with Starlink Broadband corresponding to $870 billion and Starlink Mobile corresponding to $740 billion. This market is sizable, but the public market will initially scrutinize revenue quality rather than the TAM.

The second checkpoint is AI. The SpaceX roadshow values the long-term AI opportunity at $26.5 trillion and outlines a roadmap for deploying AI computing satellites starting in 2028. Reuters Breakingviews on April 24 called this market claim "planetarily absurd," simply because a $28.5 trillion total addressable market exceeds one-fifth of global GDP. This doesn't mean AI has no value, but rather that SpaceX is staking its valuation flexibility on the hardest-to-verify component.

The third checkpoint is the governance discount. According to the SpaceX 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 has 10 votes per share, while Class A has 1 vote per share. A public letter sent to SpaceX on May 13 from the New York City Comptroller, the New York State Comptroller, and the CEO of CalPERS stated that the three parties represent a combined AUM of over $1 trillion and requested SpaceX to adopt a one-share-one-vote structure or implement a sunset clause for super-voting rights not exceeding seven years.

Kiplinger's Mike Alves offers a bullish interpretation of this issue. He suggests that in a normal company, such control might be a deal-breaker, but the market for SpaceX might consider "gaining exposure" more important than governance. The subtext here is that investors aren't buying governance rights; they are buying an option on Musk's continued leadership.

This roadshow has rewritten SpaceX from a rocket company into an infrastructure complex. Wall Street's task now is to determine how much of this complex is real cash flow, how much is a future technology roadmap, and how much is the Musk premium.

If you only look at the roadshow, SpaceX has told a very complete story. Rockets bring down costs, Starlink connects users, AI integrates computing demand, and orbital computing raises the ceiling.

If you observe Wall Street's reaction, another story is equally complete.

Morningstar is waiting for a lower price, Damodaran is waiting for a significant correction, Scottish Mortgage hasn't marked its holdings to the IPO target price, PitchBook and some institutions are willing to find reasons for the platform premium, trading accounts are eyeing potential index buying and short-term liquidity, and pension systems are focused on control.

SpaceX's rockets are not controversial. The controversy lies in how much investors are willing to pay for the entire sky beyond those rockets.