Understanding SpaceX’s History

SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk in 2002 to dramatically reduce the cost of space access and ultimately make humanity multi-planetary. It logged a string of industry firsts — the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to orbit (2008), the first private cargo delivery to the ISS (2012), and the first landing and reuse of an orbital-class booster (2015 to 2017).

Ownership remains tightly held: Musk controls roughly 42% of the equity and about 85% of the voting power. The IPO finally gives public investors direct access to a business previously reachable only through private secondaries and a few crossover funds.

When Is SpaceX Going Public?

SpaceX filed a confidential draft registration on April 1, 2026, and made its S-1 public on May 20, 2026. SEC rules require a prospectus at least 15 days before a roadshow; the roadshow is reported to begin early June, with pricing expected June 11 and first trading on June 12, 2026. That timeline can move if the SEC requests added disclosures, demand-building needs more roadshow days or markets deteriorate. Treat June 12 as a target, and watch for the final amended S-1 with the price range from lead underwriters Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

Key Metrics

• Exchange listing: Nasdaq (and Nasdaq Texas)

• Stock ticker: SPCX

• Target valuation: Around $1.75 trillion

• Expected capital to raise: up to $75 billion

• Latest revenue (FY 2025): $18.67 billion

Forward-looking figures, including but not limited to SpaceX revenue and EBITDA references, Starlink subscriber and revenue projections, launch-cost trajectories, IPO valuation references, S&P 500 inclusion math and the implied $300 to $400 billion forced-buying estimate, expected float estimates, and any references to potential SpaceX inclusion in the “Mag 8,” are estimates and working assumptions for educational and illustrative purposes. As of the date of this publication, SpaceX has not publicly confirmed an IPO valuation.

The figures in this article should not be read as forecasts, recommendations or company-issued guidance. Before investing, review each fund’s prospectus and most recent disclosures carefully. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Investors should consider their investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses before making any investment decision.

What to Know Before SpaceX Goes Public

The factors below have moved the conversation among institutional allocators: the three-engine framing, the valuation math against mega-cap tech and Rocket Lab, the revenue picture, governance and the analyst response. A peer comparison anchors where SpaceX sits against its only true public-market launch comparable.

The Three-Engine Empire

Investors are not buying one business. They are buying three, each on different economics, timelines and moats, which is why sum-of-the-parts is the only sensible way to read the multiple. Launch is the strategic moat: Falcon 9 is the most-flown, lowest-cost orbital system in history, with Starship targeting a 60-to-80x cost reduction. Starlink — past 10 million subscribers, $11.39 billion in 2025 revenue at 60%-plus EBITDA margins — is the cash engine funding Starship and the AI losses. xAI was acquired by SpaceX in an all-stock merger in February 2026 and backed by a $1.25 billion-per-month Anthropic cloud agreement (terminable on 90 days’ notice), is the optionality engine.

SpaceX’s Estimated Valuation

At $1.75 trillion, SpaceX would price at roughly 94 times trailing 2025 revenue and about 73 times consensus 2026 estimates of $22 to $24 billion, extraordinary, but not an outlier within the launch-and-space cohort. The reference point is Rocket Lab (Nasdaq: RKLB), the only other publicly traded U.S. orbital launch company, which closed May 2026 near a $78.6 billion market cap on $602 million of 2025 revenue, roughly 131 times sales.

By that yardstick SPCX at 94x is actually cheaper, and the operational gap is wide: about 31 times Rocket Lab’s revenue, 650-plus orbital missions at a 99%-plus success rate, plus a profitable Starlink business and gigawatt-scale AI that Rocket Lab lacks. The mark has more than quadrupled in under a year — roughly $400 billion in mid-2025, $1.25 trillion at the February 2026 xAI merger, $1.75 trillion now — reflecting expectations rather than 2025 fundamentals. About 30% of the float is reserved for retail.

Latest Revenue Figures And Outlook

SpaceX reported $18.67 billion in 2025 revenue, up from about $14.1 billion in 2024 — 33% growth on a large base. Starlink contributed $11.39 billion and $4.42 billion in operating income; launch generated roughly $4.1 billion against a deliberate $657 million Starship-R&D loss; the AI segment added about $3.2 billion against a $6.4 billion loss. Consolidated GAAP net loss was $4.94 billion, with a $41.3 billion accumulated deficit as of March 31, 2026, even as adjusted EBITDA reached a positive $6.6 billion. Analysts model 2026 revenue of $22 to $24 billion.

Elon Musk’s Unique Governance

Musk will hold the founder, CEO, CTO and chairman titles on listing day, keeping about 85% of the voting power on roughly 42% of the equity through a super-voting class. SpaceX will list as a “controlled company” under Nasdaq rules, exempt from certain independent-director requirements, and the S-1 discloses a performance grant of up to one billion additional shares tied to milestones including a million-resident Mars colony. Tesla owners know the trade-off: concentrated control has produced extraordinary outcomes but also governance disputes. Whether the founder-led premium justifies the discount is each investor’s call.

What Analysts Have Said About SpaceX’s Potential

Bulls argue the three-engine framing justifies the headline valuation and increasingly position SpaceX as a potential “Mag 8” addition, citing Starlink’s high-margin growth and Starship’s market-expanding economics. Bears counter that the trailing multiple is unprecedented at this scale — a higher market cap than Meta on lower revenue than Macy’s — that the AI segment’s roughly $2.5 billion quarterly burn could suppress free cash flow for years, and that the $28.5 trillion total-addressable-market claim, 93% of it in AI, is ambitious.

Potential Valuations After The IPO

Where SPCX trades after day one is a separate question from where it prices, and prediction markets have been pricing the post-IPO valuation meaningfully above the $1.75 trillion target.

The strongest structural argument for upside is index inclusion. When Tesla joined the S&P 500 in December 2020, passive funds had to buy roughly $78 billion of stock, which surged about 57% between announcement and inclusion. SpaceX could dwarf that. At a $1.75 cap it would carry roughly a 2% S&P 500 weight, implying $300 to $400 billion of mandatory passive demand against a tradeable float of perhaps $50 to $75 billion.

The wrinkle is timing: S&P inclusion typically requires 12-month seasoning and four quarters of trailing positive earnings, which SPCX does not yet meet — though S&P Dow Jones Indices has reportedly explored a “Mega-Cap Exception.” That makes the S&P the largest pool of forced demand, but also the slowest to arrive.

The more immediate force may be the Nasdaq-100. Unlike the S&P 500, it carries no seasoning requirement, and SpaceX has reportedly made early Nasdaq-100 inclusion a condition of listing on the exchange — a fast-track that could trigger forced passive buying within days of the debut rather than months. At a roughly 5% weight against the index’s approximately $0.5 trillion in tracking assets, that implies on the order of $25 billion of mandatory demand hitting a thin early float, concentrated precisely in the window where prediction markets see the widest valuation range. The absolute figure is smaller than the S&P’s, but the speed is the point: it arrives while the float is tightest. A third vector, the FTSE Russell US indices, adds a further wave of index-driven demand at reconstitution, layering onto the first year of trading.

Working against that are two supply pressures. The standard 180-day lockup expiration tends to introduce meaningful insider supply — a basket of 15 comparable high-multiple IPOs averaged a +132% peak gain before lockup, then a -59% drawdown afterward. And the deal’s sheer size means $75 billion of paper must clear; even at 30% retail allocation, the institutional book is the largest in U.S. IPO history, and one allocator pulling back during marketing can compress the range fast.

Risks Of Investing In SpaceX’s Potential IPO

The S-1 lists more than 70 pages of risk factors. The material ones: execution risk on Starship, which targets orbital payload delivery in the second half of 2026 after a series of explosions; regulatory risk across FAA licensing, FCC spectrum and CFIUS scrutiny of foreign Starlink deployments; and political risk tied to the CEO’s profile and federal contracting. Also weigh the $41.3 billion accumulated deficit, dilution from future raises, the 90-day Anthropic termination clause, and customer concentration in the DoD, NASA and Anthropic.

Can Investors Buy SpaceX Before The IPO?

Access narrows as the IPO date approaches, and most routes are restricted to accredited investors. Private secondary platforms (Forge Global, Hiive, EquityZen, Nasdaq Private Market) let accredited investors buy existing shares from employees and early backers, typically at six-figure minimums with 5%-plus platform fees — and those shares carry the standard 180-day post-IPO lockup, so buyers cannot sell into the window where IPO performance has historically been strongest.

The most practical route for non-accredited investors is a registered fund that already holds SpaceX: XOVR, ARK Venture Fund (ARKVX), Destiny Tech100 (NYSE: DXYZ), or the Baron Partners Fund (BPTRX), but there are fees and caveats. Two narrower routes exist — reserved-share programs through the IPO syndicate (the 30% retail allocation via brokers such as Robinhood and SoFi Invest) and direct SPV co-investment for qualified purchasers. The public vehicles preserve liquidity through the first 180 days; private secondaries and SPVs do not.

How To Buy SpaceX Stock And Investment Options

Once SPCX begins trading on June 12, 2026, retail investors can buy shares through any standard U.S. brokerage — Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard, Robinhood, Interactive Brokers — just like any Nasdaq stock.

But retail investors can actually gain SpaceX exposure pre IPO, through a crossover ETF or mutual fund. Many investors prefer diversified exposure; through vehicles that already hold SpaceX, with materially different fees, liquidity and accreditation requirements for each.

I have an affiliation with Babson College, ERShares, the XOVR ETF and the Entrepreneur 30 Total Return Index (ER30TR). The intent of this article is to provide objective information. However, readers should be aware that I may have a financial interest in the subject matter discussed.

As with all equity investments, investors should carefully evaluate all options with a qualified investment professional before making any investment decision. Private equity investments, such as those held in XOVR, may carry additional risks, including limited liquidity, compared to traditional publicly traded securities. It is important to consider these factors and consult a trained professional when assessing suitability and risk tolerance.

A representative list of SpaceX pre IPO options is shown below:

The SpaceX IPO is the most consequential U.S. listing in a generation: a $1.75 trillion Nasdaq debut under SPCX, backed by $18.67 billion of 2025 revenue, anchored by a profitable Starlink business and burdened by a $4.94 billion net loss driven mainly by AI investment. The three-engine framing — launch, connectivity, AI — is the most useful lens on what investors are buying. Prediction markets imply post-IPO valuations of $2 trillion, and on price-to-sales SPCX at 94x is cheaper than Rocket Lab at 131x. Musk’s super-voting control, the $41.3 billion accumulated deficit, and the unprecedented trailing multiple are the facts to weigh before deciding how to participate.

Disclosure: This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment, legal, or tax advice, no offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy any security is being made, readers should consult a qualified professional before making any investment decision. Investors should consult each fund’s prospectus and most recent disclosures before investing.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Please refer to the following link for additional disclosures: https://lnkd.in/e29X6rN

Risk Note: Private-market valuations can be volatile. Fees, holdings, and pricing mechanisms differ by vehicle. Investors should review fund disclosures before investing.