IrelandEconomy2 days ago

SpaceX is now a public company worth nearly $2tn. What happens next?

SpaceX has become a publicly traded company with a valuation of $2.05 trillion after raising $75 billion in its initial public offering. Despite skepticism regarding its business model and governance, investor confidence remains strong, reflected in the stock's over 11% increase on its first day of trading. Analysts have questioned the valuation, suggesting it could be closer to $1 trillion. The article notes that Starlink, rather than space transportation or xAI, is currently the primary revenue generator for SpaceX. The piece emphasizes that investing in SpaceX is largely a bet on Elon Musk.

How do you make a billion dollars? If you ask Michael O’Leary , he’ll tell you it’s by investing 10 billion dollars in an airline. And if you ask Elon Musk , he’ll tell you it’s even easier: start with $22 billion of American taxpayers’ money, lose $5 billion a year, and then sell the lot to the public at a valuation of $1.75 trillion.

That is, roughly, the proposition behind Friday’s flotation of SpaceX on the Nasdaq , the largest initial public offering in stock market history which saw the company’s value soar to close to $2 trillion. While it has been fiercely debated whether the company is drastically over- or underpriced, the question itself feels somewhat irrelevant. This is because whatever the ticker did once it started trading, what should have been decided long before the opening bell was another deceptively simple question: what is SpaceX, exactly?

Is it a rocket company? A satellite communications provider? A social media platform, or an AI frontier lab? A data centre provider? The answer, actually, is yes. Its Falcon 9 flies more often than the rockets of any nation on Earth combined, while Starlink serves more than 10 million customers across 160 countries. Its Starshield division operates the Pentagon’s satellite constellation. This is while X , the platform formerly known as Twitter, now uses its own LLM model called Grok , which will soon need so much computer power that it will attempt to create vast data centres in space.

While we may not know which industry SpaceX is actually in, what is certain is that it is an Elon Musk index fund – a single security whose value is a bet on the priorities, attention span and political fortunes of one egomaniacal man.

Now, this highly volatile bet may work out for investors. If the Starship launch vehicle develops quickly while Starlink keeps adding a million subscribers a quarter, and if the AI gamble pays off, the early shareholders taking a punt will be handsomely rewarded, and columns like this one will be filed away for later ridicule.

[ Investors in Elon Musk’s SpaceX will need to strap in for a bumpy ride Opens in new window ]

But to consider the alternative in which SpaceX does “badly”, it’s helpful to define who loses. The shareholders, sure. Though even that word is doing some heavy lifting: Nasdaq and FTSE Russell rewrote their own rule books to usher SpaceX into their indices within days of listing, and up to 30 per cent of the float is earmarked for retail investors. So once the stock sits in the big indices, every tracker fund must hold it – including the default funds where most pensions live. “Shareholders” thus no longer means a hedge fund that priced the risk and can lose out; it means, in the end, a nurse in Tullamore who never thinks about Elon Musk at all.

However, a pension fund in the red can rebalance; the deeper losses fall on those who came to depend on the product rather than the stock. In this definition of “badly” for SpaceX, the consequences are far greater than an underperforming share price.

Consider that a low-orbit constellation is not a bridge, built just once. Starlink satellites burn up after roughly five years, so the network exists only as long as the company keeps spending billions to replace it. A cash-strapped SpaceX might not collapse overnight; internet speeds degrade and small markets get deprioritised. Prices rise for rural customers who, by then, have no alternative, because governments never built them. Indeed, Starlink already raised its prices this year, monetising its customer base that has nowhere else to go. And perhaps eventually, a worsening of SpaceX share price ends in a dismal restructuring in a Texas courtroom, where the broadband connection keeping entire communities online is just another asset to be carved up between creditors.

[ SpaceX’s IPO is a disaster waiting to happen and Irish pension funds will be exposed Opens in new window ]

So how far away from the worst-case scenario is SpaceX? Well, it generated $18.7 billion in revenue last year against a $4.9 billion net loss. Starlink itself is profitable, but that figure leans on what my economics research shows to be an artificially low cost of launch. Worse, it is shackled to an AI division that lost $6.4 billion last year and swallowed $7.7 billion of capital spending in the first three months of 2026 alone – while Starship’s development costs, north of $15 billion and counting, sit in a launch segment that loses money despite flying more payload to orbit than the rest of the planet combined.

So the endgame is not unfathomable. A private company providing national infrastructure such as broadband for farmers, communication during a war, and the only commercial western access to the space station is not just too big to fail; it is too essential to be allowed to. If things take a turn for the worse for Musk, whichever state is most reliant on SpaceX services must bail it out, or pay exceedingly high costs to keep the company lights on.…

Read the full article at The Irish Times →

Source document: IPOX Schuster analyst Kat Liu statement

9 reports

RTÉ NewsState / PublicCenter2 days ago

SpaceX shares fall as post-IPO frenzy loses steam

SpaceX's stock fell more than 6% following its highly anticipated Nasdaq IPO, which had previously pushed the company's valuation above $2 trillion. The decline comes amid a broader sell-off in the U.S. space sector, with other firms like Rocket Lab and Planet Labs also experiencing share declines. Analysts note that the drop reflects typical post-IPO profit-taking and caution investors about expected volatility due to SpaceX's limited public share availability and high valuation.

Bias read (Center): The article provides a factual account of stock market movements without overtly favoring any particular perspective. It includes quotes from an analyst and mentions market behavior without editorializing or biased language.

Official sources cited

statement IPOX Schuster analyst Kat Liu statement

Irish IndependentIndependentCenter5 days ago

SpaceX shares jump again in second day’s trading after IPO

SpaceX shares experienced another increase in value during the second day of trading following the company's initial public offering (IPO).

Bias read (Center): The article reports on stock market activity related to SpaceX's IPO without taking a stance or using biased language.

The Irish TimesIndependent🔒Center7 days ago

SpaceX is not just too big to fail. It is too essential to be allowed to

The article discusses SpaceX's recent IPO on the Nasdaq, highlighting its valuation of nearly $2 trillion and questioning the company's multifaceted role beyond being a traditional rocket manufacturer. It notes SpaceX's involvement in satellite communications through Starlink, defense contracts via Starshield, and its expansion into artificial intelligence with the development of the Grok LLM.

Bias read (Center): The article provides a factual overview of SpaceX's business operations, financial details, and technological advancements without overtly favoring any particular political stance. It presents information objectively, focusing on the company's diverse roles and market impact rather than taking a pro