SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 per share on June 11, 2026, raising $75 billion — the largest IPO in history, nearly tripling the prior record set by Saudi Aramco in 2019. The company began trading on Nasdaq under SPCX on June 12; it closed its first day at $160.95, up 19.2%, pushing the market cap past $2.1 trillion. SpaceX runs three segments: Starlink, Space (launch), and an AI segment (xAI and X/Twitter). Starlink generated $11.4 billion in revenue at a 63% EBITDA margin; Space was profitable. The AI segment generated $3.2 billion in revenue but burned $6.36 billion at the operating level in 2025.

The bull case isn't a dream — it's built on one segment that's already printing money.

Starlink is a proven cash engine. Eleven billion dollars in revenue at a 63% EBITDA margin is not a projection. ARK Invest's Cathie Wood put more than $500 million into SPCX on day one and projects a $2.5 trillion valuation by 2030, with Starlink reaching full constellation deployment by 2035 and potentially capturing up to $300 billion in annual revenue from global communications.

Morgan Stanley sees revenue reaching $3.4 trillion by 2040. Goldman Sachs projects AI-related revenue alone of $322 billion by 2030. On those forward estimates, the current multiple compresses dramatically. Dan Coatsworth at AJ Bell puts it plainly: "Space excites people because it is the great unknown and SpaceX has a blueprint to turn dreams into dollars."

Even the skeptics give it partial credit. Aswath Damodaran at NYU Stern — known as the Dean of Valuation — puts fair value at $1.25–$1.3 trillion, below the IPO price but not wildly so. He doubled his AI revenue estimate after reading the S-1 and called disagreements about market size "natural and healthy" in young companies.

2. This Valuation Is Indefensible on Current Numbers (Michael Field, Morningstar; Sean Williams, The Motley Fool)

Ninety-four times sales with a $4.9 billion net loss isn't a growth premium. It's a lottery ticket.

Morningstar puts fair value at $63 a share. That's less than half the IPO price. Michael Field, Morningstar's Chief Equity Strategist, called the valuation "extremely speculative." His core calculation: Starlink's total addressable market is $129 billion, not the $1.6 trillion SpaceX claimed. That gap does significant damage to the bull case.

SpaceX IPO'd at 94 times sales. No comparable tech company has ever sustained above 30x. That's the argument from Motley Fool's Sean Williams, who called it "the greatest fleecing of retail investors we've ever witnessed." He also pointed to two structural concerns: 30% of the IPO went to retail investors (versus the typical 5–10%), and an accelerated insider selling schedule lets Musk and early investors cash out within months of the IPO while index inclusion forces passive funds to keep buying.

The AI segment is structural drag, not temporary investment. It burned $6.36 billion at the operating level in 2025 and consumed $12.7 billion in capex. The company's total operating income collapsed from positive territory in 2024 to a $2.6 billion operating loss in 2025.

3. Musk's Control Is Permanent and Unchecked (Lucian Bebchuk, Harvard Law; Lindsey Stewart, Morningstar)

The governance structure isn't just unusual — it's designed to keep Musk in power regardless of performance.

Musk holds 93.6% of Class B super-voting shares, with 10 votes each. He retains majority voting control while owning a minority economic stake. Lucian Bebchuk at Harvard Law and Kobi Kastiel at Tel Aviv University calculated that Musk could eventually hold just 9.1% of equity while still controlling the company — at which point his incentives diverge sharply from public shareholders.

There are no sunset provisions and no mechanism to change this. The corporate charter also includes mandatory arbitration, preventing shareholders from suing in court. Lindsey Stewart at Morningstar said the structure "will effectively allow Musk and his close followers...to control the company with a thin sliver of the equity."

4. Index Inclusion Creates Mechanical Market Pressure (SpotGamma Research)

When SpaceX enters the Nasdaq-100, ETFs have to sell Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia to make room.

SpotGamma Research estimates the forced buying at $22–27 billion. When SpaceX enters the Nasdaq-100 (projected late June or early July 2026), every Nasdaq-100 tracking fund — collectively managing over $1.4 trillion in assets — must sell existing constituents proportionally to fund the purchase. QQQ faces the most concentrated pressure.

The S&P 500 said no. S&P Dow Jones Indices rejected a fast-track entry push for SpaceX. The S&P 500 requires 12 months of seasoning and four quarters of GAAP profitability — SpaceX fails both. The S&P 500 commands roughly 20x more assets than the Nasdaq-100, so that decision limits the total forced rebalancing significantly.

Where This Lands

Cathie Wood and the compounders argue that Starlink's proven margins make the valuation defensible on forward estimates, and that the Nasdaq-100 inclusion creates sustained demand. Morningstar's camp says 94x sales with a $4.9 billion net loss is pricing in outcomes that almost certainly won't materialize, and that retail investors buying through index inclusion will bear the cost when the stock mean-reverts. The governance debate is separate from both: Bebchuk and Stewart aren't primarily arguing the stock will fall — they're arguing that public shareholders have no recourse when it does.

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