Elon Musk’s SpaceX is set to begin trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX at around 7 PM on Friday, marking a historic moment for global markets. The company has entered Wall Street with a $1.75 trillion valuation, making it the largest IPO in history and pushing Musk into a league of his own
The excitement around the listing has been extraordinary. SpaceX raised $75 billion in its IPO, breaking Saudi Aramco’s 2019 record of $29 billion. Demand for the issue was more than four times the shares on offer, with investors seeking between $250 billion and $300 billion worth of stock.
In an unusual move for a deal of this size, SpaceX reserved 30% of the IPO for retail investors, compared with the typical 5% to 10% allocation seen in large public offerings.
However, behind the excitement lies a major question: are investors paying too much for a company whose biggest ambitions may still be years away?
At the IPO price of $135 per share, of $18.67 billion. In simple terms, investors are paying around $95 for every $1 the company generated in sales.
“There is a lot of fringiness and euphoria around the world with respect to SpaceX IPO concerned. It has been drawing attention across the globe from all the family offices, fund houses, investment management companies. But Indians have very limited exposure to these kind of names,” said Kranthi Bathini, Equity Strategist at WealthMills Securities Pvt Ltd.
Morningstar has called SpaceX “significantly overvalued” and estimated its fair value at about $780 billion, less than half of the IPO valuation.
The research firm said long-term investors interested in SpaceX may get opportunities to buy the stock at a better price after the initial excitement settles.
NYU valuation professor Aswath Damodaran has estimated SpaceX’s value at around $1.3 trillion. A Seeking Alpha analyst also started coverage with an “underweight” rating and an $80 price target, saying the stock appears “priced for 2032, not 2026”.
For SpaceX to justify its current valuation by 2030, Goldman Sachs estimates that the company would need to increase annual revenue beyond $100 billion and maintain growth above 40% every year.
However, investors should note that Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are among the banks underwriting the IPO and therefore have a commercial interest in its success.
The more optimistic view comes from ARK Invest founder Cathie Wood, who believes SpaceX could reach a $2.5 trillion valuation by 2030.
Unlike many listed companies, SpaceX’s public shareholders will have very limited influence over how the company is run.
The company has a dual-class share structure where public investors hold Class A shares, while Musk and insiders control Class B supervoting shares.
, allowing him to elect the entire board. In practical terms, public investors can own the company financially without having meaningful control over its decisions.
Lindsey Stewart, Director of Institutional Insights at Morningstar, said institutional investors generally dislike such structures because they reduce accountability and create a mismatch between ownership and decision-making power.
The governance concerns have become so serious that Denmark’s $25 billion pension fund AkademikerPension has refused to invest in SpaceX, describing the governance model as “catastrophic”.
US Senator Elizabeth Warren has also asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to delay the IPO, raising concerns over Musk’s concentrated control and the possible impact on passive investors if SpaceX quickly enters major market indices.
Investors buying SpaceX are not only investing in rockets and Starlink’s satellite internet business. They are also getting exposure to xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence company, which owns the Grok chatbot and social media platform X.
SpaceX acquired xAI in February 2026, bringing the fast-growing but expensive AI business into the company.
The concern is that xAI is burning nearly $1 billion every month. SpaceX reported an operating loss of $4.9 billion in 2025, with AI spending expected to increase further.
Goldman Sachs believes Starlink’s satellite network could eventually become a major AI computing platform, estimating AI-related revenue could reach $322 billion by 2030.
However, Morningstar has warned that the path to monetising AI remains uncertain, especially with competition from companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
Ethan Feller, stock strategist at Zacks Investment Research, summed up the concern: “The ultimate question that this whole thing hinges on is — these companies aren’t profitable yet, so how does this business model work? What are ultimately the margins going to be for running large language models?”
A $75 billion IPO also raises another important question: where does all that money come from?
Large investors such as pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and mutual funds may have to sell existing assets to free up cash for SpaceX shares.
Some analysts have warned that this could temporarily pull liquidity away from other parts of the market.
KuCoin’s market analysis described the IPO as a “financial black hole” that could absorb liquidity from broader markets.
At the same time, analysts at Gavekal Research have argued that the impact may be manageable. Research director Will Denyer said the combined $380 billion raised through major deals involving SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI and Alphabet is roughly equal to two months of normal market issuance.
A growing number of analysts are asking an uncomfortable question about the SpaceX IPO: who, exactly, is selling — and at whose expense?
SpaceX has been private since its founding in 2002 — an unusually long 24 years, far longer than most tech giants stayed private before listing. Google went public after 6 years, Facebook after 8, even Uber after 10. In all that time, early investors — venture capitalists, employees, and insiders — accumulated shares at a tiny fraction of today’s $135 price. The IPO, analysts say, is their exit door.
The Motley Fool was blunt about it, publishing a piece this week titled “News Flash: You Are the Exit Liquidity for the SpaceX IPO.” Exit liquidity, in plain terms, means early investors need someone to sell to — and analysts are warning that retail investors risk being that someone.
The concern centres on SpaceX’s staggered lockup structure. Typically, insiders are barred from selling shares for 180 days after an IPO. In SpaceX’s case, while Musk has agreed not to sell for 366 days, other insiders — executives, board members, early backers — can begin offloading shares as early as the second trading day after the first quarterly earnings report, expected in August. That is less than three months away. Compounding this, Nasdaq and Russell have both fast-tracked SpaceX’s index inclusion to within days of listing, which analysts say will create a wave of forced buying from passive funds — giving insiders a ready pool of buyers to sell into once lockups expire.
NC State finance expert Richard Warr has also pointed out that every earnings report going forward will be watched not just for revenue numbers but for signals on the next round of insider selling — an overhang that could weigh on the stock well beyond listing day.
The bullish case for SpaceX remains powerful. The company controls more than half of global orbital launches, Starlink has more than 8 million subscribers and the Starship programme could transform the economics of space travel.
“One needs to invest in international markets at this point of time and the rupee depreciation also can wave in the medium to short term. One needs to use the liberalised m10 scheme to subscribe for this IPO of SpaceX is concerned. The valuations look stretched, but it does have modes in these businesses, specialities in these businesses, space, defence and also the Starlink,” said Bathini.
“These are the compelling businesses to look into SpaceX is concerned, led by one of the most dynamic promoters and a businessman of the world. Elon Musk. So, those who have a high risk appetite and a valid size can consider SpaceX,” he added.
But critics argue that investors are already paying for a near-perfect future. They are buying a company with a valuation that assumes years of rapid growth, a business structure where shareholders have limited control and an AI division that is losing billions of dollars.
History shows that even successful technology companies can see sharp falls after expensive IPOs. Meta, for example, dropped from its IPO price before later becoming one of the biggest winners in the stock market.
For investors attracted by the excitement around SpaceX, the biggest question may not be whether the company has a bright future. It is whether that future is already fully reflected in today’s price.
(Disclaimer: The views, opinions, recommendations, and suggestions expressed by experts/brokerages in this article are their own and do not reflect the views of the India Today Group. It is advisable to consult a qualified broker or financial advisor before making any actual investment or trading choices.)