Why are analysts cautious about SpaceX IPO despite Starlink, xAI hype?

With more than 555 million Class A shares set to be listed at $135 each, with the aim of raising roughly $75 billion, there’s not a shortage of opinions on whether investors should jump on the Musk-led train. 

How can SpaceX be worth $1.75 trillion when it is losing billions? 

SpaceX will list 555 million of its class A shares on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX. It will be the largest initial public offering in U.S. history, with shares expected to begin trading as early as June 12 at a price of $135 each. The company has a target valuation of nearly $1.75 trillion and is aiming to raise roughly $75 billion. 

Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan are all hosting exclusive events this week to pitch SpaceX to their wealthiest clients. Bank of America plans to light its Manhattan headquarters spire to resemble a rocket launch. More than 5,000 clients across BofA’s private bank and Merrill Lynch have been invited to launch parties, with events streamed to offices nationwide. 

Despite the excitement and hype, a look at the company’s finances reveals that Starlink and reusable rockets like the Falcon 9, the combined company, which now includes the social media platform X and the AI firm xAI, are losing a tremendous amount of money. 

In the first quarter of 2026, SpaceX posted an operating loss of $1.9 billion. The decline is largely driven by xAI, which lost $2.5 billion in that same quarter alone. 

While Starlink is profitable, bringing in $4.4 billion in operating income, its efforts are being offset by the massive costs of building AI technology. Meanwhile, SpaceX generated $19.3 billion in revenue over the last four quarters.

At the IPO price, SpaceX would trade at roughly 103 times its sales over the last four quarters, which is about 40% more expensive than Palantir, currently the priciest stock in the S&P 500. 

Morningstar analyst Nicolas Owens estimates that the company is actually worth about half that amount, closer to $780 billion. He also thinks that investors will get a better chance to buy the stock later at a lower price.

A Motley Fool review of more than 100 popular technology stocks found only eight that ever traded above 100 times sales. All of them dropped sharply afterward, with an average peak-to-trough decline of 75%.

The 10 largest U.S. IPOs by initial market value have underperformed the S&P 500 by an average of 127 percentage points since listing.

Why is Wall Street not worried about SpaceX?

Despite its numbers, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 became the first commercially reusable orbital rocket in 2018. The company’s S-1 filing with the SEC also says its next-generation Starship could reduce the cost of reaching orbit by 99%. SpaceX values its total addressable market at $28.5 trillion, spanning satellite internet, launch services, and long-term ambitions like orbital data centers.

ARK Invest, which holds SpaceX in its venture ETF, has argued that Starlink alone could support a $2 trillion valuation at IPO.

JPMorgan strategists led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou pushed back on fears that mega-IPOs will drain liquidity from existing stocks. 

What is the true value of SpaceX? 

Elon Musk’s firms often do business together, an interaction that goes beyond exchanging cash for products and services. Even investors apply the goodwill of one firm to another. 

Tesla disclosed a $2 billion investment in xAI in January after the SpaceX-xAI merger, and Cryptopolitan previously reported that SpaceX’s prospectus shows the company plans to spend $697 million on Tesla Megapack batteries for xAI data centers and $131 million on Tesla Cybertrucks.

SpaceX’s revenue grew 15% year over year. Its merger with xAI valued the firm at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion. The company generated $818 million in revenue.

Anthropic recently closed a $65 billion funding round at a $965 billion valuation and reported run-rate revenue of $47 billion. The company said it expects to post its first quarterly operating profit of $559 million on $10.9 billion in Q2 revenue. 

On a price-to-sales basis, Anthropic trades at about 20 times run-rate revenue, a fraction of what xAI commands inside SpaceX’s structure.