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HomeIndustriesAerospace/DefenseSpace WatchSpace WatchSpaceX is set to be added to the Russell 1000 after Friday’s close, and it could join other major indexes in the days aheadUpdated June 26, 2026, 10:31 a.m. ET

SpaceX is set to be added to a major index after the market closes on Friday, which will force some passive funds to buy billions of dollars’ worth of the stock.

The Russell 1000 will add SpaceX SPCX to its ranks as part of FTSE Russell’s rebalancing, scheduled for Friday. While it normally would have taken much longer for SpaceX, which had its initial public offering on June 12, to become eligible for inclusion, the index provider had earlier adjusted its rules to allow select newly public companies to be fast-tracked after as few as five days of trading.

SpaceX logo as an employe looks at his phone while making his way to work at the company’s facility on the day of the SpaceX IPO, in Hawthorne, California, U.S. June 12, 2026. REUTERS/Mike... Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab Read more

June 26 (Reuters) - Even by SpaceX (SPCX.O), opens new tab standards, Friday is shaping up as an eventful trading session as investment funds tracking Russell indexes prepare to add billions of dollars' worth of Elon Musk's internet and rocket company to their ​holdings.

After a blockbuster initial public offering this month, SpaceX's stock has been on a wild ride, ‌soaring 67% to its June 16 intraday high of $225.64 before tumbling to Thursday's $153 close.

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The stock remains well above the $135 IPO price as investors assess how to value a company that lost $4.9 billion last year, but that backers expect to dominate the satellite internet, AI and ​commercial space launch markets that they believe will define the next decade of global infrastructure.

FTSE Russell will add ​SpaceX to its Russell U.S. indexes after Friday's close of trading as part of its semi-annual ⁠index reconstitution. That means passively managed exchange-traded funds that track Russell indexes, such as the iShares Russell 1000 ETF (IWB.P), opens new tab, ​will have to add SpaceX shares to their portfolios. The event will likely take place in a narrow window toward ​market close on Friday as fund managers attempt to minimize the "tracking error" between their funds' performance and the index that can result if their buy-in price differs from the closing price.

While SpaceX's $2 trillion market capitalization makes it almost as valuable as Amazon (AMZN.O), opens new tab, only about $100 billion ​of shares have been listed for trading on the stock market, with the rest owned by Musk, other insiders ​and employees. Passively managed funds will need to buy almost $3 billion worth of SpaceX shares to match the Russell indexes they track, ‌Jefferies estimated ⁠in a report this month. That could mean a squeeze as Friday's closing auction approaches, though options positioning appeared muted.

SpaceX options contracts set to expire on Friday are priced for a share price swing of 3.6% in either direction by the end of the week, Trade Alert data showed.

SpaceX is also set to be added to the tech-heavy Nasdaq ​100 (.NDX), opens new tab in July, an event ​that will force large index ⁠funds such as the Invesco QQQ ETF, which tracks that index, to buy its shares.

Following its losses in recent sessions, SpaceX is trading at 107 times its 2025 sales, ​an astronomical valuation. By comparison, AI heavyweight chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab recently traded at 21 times sales.

​S&P Global blocked ⁠SpaceX from joining the S&P 500 index (.SPX), opens new tab after it said this month it would not change its inclusion criteria to accommodate megacap IPOs. To be included in the S&P 500, a company must be profitable in its most recent quarter as well ⁠as for ​the sum of its most recent four quarters, according to one ​of the rules S&P left unchanged.

The S&P 500 addition in 2020 of another Musk company, Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab, resulted in a closing squeeze that sent shares up ​6%.

Reporting by Noel Randewich in San Francisco and Saqib Iqbal Ahmed in New York; editing by Colin Barr, Rod Nickel

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

San Francisco correspondent covering the stock market with a focus on Big Tech, semiconductors and other Silicon Valley companies

This report is from this week's The Tech Download newsletter. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

Rollercoaster. That's probably the most accurate word to describe SpaceX's opening two weeks as a public company. 

The stock surged for several successive days following a record-breaking IPO, briefly overtaking both Amazon and Microsoft in terms of market cap and rising more than 60% on the initial share offering price of $135.

But the good times weren't set to last. Daily drops of 5% and 4% were followed by a 16% slump as jitters crept into the market. Steadier days followed, with single point moves in either direction.

The volatility underscores the whipsaw nature of a story-driven stock.

Lofty sci-fi ambitions, huge coverage in the *ahem* media and a founder with a cult-like following whipped up a frenzy of excitement around the company.

"Most stocks trade based on how their multiple of earnings compares to other comparable stocks," Gil Luria, head of technology research at D.A. Davidson, told me. 

"Elon Musk companies don't really do that." Musk's ventures instead trade on expectations, he added. 

"Tesla trades more on [autonomous driving service] Robotaxi and [humanoid robot] Optimus than they do on selling cars, and SpaceX trades more on the promise of Mars exploration, or at least data centers in space," said Luria.

Retail investors bought into that forward-looking narrative in droves.

SpaceX "embodies many of the qualities that have historically resonated with retail investors: a transformational technology story, a bold vision of the future, a celebrity founder and unparalleled media attention," Viraj Patel, global macro strategist at Vanda, said.

In the first five trading sessions, retail investors bought a net $405 million of SpaceX shares, comfortably the strongest retail IPO debut in recent history, said research firm Vanda.

"For SpaceX, the 'cult of Elon' pulls in more retail investors and adds extra hype that can add a lot to volatility as we saw with Tesla share prices," Mike Coop, chief investment officer, EMEA at Morningstar Wealth, told me. Morningstar analysts caused a stir in the run-up to SpaceX's IPO, writing that the stock was worth less than half of its $1.75 trillion target.

After a bullish initial few days on the public markets, fundamentals became a bigger driver of the price causing a "hangover," said Kyle Rodda, senior market analyst at Capital.com. 

Musk has been, in a somewhat predictable fashion, touting sky-high revenue growth in years to come. He said on June 14 that the company "might be able to reach approximately" $1 trillion revenue in 2030.

That would mark a huge jump from the $18.7 billion in revenue SpaceX made in 2025. The company posted a $4.9 billion net loss in 2025, and it lost $4.28 billion in the first quarter of this year.

Long term SpaceX faces two big challenges on the markets, said Coop. 

"Firstly, the supply of shares will go up as early investors lighten up exposures and monetise gains," he said.

"Secondly, the current price is too high given the massive uncertainty around the company's prospects and its starting point of being heavily loss making and requiring huge capital investment."

Despite that, so far few have been willing to bet against the stock.

Michael Burry of "The Big Short" fame said on June 16 that he has no position in SpaceX, and argued that options used to wager against the stock remain too expensive even as he questioned the company's nearly $3 trillion market value.

And while SpaceX is seeing some interest from short sellers, many are still reluctant to bet against Musk.

Time will tell how far narrative takes SpaceX stock. In any case, expect more twists and turns on the rollercoaster.

Latest updatesAnthropic is racing to increase its AI compute capacity in the Asia-Pacific region, as the company scrambles to keep up with soaring demand for its products.

OpenAI and Broadcom on Wednesday unveiled their debut custom chip, called Jalapeño, marking the ChatGPT maker's first entry into artificial intelligence silicon.

A second worker has died at the construction site of BYD's electric vehicle factory in Szeged, Hungary, CNBC has learned.

Apple on Thursday announced price hikes on MacBooks and iPads, its first formal move to pass higher memory and storage costs on to consumers after CEO Tim Cook said increases had become unavoidable.

ON Semiconductor has agreed to buy Synaptics in a nearly $7 billion all-stock deal to bolster its push into physical artificial intelligence technology.

Stock of the week

Micron stock.

Memory chipmaker Micron had a good week as its third-quarter results topped analysts' estimates.

The U.S. company has been one of the main beneficiaries of the AI boom, with its stock price up more than 800% over the past year, lifting the company's market cap past $1 trillion.

The question hanging over this year's listing pipeline was simple: Could public markets absorb three trillion-dollar technology floats in quick succession? SpaceX went first. The early read is not encouraging.

Elon Musk's rocket company listed on 12 June and raised more than $85 billion, the largest debut on record.

The stock has since gone into reverse. It closed at $153 on Thursday after topping $225 last week. Musk has lost his trillionaire status in the process.

That sequence appears to have concentrated minds inside OpenAI.

OpenAI is now minded to wait

The company is leaning toward pushing its listing from late this year into 2027, sources told The New York Times. Its advisers spent the past week warning that a float might not draw enough demand while tech shares slide.

OpenAI had hired bankers and lawyers with a third or fourth quarter listing in view. Altman wanted a $1 trillion valuation out of it.

Advisers offered him a choice. Wait until 2027 for the trillion-dollar figure, or accept less for a faster deal.

He called any cut a "nonstarter," one person in contact with him told the Times. So the timing slips rather than the price.

Numbers behind the caution

OpenAI was last valued at $852 billion. It reported roughly $13 billion in revenue last year against a $21 billion net loss. Projected spending on compute and hardware runs to $600 billion through 2030.

That gap explains the scramble for fresh income.

The company is testing ads inside ChatGPT and building commerce tie-ups with Shopify and Stripe. It is also trimming money-losers, including the Sora video app.

Internal nerves predate the public wobble. Chief financial officer Sarah Friar had already raised concerns about this year's finances, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Anthropic changes the maths

OpenAI is not floating into an empty room. Its main rival filed confidentially on 1 June for a debut expected late this year.

Anthropic raised money at a $965 billion valuation in late May. That figure overtook OpenAI's private mark for the first time.

So Altman faces a rival carrying a richer price tag and a market that has just punished the biggest name to test it. Waiting buys time for sentiment to recover. It also hands Anthropic the chance to reach public investors first.

'Realism' sets in

Altman has not blinked on valuation. He has blinked on timing. The trillion-dollar number stays. The date moves. Whether 2027 looks friendlier than 2026 is the call he is now making.

If you've been reading Motley Fool articles on Elon Musk's company, Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 1.00%), or SpaceX, you've probably seen more than a few of my colleagues deem the stock overvalued. Stock analysts at Morningstar see the stock similarly.

In fact, Morningstar estimates that the stock is trading at a 152% premium. It placed a fair value of $62 on the stock as of June 16, which is well above the $154 closing price as of June 24. That price gives the company a market capitalization of $2.05 trillion. If the price were $62, the corresponding market cap would be around $800 billion -- still a hefty sum. The difference between the two valuations is a whopping $1.2 trillion.

Image source: Getty Images.

So who's right? See what you think.

Valuing SpaceX You might want to check SpaceX's price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, but you can't -- because there are no earnings. The company is currently losing money, and a lot of it. In such situations, though, you can check out the price-to-sales ratio, which uses the business's revenue instead of earnings. In SpaceX's case, its recent price-to-sales ratio was 78 (as of June 24). That's a steep number.

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To appreciate the magnitude of SpaceX's price-to-sales ratio, think of one of the most high-flying stocks in recent years -- semiconductor giant Nvidia. It has averaged annual gains of 67% over the past decade and is up nearly 40% over the past year. Yet its price-to-sales ratio is just 19. Even more striking is memory giant Micron, whose shares have soared 762% over the past year. Its price-to-sales ratio is 20.5 (again, as of June 24). You can see how much more investors are willing to pay for a dollar of SpaceX's sales, versus other highly regarded tech companies.

Who's right? No one can say for sure which valuation is correct -- or closer to correct. Every analyst's valuation is always based on various assumptions about growth rates and other factors. But it's hard to not see SpaceX's shares as richly valued, and a closer look at the stock will reveal multiple reasons why you might want to steer clear.

After all, it's still not turning a profit. In 2025, it lost nearly $5 billion. While its Starlink business, featuring satellite-based internet, is profitable, its growth appears to be slowing, with shrinking revenue per user.

Anyone investing now is expecting the stock to go up, but it's been going down lately -- down 22.6% over the past week, as of June 23. Remember that should there be a market pullback, growth stocks and overvalued stocks tend to fall harder than average. So there's clearly risk in this investment.

The $62-per-share valuation seems more appropriate to me than a $155 one. If you don't agree with me, wait for the company's upcoming earnings report, expected in a month or so, to see how it's doing.

Warren Buffett, the longtime CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) (NYSE: BRK.B), hasn't weighed in on the SpaceX (SPCX 1.00%) IPO, but it's worth considering what his thoughts might be.

After all, Buffett is generally regarded as the greatest investor of all time. Over a career of more than 60 years, he nearly doubled the average return of the S&P 500, delivering a total gain of 6,099,294% from 1964 to 2025.

Though Buffett is no longer the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, having stepped down at the end of last year, he remains the chairman of the trillion-dollar conglomerate, and his wisdom remains just as valuable as it would if he were the CEO.

While Buffett hasn't commented specifically on SpaceX, he did discuss the Uber IPO in an interview back in 2019 when the ridesharing company went public, and many of those comments could easily be applied to the SpaceX IPO.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

In an interview with CNBC's Becky Quick in 2019, Buffett said that Berkshire Hathaway hadn't bought an IPO in the 54 years that he'd been running the company, and that he sees them as a misalignment of incentives.

He explained that the IPO process makes for a seller's market, saying skeptically, "To say that the best place in the world to put my money is where all the selling incentives are there... that that's going to be better than a thousand other things? That's the single best thing to buy in a single day?" He was suspect of the commissions and incentives used to push IPOs as well.

Buffett and his longtime partner, Charlie Munger, also cast suspicion toward companies like Uber that had raised a lot of capital and spent, but were generating losses. The same could be said for SpaceX, which has raised and invested billions, but is still losing money following its merger with xAI.

Buffett's simple litmus test for investing Buffett also offered a simple test for deciding whether to buy stock. He advised writing down, "I'm buying (x) stock because..." and if you can't give a good answer to that question, then you shouldn't be buying the stock.

He explained that an answer like "my neighbor's buying the stock" isn't sufficient. The exercise is designed to be a check on irrational and impulsive decision-making, and requires the investor to make a strategic or fundamental argument for investing in the stock.

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You don't have to invest like Buffett Buffett's guidelines are best applied to investors who have a similar sensibility, who prefer value over growth investing, and like to invest in established industries and business models, rather than chasing riskier investments like IPOs and tech stocks.

Buffett is right that IPOs are risky and have a track record of underperforming, but that doesn't mean that every one is a loser, as many of the best-performing stocks of all-time have started out as IPOs, including Tesla, the other public company run by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

The Berkshire chairman has expressed admiration for Musk, calling him "brilliant" and saying that he achieved the "impossible" by taking on the Detroit automakers and winning.

SpaceX is a unique company with long-term goals, including colonizing Mars, that investors have never seen before. If it can accomplish even half of those bold goals, the stock could rise several times over a long enough time period, though its current valuation bakes in high expectations.

It's easy to see why a stock like SpaceX wouldn't be for Buffett. It's unprofitable, high-risk, and trades at a sky-high valuation. Buffett would never buy it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's a bad investment.

After all, the Berkshire leader has lamented missing out on past big tech winners like Amazon and Alphabet.

ToplineOpenAI is now leaning toward delaying its public debut from later this year to next year, unnamed sources told The New York Times, as Elon Musk’s SpaceX stock tumbles after its record IPO and the public tech market slumps more broadly.

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 3: CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman talks to reporters following a meeting with Senator Bernie Sanders at the Dirksen Senate Office building in Washington, DC on June 3, 2026. (Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Anadolu via Getty Images

Key FactsOpenAI hired bankers and lawyers eyeing an initial public offering as early as the third or fourth quarter of this year, with CEO Sam Altman pushing them to engineer a $1 trillion valuation, the Times reported, citing three people involved in the talks.

Over the past week, OpenAI’s advisers have cautioned the company that a public listing may not be met with enough enthusiasm due to the volatile public tech market, per the report.

When advisers offered a choice between waiting until 2027 for a $1 trillion debut or accepting a lower valuation for a faster one, Altman called any cut to the trillion-dollar figure a "nonstarter," one person in contact with him told the Times.

OpenAI confirmed earlier this month it had filed confidential paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission to go public but had not committed to a timeline, with the Wall Street Journal previously reporting the company planned to list as early as September.

There has been internal hesitation about the public debut since before the confidential filing, the Times reported, with employees including chief financial officer Sarah Friar expressing concern on the company's finances this year, according to the Journal.

big number$852 billion. That’s OpenAI’s most recent valuation. The company reported roughly $13 billion in revenue last year on $21 billion in net loss, with $600 billion in projected spending on compute and hardware until 2030. Amid growing doubts about whether AI companies can turn a profit, the company is now hunting for new revenue, experimenting with ads inside ChatGPT and e-commerce tie-ups with Shopify and Stripe, while paring back money-losing ventures including its Sora video app.

key backgroundOpenAI’s hesitation comes amid a crowded 2026 IPO pipeline that has drawn many of tech’s most valuable private companies, including the company’s chief rival Anthropic and SpaceX. Anthropic confidentially filed on June 1 for its reported late 2026 public debut—a week before OpenAI announced it had filed confidentially. Anthropic raised funding at a $965 billion valuation in late May, overtaking OpenAI’s private valuation for the first time. SpaceX was the first of the crop to go public on June 12. Its debut raised more than $85 billion, sending the company’s valuation to $2.77 trillion and Musk’s net worth to as high as $1.4 trillion. The stock has plummeted since, closing at $153 on Thursday after topping $225 last week, and Musk has lost his trillionaire status. The broader markets have been shaky, with tech shares dragging down indexes as investors question whether AI companies can deliver on their valuations. Beyond the AI names, a wave of tech companies including Strava, Discord, Kraken and smart-ring maker Oura filed confidentially earlier this year.

tangentThe SpaceX IPO landed less than a month after two of OpenAI’s cofounders, Altman and Musk, took their long-running feud to the courtroom. A federal jury in Oakland, California, ruled against Musk on May 18, finding he waited too long to sue Altman and OpenAI over claims they violated an alleged promise to keep the company a charitable nonprofit. The jury found the claims fell outside a three-year statute of limitations. Musk, who first filed the suit in 2024, dismissed the decision on X as a "calendar technicality" and vowed to appeal, though Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers signaled deep skepticism, saying she was prepared to dismiss any appeal. The verdict cleared a legal cloud hanging over OpenAI's restructuring right as both magnates were steering their companies toward the public market.

By Reuters

June 25, 202611:21 PM UTCUpdated 1 hour ago

People remove rubble from a damaged house after two strong earthquakes, in Moron, Venezuela, June 25, 2026. REUTERS/Juan Carlos Hernandez Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

CompaniesJune 25 (Reuters) - Starlink, the satellite ​internet unit of ‌Elon Musk's SpaceX (SPCX.O), opens new tab, said ​on Thursday ​it will provide ⁠free services ​to its ​users in Venezuela for a month, ​after two ​earthquakes hit the ‌South ⁠American nation.

The company is also working to "rapidly ​deploy ​Starlink ⁠terminals and restore ​connectivity to ​the ⁠hardest-hit areas," Starlink ⁠said ​on X.

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Reporting ​by Mrinmay Dey ​in Mexico City

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The SpaceX Starship, the most powerful and advanced rocket and capsule ever designed on this planet, could spark an explosion in space tourism and supercharge Space Race II. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)

AFP via Getty Images

While SpaceX sketched out only scant details of its masterplan to expand spaceflight for independent astronauts in its IPO prospectus, a world-leading space scholar says its Starship super-capsule holds the potential to generate a pool of “tens of millions” of space tourists at the right price point.

Across the IPO presentation, SpaceX’s leaders outlined blueprints for fantastical flights of the future, stretching from rocket-powered “point-to-point” Starship jaunts between New York and Paris, or L.A. and Tokyo, in under 40 minutes, to chartered missions circling the planet.

Many of these intercontinental city-to-city flights might also be considered space treks, because the Starship is likely to fly above the internationally recognized boundary of space at 100 kilometers above the Earth, says Brian Hurley, founder of the globally influential think tank New Space Economy.

“If the flight crossed the 100-kilometer Kármán line,” Hurley told me in an interview, all of its passengers and pilots would be recognized worldwide as astronauts.

SpaceX commander-in-chief Elon Musk says flying on the Starship on intercontinental flights will be like riding on "an ICBM traveling at Mach 25 that lands.” Shown here is the first American ICBM surreally exhibited at the Coney Island amusement park in New York City during the dawn of the first Space Race and Cold War I. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Getty Images

These suborbital flights, echoing the trajectory of the first star American astronaut to fly into space during the dawn of the superpower Space Race I, would similarly transform these modern-day voyagers into new constellations of spacefarers joining the egalitarian Space Race II.

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“Starship point-to-point is ultra-fast suborbital transport, on long routes it may cross 100 kilometers,” speeding across the final frontier into space, says Hurley, who chronicles the rising independent space powers worldwide and their technological breakthroughs.

So far, SpaceX founder Elon Musk and President Gwynne Shotwell have only issued amorphous hints on projected fares for these transnational Starship treks, predicting they could ultimately cost less than first-class tickets for jet flights between the same two cities.

That would be just a fraction of the rates charged by the current twin titans of suborbital spaceflights, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, which price each ticket aboard their spacecraft at hundreds of thousands of dollars, Hurley says.

Test flight of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, which has sped independent spacefarers above the 100-kilometer "border" of space. (Photo by Mark Greenberg/Virgin Galactic/Getty Images)

Getty Images

In a fascinating chronicle on the suborbital space tourism sector, and its alternative futures, that his think tank published, scholar Hurley says: “The price of a suborbital ticket is the single most discussed barrier to market expansion.”

“At current prices of $200,000 to $600,000 or more, the addressable market is limited to ultra-high-net-worth individuals.”

“As of mid-2025,” he adds, “there are approximately 510,810 ultra-high-net-worth individuals globally, defined as those with a net worth exceeding $30 million.”

But if a new upstart contender, like SpaceX, were to introduce fantastically slashed prices for suborbital sojourns, he predicts, that could lead to the rapid and radical democratization of spaceflight.

"A 90% reduction to the $40,000-$60,000 range would place a suborbital flight in the same cost category as a luxury cruise, a business-class international trip, or a high-end bucket-list vacation.”

“The addressable population [of prospective flyers],” Hurley says, “expands enormously, potentially to tens of millions of affluent consumers globally.”

“SpaceX’s Starship, with its potential for carrying many more passengers per flight, could theoretically approach this range.”

SpaceX’s commanders state in their share offering manifesto: “We plan to develop ultra-fast long-haul point-to-point Earth transport using Starship, enabling passengers and cargo to travel between major cities in a fraction of current transit times, revolutionizing global logistics and passenger travel with unprecedented speed and efficiency.”

SpaceX aims for its Starship to speed adventurers across the continents on rocket-powered treks lasting less than one hour. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)

AFP via Getty Images

“With meaningful advances in space technology,” they add, “we expect increasing interest in human space travel as it becomes easier and more common to access space.”

“In addition to the markets we serve today, we believe we are poised to catalyze transformative breakthroughs and create entirely new markets.”

“Over time each of these markets could eventually represent multi-trillion-dollar economic opportunities.”

While Starship could initially be deployed for city-to-city excursions and planet-circling space expeditions, the longer-range target is for routine “passenger and cargo transportation to the Moon and Mars.”

In a preview of Starship flights set to crisscross the continents, Elon Musk said in a post on the messaging platform Twitter (now X): “Most flights would only be 15 to 20 mins. It’s basically an ICBM traveling at Mach 25 that lands.”

These flights, with their remarkable G-force of acceleration on take-off, he added, would resemble “Disney’s Space Mountain roller coaster.”

“Would feel similar to Space Mountain in a lot of ways, but you’d exit on another continent.”

SpaceX is already counting down to collaborating with NASA to convert some of its colossal Starship capsules, which are designed to host 100 spacefarers each, into space stations that would ring the globe and provide alternative spaceflight destinations when the International Space Station is decommissioned in the 2030s.

Starship orbital stations could provide alternative destinations for Allied and independent astronauts when the International Space Station is decommissioned in the 2030s. (Photo by NASA/Space Frontiers/Getty Images)

Getty Images

Along with a half-dozen other leading-edge American space outfits including Blue Origin, Axiom Space and Starlab Space, SpaceX has signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA to develop orbital outposts that could host NASA and Allied astronauts through the next decades.

Under this agreement, NASA envisions SpaceX deploying “Starship as a transportation and in-space low Earth orbit destination."

Even as it test-flies its twin-stage Starship, the most powerful and advanced rocket and human-rated capsule ever designed on this planet, SpaceX has built a Titan-size Starfactory set to produce and perfect 1000 Starships every year, partly to launch the 10,000 ships that Musk has proclaimed will be deployed to speed one million inter-world nomads to Mars by the mid-century.

Brian Hurley predicts, meanwhile, that as more independent astronauts from around the world begin occupying the orbital rings closest to Earth, SpaceX could move to connect up small flotillas of Starships into larger interlinked clusters.

“Docking Starships together could eventually create something that resembles an orbital village,” he told me.

The next stage in the space race redux might focus on opening the lunar frontier to independent space trekkers, with a Starship space station orbiting the black and silver sphere as an astronaut observatory on the meteor-strike-created craters below.

NASA has already commissioned SpaceX, with twin contracts worth $4 billion-plus, to shuttle its astronauts from lunar orbit down to the Moon’s South Pole region, with a precursor robotically piloted demo mission slated for 2028.

With its 1000 cubic meters of pressurized living space, massive bands of observation windows, and interspersed suites and galleries, the first demo Starship to land on the lunar surface could be rechristened as Hotel MoonX. (Photo by Space Frontiers/Getty Images)

Getty Images

With its 1000 cubic meters of pressurized living space - more than double that of the International Space Station - massive bands of observation windows wrapped across the upper decks, solar storm shelters and interspersed suites and galleries, this first demo Starship could be permanently stationed near the Pole, rechristened as the silver globe’s first Hotel MoonX.

Radiating as humanity’s first super-lighthouse on the Moon, this SpaceX beacon will likely attract a United Nations-like mix of adventurers spearheading the next stage of the new-millennium revolution in space exploration.

SummaryCompaniesSpaceX plans to start building 8-mile pipeline next monthProject would fuel more launches of Starship moon rocketPipeline is part of sprawling SpaceX gas plans in TexasWASHINGTON, June 25 (Reuters) - SpaceX (SPCX.O), opens new tab plans to begin next month building an eight‑mile (13-km) natural gas pipeline called "Starpipe" to its Texas launch facilities, according to county filings, as Elon ​Musk’s company seeks to ramp up launches of its next‑generation Starship rocket.

Starpipe, which will end at SpaceX’s Texas company town of Starbase, is ‌expected to be in service by January 26, according to a document filed last month with the Texas Railroad Commission by SpaceX affiliate Lone Star Mineral Development and reviewed by Reuters.

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The pipeline plan, previously reported by Rio Grande Valley Business Journal, signals Musk's intent to accelerate Starship's development and lay the groundwork for a faster flight rate. The 40‑story rocket is central to SpaceX’s ​push to expand its Starlink broadband network, deploy orbital AI data center satellites, and eventually carry astronauts to the moon and Mars.

Designed to be fully ​reusable, Starship uses about 630,000 gallons (2.4 million liters) of liquid methane per launch, currently delivered by hundreds of tanker trucks in ⁠an hours-long process incompatible with Musk's expansion plans. Starship has completed 12 test launches since 2023, but Musk aims to ramp up to dozens, hundreds and eventually ​thousands of launches a year.

SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.

SPACEX'S BIG GAS PLANSThough it is unusual for a space company to build its own natural ​gas pipeline for launchpad fuel, Starpipe might only be an initial step in a longer-term plan for SpaceX, which has spent years exploring its own drilling operations near Starbase and throughout Texas, according to a Reuters review of Cameron County land records.

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell told CNBC on June 12, when the company went public, that the company planned to build pipelines and process ​its own propellant, and was looking into drilling its own natural gas.

Extracting natural gas would be a challenging pursuit for a company with no oil and gas ​experience, said Stan Lindsey, an oil and gas consultant in Texas.

“I’m not saying it's beyond the realm of possibility … it’s possible they got a really nice prospect," Lindsey said. But if ‌those drilling ⁠plans fall short, he added, “they’ve got a fallback position” with Starpipe.

SpaceX has signed over 100 paid-up oil and gas leases with Texas property owners since 2023, the land records show.

Starpipe would begin on an 83-acre (34-hectare) piece of land at the Port of Brownsville that SpaceX is in talks to lease from the city for 50 years, a port official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity because the negotiations are private.

Engineering plans SpaceX filed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, included in a ​public notice issued last August, show SpaceX ​wants to build a liquefaction facility ⁠at Starbase to process the piped-in natural gas into liquid methane.

"Certainly that would make the most efficient sense," said William Farrar, a longtime oil and gas lawyer in Texas and geoscientist.

The company could tap into Enbridge's Valley Crossing Pipeline expansion project that ​would run close to Starpipe's start point, Lindsey said.

Enbridge did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

SPACEX WANTS TO ​OWN SUPPLY CHAINSpaceX's move ⁠into gas infrastructure, typically the domain of energy and pipeline firms, underscores its longstanding strategy of controlling as much of its supply chain as possible, a capital‑intensive approach that has helped the company outpace rivals in rocket and spacecraft development.

The effort positions SpaceX to manage an unusually broad chain of resources, stretching from natural gas deep beneath Earth's surface ⁠to the ​moon, where Musk wants to use lunar material for AI‑focused satellite production, an ambitious and untested ​goal.

The pipeline’s 16‑inch (406-mm) diameter suggests fuel demand exceeding what Starship would require for 25 launches, the annual cadence currently approved by the Federal Aviation Administration.

SpaceX ultimately aims to deploy thousands of solar‑powered, AI‑focused satellites whose ​combined energy output could approach one-fifth of the U.S. power grid, according to its initial public offering prospectus.

Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Joe Brock and Rod Nickel

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Joey Roulette is a space reporter for Reuters covering the business and politics of the global space industry, often focusing on space power competition and how commercial interests intersect with international relations. He was part of a team that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in national reporting for Reuters' coverage of Elon Musk's business empire. On the space beat for roughly a decade, Joey previously worked for the New York Times, the Verge, and various publications in Florida.

The SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) short volume ratio has been steadily climbing since the first day in the stock market, June 12, and hit its fourth consecutive and latest all-time high (ATH) of 68.72 on Wednesday, June 24.

Indeed, just after the IPO, the figure stood at a relatively low 33.72 and began a steady climb to 46.22 on the third trading day before slightly retracing to 45.71 on June 17 – shortly after SPCX shares recorded their intraday ATH price of $225.64 and the company’s valuation soared to just under $3 trillion.

SpaceX stock daily short volume ratio. Source: Fintel Simultaneously, SpaceX stock continued its plunge toward its initial opening price of $150 on the day, and is, based on the movements in the opening hour of the Thursday session, in danger of recording a new all-time low.

SpaceX stock price performance Indeed, after the IPO was conducted at $135 per share, the equity started trading at $150 on June 12 and ended the day at $160.95. In subsequent sessions, SPCX soared to the $225.64 ATH and the ATH closing price of $211.39, but then sharply retraced.

At press time on Thursday, June 25, SpaceX stock is changing hands at $152.46, meaning it started the session with a 1.35% loss relative to the previous close and, notably, reversed a brief recovery in the pre-market.

SpaceX stock price one-day chart. Source: Google Why SpaceX stock is set for a rally in July and August Looking ahead, it appears likely that SPCX shares will enjoy another rally later in the summer. 

The exceptionally high IPO valuation of $1.77 trillion has made it all but impossible for SpaceX not to meet the criteria for fast-track inclusion into the Nasdaq-100 in a move guaranteed to trigger significant automatic buying from index funds.

Furthermore, the earnings report for the calendar second quarter (Q2) also appears poised to generate tailwinds. Regardless of SpaceX’s other divisions’ performance,  Elon Musk’s newer public company has been developing its neocloud business with partnerships with artificial intelligence (AI) giants such as Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Anthropic.

The latter of the two could be particularly significant. 

According to SpaceX’s S-1 filing, it offered a discount to the AI company for the duration of Q2 as part of a ramp-up period, meaning that it will, on the one hand, probably be able to record some revenue from the agreement, and, on the other, will be able to predictably raise its revenue forecast for Q3 once the full price of just over $1 billion starts getting levied.

Elsewhere, industry skeptics such as Ed Zitron speculated that the initial discount is part of the reason why Anthopic was able to claim likely profitability during Q2, but not for later in the year.

Could SpaceX stock price plummet to new lows before 2027? Long-term, SpaceX stock’s performance becomes significantly more uncertain. Various banking giants and Elon Musk himself estimated the company’s revenue would reach sufficiently high – up to $1 trillion by 2030 and over $3 trillion by 2040 – to justify the high valuation.

On the bearish side, the firm’s revenue during Q1 was roughly forty times smaller than Amazon’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) – SpaceX briefly overtook Amazon in terms of market capitalization earlier in June – and the company was operating at a loss.

Lastly, the insider lockup-structure – and the unlock timetable, to be more precise – is itself likely to generate substantial selling pressure by the end of 2026.

Featured image via Shutterstock

Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 1.88%) is in the spotlight for all the right reasons. It just completed the largest initial public offering in history, having raised $75 billion by offering 555 million shares at $135 each plus another $10.7 billion from the underwriters that exercised their options to buy more shares. However, the number of shares available for public trading is still tiny relative to SpaceX's over $2 trillion market cap.

The company's float could increase to as much as 37% in late August. But until then, there's a supply-demand crunch on the stock, which is contributing to its volatility. SpaceX is already down big from its intraday high of $225.64, although as of the close of trading Tuesday, it was still up 4% from its initial trading price of $150 per share.

While long-term investors may not appreciate the volatility or the financial engineering of SpaceX's public market debut, they may be intrigued by the company's bold plans to launch millions of artificial intelligence (AI) data center satellites into orbit.

Here's why SpaceX is betting big on orbital data centers, and if the growth stock is a great buy now.

Image source: Getty Images.

A different type of SpaceX satellite SpaceX isn't profitable, but it has multiple levers that it could pull to unlock growth over the next several decades and beyond. It conducted around 80% of U.S. space launches in 2025 and exited that year with 9,600 Starlink broadband and mobile satellites in orbit. It owns xAI, the social media platform X, and could deploy millions of AI compute satellites -- which SpaceX says would actually be easier to manufacture than Starlink satellites because they won't need to have complex antennas.

The company's first AI satellite design features a 70-meter wingspan and a deployed height of 20 meters. By comparison, the majority of Starlink satellites in orbit are second-generation V2 Mini satellites, which are just 4.1 meters by 2.7 meters. The bigger issue is the added payload weight: AI satellites' compute clusters will have a lot of mass, making them significantly more expensive to launch.

Additionally, SpaceX plans to launch its AI compute satellites into a higher-altitude sun-synchronous orbit. This will make solar power generation predictable. However, it will also make the massive AI satellites more visible at night than most Starlink satellites.

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Satellite manufacturing on an unprecedented scale SpaceX says it aims to have 1 gigawatt (GW) of AI compute satellites in orbit by the end of 2027, then scale that by an order of magnitude in the subsequent three years, reaching 10 GW by the end of 2028, 100 GW by the end of 2029, and 1 terawatt (1,000 GW) by the end of 2030. At a peak output of 150 kW per satellite based on its AI1 satellite design, that would mean 6,667 satellites at 1 GW, 66,667 satellites at 10 GW, 666,667 satellites at 100 GW, and then a mind-numbing 6.67 million satellites at 1 terawatt. To describe that as ambitious would be an understatement. 

To get there, SpaceX is building a more than 11-million-square-foot factory it has dubbed "Gigasat" in Bastrop, Texas, which is just outside Austin. Situated on a more than 1,000-acre site, that factory will handle end-to-end production of AI compute satellites, from the solar panels that will power them to the electronic components and satellite assembly.

Tesla (TSLA 0.45%) investors will be familiar with CEO Elon Musk's preference for vertically integrated manufacturing. Expanding beyond its Fremont, California, factory to large-scale production centers (Gigafactories) in Nevada, New York, Texas, Shanghai, and Germany was an integral part of the strategy that allowed Tesla to grow into a major global automaker. However, Tesla was expanding production while facing the scrutiny that all public companies must accept. Plus, it was capital-constrained and relied heavily on scaling up its Model 3 production to boost cash flow and fund its manufacturing expansion.

SpaceX has a massive advantage in that it is already worth more than Tesla and should have no problem turning to capital markets to raise capital, whether by issuing debt or selling more equity. SpaceX reported a net loss in 2025, yet the market doesn't seem to care, given its growth potential.

In sum, Tesla was consistently trying to prove to public markets that electric vehicles could be profitable and disrupt the automotive industry, whereas SpaceX has a first-mover advantage in a new niche of the data center market where it faces virtually no direct competitors.

AI satellite constellations are far from a sure bet Investors are giving SpaceX the green light to think big on a cosmic scale. Investors buying SpaceX today probably care way more about its timeline for launching AI compute satellites into space rather than the costs of its path to profitability.

But SpaceX will undoubtedly run into challenges along the way to deploying its constellation of satellites. And as the quarters tick by, investor patience could be tested -- especially during market sell-offs or if there's a slowdown in AI spending.

All told, there's no rush to buy SpaceX right now, at a time when sentiment is overwhelmingly positive and investor enthusiasm is through the roof. The better approach would be to keep SpaceX on your watch list and monitor its progress on constructing Gigasat and getting its first AI satellites launched into space. If its big idea pays off, SpaceX will deserve to be worth much more than it is today. But at this time, that's a big "if."

Following a blockbuster initial public offering (IPO) that became the largest in stock market history, shares of Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 1.88%) -- best known as SpaceX -- have cooled off. 

There was, to put it lightly, a lot of hype surrounding SpaceX's IPO, partly because of the promises it had sold to investors and partly because of the usual cult-like following of its CEO, Elon Musk. Once SpaceX began trading on June 12, tons of retail investors poured money into the stock. But now those gains have virtually disappeared for most investors who got in after the IPO.

Considering the roller-coaster ride the stock has taken investors on so far, is now a time to jump ship until IPO-mania is over, or should investors embrace what many see as inevitable volatility?

Image source: The Motley Fool.

Great businesses don't always make great investments Any time there's a blockbuster IPO, high volatility is expected in its early trading days. A lot of it comes from people speculating and trying to make a quick dollar off the IPO pop before cashing out, rather than being left holding the bag. SpaceX has so far followed that trend.

Stock speculation aside, SpaceX's value proposition remains the same: It has rocket launch and internet satellite businesses that are huge players in their respective industries; it has an artificial intelligence division after acquiring Musk's xAI (which owns X, formerly known as Twitter); and it's sitting on lots of cloud computing capacity that it can rent out for another revenue stream.

There's a lot to be excited about with SpaceX's business, but that doesn't always make for a good investment -- especially when it's valued as high as SpaceX. Even after its recent pullback, SpaceX is valued at over $2 trillion (as of market close on June 22) and is the seventh-most-valuable public company in the world.

That's a huge valuation for a company that lost nearly $5 billion in 2025 and trades at well over 100 times sales. For perspective, the six companies currently valued ahead of SpaceX are trading at between 3.4 and 20.1 times sales and reported net income between $18.1 billion and $62.6 billion in their most recent quarters.

AMZN PS Ratio data by YCharts

SpaceX's stock will be a test of who's investing versus speculating. When you speculate, you buy shares simply hoping to profit from price swings, and don't really care too much about the underlying company. When you invest, you're buying shares of a company because you want to own a piece of a business that you believe in.

If you fall into the speculation bucket, you could be in for a long ride that likely won't work out in your favor. If you fall into the investing bucket -- which should absolutely be the case -- then you shouldn't give too much weight to these short-term price swings because they won't matter too much years down the road.

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Investing in SpaceX is about believing in a vision that's unlikely to come to fruition for well over a decade. Whether it's data centers in space or other ambitious plans, the focus should be on the long-term opportunities SpaceX is pursuing. You shouldn't jump ship just because of a few bad days, but you should understand that, historically, companies in SpaceX's position have underperformed in the first few years after their IPO.

There's no rush to invest in SpaceX right now. I would wait it out until well after its lock-up periods (when insiders can sell shares) have passed before deciding when it is a good entry point for investing. If you already own shares, I'd hold on to them for now instead of panic-selling; just be prepared to stomach the volatility.

Stefon Walters has positions in Apple, Microsoft, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

If you pay any attention to financial or business news, you're probably aware of Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 1.27%), or SpaceX, another Elon Musk company in addition to Tesla. You may also know that it launched on the stock market through an initial public offering (IPO) in mid-June.

Here we are, a few days later, and the stock is down 31% from its high of about $225 per share to a recent $154 (as of June 24). That's kind of worrisome on its own, and on top of that, SpaceX management is planning to take on considerable debt, too. Is that enough reason to steer clear? Let's see.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

First, know that SpaceX is focused on designing, building, and launching reusable rockets and spacecraft to take satellites and cargo into space. It also encompasses the Starlink satellite internet service and is developing the Starship spacecraft, too, aiming to be a disruptor in the space travel and exploration arenas.

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SpaceX and debt: Good or bad? Debt can be a good thing. It allows us to buy homes and new cars and even go to college. But it can also mire us in steep credit card bills -- and it can put companies in precarious positions, too.

SpaceX management had noted in the company's prospectus that "We plan to access a range of debt and equity financing solutions available to us as a public company to fund future investments in growth and to maintain strong liquidity." One might wonder why the company is already looking to borrow funds, as it just raised $85.7 billion via its IPO.

But it was serious. The company has already raised $25 billion through a debt sale, as CNBC reported on June 23. SpaceX has said that it now has more than $100 billion in cash.

If you're scratching your head, know this: The company took out a $20 billion bridge loan in March, which is due to be repaid by Sept. 2, 2027. So some of the company's coffers will be tapped to pay back that loan. And the rest? Here's a clue from the prospectus:

"We acquired xAI in February 2026, which forms the basis of our AI segment. We expect to allocate substantial capital to expand our compute infrastructure, and we expect a multiyear investment horizon before these deployments translate into sustained positive AI Segment Adjusted EBITDA... "

Anyone investing in SpaceX now should be quite confident that the company will successfully meet its artificial intelligence (AI) goals and that heavy spending will pay off with great profitability.

I'm not that confident. It could all turn out well, but the company is not even turning a profit at the moment, and it's spending heavily on AI -- as are many other companies. If it ends up borrowing more billions and/or issuing many more shares, that can hurt shareholders. Think of it like a pizza: You might own one piece of a pizza that's cut into eight pieces. But if it's cut into 12 pieces, each will be smaller. Similarly, stock dilution will reduce each share's claim on the company.

Should you invest in SpaceX? Personally, I am steering way, way clear of this stock. Here are a few reasons why:

First, its valuation is steep. Even after its recent fall, the company was worth about $2 trillion as of June 23. That's more than Oracle, Visa, Chevron, and GE Aerospace combined. Oracle recently reported about $64 billion in annual revenue, while Chevron's was $185 billion -- and SpaceX's was only $19 billion with a bottom line in the red.

Meanwhile, since it has no earnings, we can't check out its price-to-earnings ratio. So instead, look at its price-to-sales revenue: As of June 23, it was 77! In contrast, look at semiconductor and AI powerhouse Nvidia -- its price-to-sales ratio, also on the steep side, was just 20.

There are more reasons why you might be wary. For example, it's posting net losses rather than gains, and it's in a capital-intensive business that has to spend a lot on building and maintaining assets. It's also spending heavily on AI data centers.

For me, having Elon Musk at the top of the company is not a plus, as he has shown himself to be at least somewhat erratic, with his attention spread across many directions -- and now two companies -- SpaceX and Tesla. He's not the kind of leader I admire, who underpromises and overdelivers.

Let's return to that sagging stock price now. It's not sagging on its own. It's sagging because investors are selling.

SpaceX could do well in the long run, and if you really want to invest in it, I'd advise waiting for a much lower price. Right now, to me, it seems a very speculative proposition. Everything would have to go right for the company for it to reward shareholders rather than disappoint them.

Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 0.96%), or SpaceX, made its debut on the stock market through an initial public offering (IPO) on June 12. The Elon Musk-led company saw its shares surge by some 67% between its IPO and a June 16 peak -- but the story has changed. Shares were recently down nearly 20% over the past week, briefly dropping below where they started trading, at $150 per share.

Many times, when a stock drops sharply, there's an opportunity to assess whether the case for investing in the company has gotten stronger, thanks to a more compelling valuation. In this case, with SpaceX, I'd recommend you not bother doing so. Here's why.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

Why avoid SpaceX shares? The biggest knock against the stock is arguably its valuation. Given that the company is not turning a profit at this point, there's no price-to-earnings ratio to examine. So let's check out the price-to-sales ratio: It's 77 as of June 23! That's nosebleed territory. Consider, for example, that market darling Nvidia currently has a price-to-sales ratio of 20, and Micron Technology, which has soared more than 800% over the past year, has a price-to-sales ratio of 24. Numbers in the 20s are quite high already -- and SpaceX's 77 is far, far higher.

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If you're telling yourself that SpaceX will grow into that valuation, you're right -- it might. But it could take years, and it's currently priced for perfection. Once it shows signs of trouble, investors might flee, sending shares down. In other words, there's no margin of safety here.

Here's another issue: dilution. In the company's prospectus, prepared for its stock market debut, management noted, "We plan to access a range of debt and equity financing solutions available to us as a public company to fund future investments in growth and to maintain strong liquidity." In other words, the company is already planning to borrow money, after raising $85.7 billion through its IPO, and perhaps to dilute existing shares by issuing more shares. That's not music to investors' ears.

Indeed, it was recently reported that SpaceX has already raised $25 billion through  a debt sale. When companies carry a lot of debt, it can restrict their options, as they are on the hook to repay that debt. Companies with much more debt than assets can end up in trouble, too. (SpaceX recently reported having more than $100 billion in cash.)

Overall, this stock is a no-go for me. There are plenty of exciting growth stocks out there with much more reasonable valuations, and I'm a fan of growth- and income-oriented ETFs, too.

LODZ, Poland, June 25, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BTCC, the world’s longest-serving crypto exchange, announced that its SpaceX futures (SPCX) achieved a record single-day trading volume of over 118 million USDT on June 16, 2026. The strong demand reflects extraordinary enthusiasm among traders for SpaceX's public debut.

SpaceX Futures Drive Unprecedented Demand

The peak volume of 118 million USDT on June 16, 2026 represented 18 times the pre-IPO trading volume, a milestone that reflects the outsized appetite traders have shown for exposure to one of the most anticipated listings in recent years. Since going live on the BTCC platform, SPCX has become one of the most actively traded instruments on the exchange.

To mark the occasion of SpaceX going public, BTCC has launched a dedicated SPCX trading campaign offering users the chance to enter a lucky draw to win a Tesla Cyberbeast. Full details on registration and prizes are available on the BTCC’s official campaign page.

The surge in SpaceX futures activity also reflects the broader success of BTCC's TradFi offering, which launched in February 2026 and has grown into one of the exchange's most popular features. To further lower the barrier to entry, BTCC has reduced trading fees across its futures pairs and introduced a zero-fee campaign, making it easier than ever for users to access traditional financial instruments on a crypto-native platform.

June 2026 Proof of Reserves Reflects Financial Strength

Alongside this trading milestone, BTCC published its Proof of Reserves report for June 2026. The latest report confirms a total reserve ratio of 147%, which is well above the industry benchmark for full asset backing. Individual asset reserve ratios are as follows:

BTC: 125%XRP: 164%ETH: 149%USDT: 162%USDC: 114%ADA: 170% For details about the full proof of reserves data, please visit BTCC’s official website.

About BTCC

Founded in 2011, BTCC is a leading global cryptocurrency exchange serving over 11 million users across 100+ countries. As the official regional sponsor of the Argentine Football Association (AFA) and with NBA All-Star Jaren Jackson Jr. as its global brand ambassador, BTCC offers secure and accessible cryptocurrency trading services, focused on delivering a user-friendly experience while adhering to applicable regulatory standards.

Official website: https://www.btcc.com/en-US

X: https://x.com/BTCCexchange

Contact: [email protected]

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/7878955a-5f0a-4a6f-b034-2188b84c0bca

After raising $86 billion two weeks ago with its record-breaking initial public offering (IPO), Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 0.97%) is planning to issue $20 billion worth of bonds. The company -- also known as SpaceX -- has already announced two new deals since the IPO, including the acquisition of artificial intelligence (AI) coding company Cursor, and a deal with open-source model company Reflection AI, which will rent data centers for $6 billion.

The company is in motion, and clearly, it has a lot more planned. What does this mean for shareholders?

SpaceX is raising money, again In the press release about the debt issuance, management said it would use the proceeds to pay off a bridge loan and that anything remaining would be used for general corporate purposes. It's issuing notes, which have shorter maturities than bonds, and it's targeting institutional buyers and investors outside the U.S. The notes are unsecured, meaning they have no collateral to back them up.

Image source: Getty Images.

Most glaringly, but unsurprisingly, management pointed out that the notes "rank equally in right of payment with all existing and future unsubordinated indebtedness, liabilities and other obligations of SpaceX." That means they rank ahead of the shiny new SpaceX shareholders in the order of payments. So while they don't dilute shareholder value, they do take precedence, although that's mostly limited to an unlikely bankruptcy.

Since SpaceX is using the cash from the IPO to make important purchases to grow its business, it's using the notes to reorganize its debt instead. The bridge loan for $20 billion comes due in September 2027, and this gets it out of the way.

Management had said in its original filings that it may seek to issue notes to pay it off, and said that it has sufficient funding to operate for the next 12 months. Unless something changes, it isn't likely to keep raising money in the short term.

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So no, I wouldn't say this spells trouble for shareholders; it's a fairly common financial tactic. They should be more wary of SpaceX's spending and net loss. All of the hyperscalers have been spending at a fast clip to stay in the AI race, and SpaceX is doing the same for its AI segment, xAI.

Management sees its greatest market opportunities in AI, which is losing money rapidly today; it reported a $2.5 billion loss on $818 million in sales in the first quarter and $10 billion in capital expenditures.

SpaceX enthusiasts, in fact, might be excited about all of the money raised because it indicates momentum and potential.

HomeInvestingStocksOutside the BoxOutside the BoxOverhyped IPOs are usually terrible bets. That doesn’t mean the bull market is over.Published: June 25, 2026 at 7:50 a.m. ET

SpaceX stock, put simply, is not a good buy. And whenever OpenAI and Anthropic come to market with their highly anticipated IPOs, those shares won’t be good buys either.

That distinction matters, because the commentary around these mega-IPOs has become lazy and predictable. The script is always the same: The valuations are absurd, the companies are unprofitable and public investors are exit liquidity for billionaires like SpaceX’s Elon Musk and OpenAI’s Sam Altman.

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Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 0.97%) made its market debut on June 12. It was the largest initial public offering (IPO) in history by two different measures. The company raised a record $75 billion, and the stock started trading with a record market capitalization of nearly $1.8 trillion.

SpaceX shares hit an all-time high of $202 on June 16, representing 50% upside from its IPO price of $135. That brought its market value to $2.6 trillion. But the stock has since tumbled 23% to $156 as of June 23.

Wall Street sees that as a buying opportunity. The median target price (from eight analysts) is $238.50 per share, implying 53% upside from the current price. But history says SpaceX stock will decline sharply in the coming months.

Image source: Getty Images.

History says SpaceX stock could drop sharply in the coming months IPO stocks frequently pop on the first trading day. Since 1980, more than 9,000 companies have listed shares on U.S. stock exchanges, and their share prices increased by an average of 19% on day one, according to Jay Ritter, finance professor at the University of Florida.

SpaceX fit that pattern perfectly. The stock closed 19% higher on the first trading day. But its recent backslide fits another historical pattern. Large IPOs have typically dropped sharply during their first year on the public market. The following chart illustrates that point. It includes the 15 largest U.S. IPO stocks (by market value at the IPO price) since 2006.

IPO Stock

Return During First Year

Max Drawdown During First Year

Meta Platforms

(31%)

(54%)

Uber Technologies

(21%)

(64%)

Rivian Automotive

(67%)

(80%)

Coinbase Global

(55%)

(55%)

Venture Global

(59%)

(75%)

Coupang

(62%)

(63%)

General Motors

(36%)

(42%)

Airbnb

25%

(14%)

Visa

0%

(25%)

Kenvue

(29%)

(32%)

DoorDash

(13%)

(40%)

Rocket Companies

(19%)

(23%)

UiPath

(74%)

(74%)

Snowflake

27%

(26%)

Robinhood Markets

(74%)

(80%)

Average

(33%)

(50%)

Data source: First Trust, Bloomberg.

Among the 15 largest IPOs in the past two decades, the average stock fell 50% from its IPO price at some point during the first year. And the average stock was still 33% below its IPO price at the end of the first year.

What does that mean for SpaceX? If its performance aligns with the historical average, the stock will fall 50% to $67.50 per share at some point during the first year. In addition, the stock will still trade 33% below its IPO price (implying $90 per share) by the end of the first year.

There is one more thing investors should know. A buy-and-hold strategy is usually the best way to profit in the stock market, but it hasn't worked for large IPOs. The 15 stocks shown in the chart have underperformed the S&P 500 (^GSPC 0.10%) by a median of 129 percentage points since listing shares.

In short, rather than participating in those IPOs, investors would have made more money by simply buying an S&P 500 index fund. That doesn't mean SpaceX will always be a bad investment. Instead, it means investors should wait for a more attractive buying opportunity.

Here's an example: Snowflake has underperformed the S&P 500 by 150 percentage points since listing shares in September 2020. But Snowflake has outperformed the S&P 500 by more than 20 percentage points since June 2024. Investors who waited for a better entry point have been rewarded with market-beating returns.

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SpaceX stock trades at an absurdly expensive valuation Admittedly, historical patterns don't dictate how any stock performs. Past results are no guarantee of future returns. But there is another reason to think SpaceX shares are headed lower in the future.

SpaceX's revenue totaled $19.3 billion in the past four quarters. Given its current market value of $2 trillion, the stock has a price-to-sales ratio of 104. That is absurdly expensive. For context, Palantir Technologies has the highest valuation in the S&P 500 at 55 times sales. That makes SpaceX nearly twice as expensive as the most richly valued stock in the index. That is unsustainable.

Here's the big picture: SpaceX stock is down 23% from its post-IPO peak, but history says shares have much further to fall. In addition, even if you ignore the historical data, SpaceX stock is absurdly expensive.

Trevor Jennewine has positions in Palantir Technologies and Visa. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Airbnb, DoorDash, Kenvue, Meta Platforms, Palantir Technologies, Rocket Companies, Snowflake, Uber Technologies, UiPath, and Visa. The Motley Fool recommends Coinbase Global, Coupang, and General Motors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

After weeks of anticipation, Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 1.01%) pulled off the biggest IPO in market history.

Elon Musk's space company raised $75 billion in its public offering, and the stock soared in its opening days, jumping from an IPO price of $135 to a peak of $225.64, reaching a market cap of nearly $3 trillion.

Since then, the stock has cooled off and has settled in a range of around $150-$160 a share over the last two days. Trading volume and interest remain sky-high more than a week after the IPO. On Tuesday, its lowest-volume day, roughly $20 billion worth of SpaceX stock changed hands.

Though the company is already one of the most valuable in the world, some SpaceX bulls believe the stock can move significantly higher over the long term. Fund manager Ron Baron said that SpaceX could be a $20 trillion or even $30 trillion company by 2040.

SpaceX itself hasn't been shy about making bold predictions, saying its actionable total addressable market is $28.5 trillion, the largest in human history. Most of that is made up of AI enterprise applications, which have yet to be developed.

SpaceX has also identified future markets like point-to-point terrestrial travel, space tourism, in-orbit manufacturing, asteroid mining, and transporting passengers and cargo to the moon and Mars.

Those are a set of opportunities that no other company can claim, and the company also differentiates itself with its mission to "make life multiplanetary, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars."

Image source: Getty Images.

With a valuation already at $2 trillion, the upside potential for SpaceX is not as strong as most IPOs. SpaceX can't be Tesla, which went public in 2010 and has since returned 23,000%, turning $1,000 into roughly $230,000, as it accomplished its primary goal of taking electric vehicles mainstream.

With a valuation that's already $2 trillion, SpaceX is up against the law of large numbers. The valuation can't mathematically grow by 230 times because that would make it bigger than the global economy, which currently has a GDP of $123.6 trillion.

The company's addressable market, which seems fanciful, faces a similar obstacle: it's nearly as large as U.S. GDP.

At its current valuation, if SpaceX tripled, it would be the most valuable company in the world, surpassing Nvidia, which is currently worth around $5 trillion. To deliver the kind of returns that would make investors millionaires, in other words, SpaceX would almost certainly have to become the most valuable company in the world by a wide margin.

As tech stocks have become ascendant, the valuation of the most valuable company in the world has increased significantly, jumping from before the financial crisis to more than 10 times its value today.

However, repeating that will be difficult as Nvidia already represents about 8% of the value of the S&P 500, and increasing that percentage won't be easy.

Currently, market concentration in the top tech stocks is unusually high, and the S&P 500 is also near its most expensive level ever, according to metrics like the CAPE ratio.

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What it means for SpaceX stock In order for SpaceX to deliver the kind of returns, 10x or more, that could make ordinary investors millionaires, it would have to become far and away the most valuable company in the world.

I don't think that's impossible, but the company is so far away from executing on the kinds of things it would need to do to accomplish that, like interplanetary travel, that it seems highly unlikely.

Investors looking for millionaire-maker stocks are better off targeting companies with smaller market caps that can 10x without bending the traditional limits of math.

SpaceX did make plenty of millionaires, but it did so in the private markets. By not going public until it reached a valuation of nearly $2 trillion, the company has left a limited opportunity for retail investors.

Markets are currently experiencing a "very healthy" reset, argues David Trainer. He says companies like Meta Platforms (META) and SpaceX (SPCX) raising debt to fund AI woke investors up and made them reevaluate.

Most of the "Magnificent Seven" members are generating huge profits. Many years' worth of expected growth are already priced into SpaceX stock.

The hype around Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 1.01%) and its initial public offering (IPO) has been out of this world. It is officially the largest public debut in history, in terms of valuation and capital raised.

It seems like everyone wants to own a piece of SpaceX. Yet the contrarian investor knows that this is a flashing warning sign to run for the hills and avoid buying SpaceX stock. Here's why the IPO hype may be setting up investors who hold this highly unprofitable space economy and artificial intelligence (AI) stock for disappointment over the next few years.

Image source: Getty Images.

Unprofitable growth and massive loss risks SpaceX has massive potential if you take its projected addressable markets of trillions of dollars at face value. Elon Musk himself said that SpaceX may generate $1 trillion in revenue by 2030.

This is a far-off goal relative to the 2025 revenue level of $18.7 billion. On this revenue, SpaceX posted a $5 billion net loss, mainly due to its aggressive investments in AI data centers and in developing its Starship rocket. To reach $1 trillion in revenue by 2030, it will need to deliver north of 100% revenue growth each of the next five years.

2026 growth looks promising, with $26 billion in contracts SpaceX has secured from Alphabet and Anthropic for AI data center computing. However, this is not coming from a position of strength, as these data centers for its xAI division were intended for internal use. Now it is reselling this power, likely at a loss, to its competitors.

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Why SpaceX stock will disappoint investors Overall, SpaceX stock is poised to disappoint investors due to its massive initial valuation. One could argue that SpaceX is a good business due to its dominance in rocket flight, the highly profitable Starlink internet service, and its call option in AI.

However, the stock is getting a huge premium right now. It is now trading at a market cap of $2 trillion, or a price-to-sales ratio (P/S) of more than 100, based on 2025 revenue. Plus, SpaceX is posting massive losses that are only growing in 2026, with free cash flow of negative $9 billion in the first quarter alone. If this continues, it is going to run out of the $85 billion it raised from the IPO in around two years.

Even if SpaceX succeeds in building its Starlink internet, Starship, and orbital data center businesses, the stock is already pricing in all of this and more. If the company falters, this massive cash burn will hurt shareholders. In either scenario, SpaceX's stock is bound to disappoint investors who buy today.

© Travis Wolfe / Shutterstock.com

SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) gave back roughly 16% over three consecutive sessions, and the proximate cause was almost embarrassingly mechanical. The company that just IPO’d into a $1.23 trillion market cap announced it intended to sell investment-grade bonds for the first time, only weeks after raising equity. Saxo Bank’s UK Investor Strategist Neil Wilson, speaking to Lizzy Burden on Bloomberg Daybreak Europe Tuesday, argued the move says more about how today’s mega-cap tech trades than about SpaceX’s balance sheet.

Why the SpaceX bond announcement broke the tape Wilson’s read was that the selloff started with index plumbing. “Part of the factors behind the move was at the end of last week, some of the passive funds were positioned into the index positioning,” he said. According to him, SpaceX was “coming back to the market so quickly after raising money through equity to say they are looking for debt investment as well.” Passive vehicles can’t gracefully absorb two trips to the capital markets in close succession. This is especially true if you involve a company whose equity story is built on scarcity. They rebalance on schedule, not on narrative.

Burden framed the damage on air, noting SpaceX shares were “slipping for a third straight day, shedding hundreds of billions of dollars of value.” The price action confirms it. SPCX fell 19.69% over the week ending June 22, from $192.50 to $154.60, before bouncing 5.34% intraday Tuesday to $162.86. The recovery is real but partial.

Leveraged ETFs and three-day options are doing the amplifying The more interesting Wilson observation was about who actually owns the volatility. “A lot of activity around the stock is in leveraged ETFs,” adding, “but also in terms of options positioning, a lot of the options are very short dated, that’s where investors are making short-term bets on where it will move in three or four days.” Short-dated options act like a crowbar on the underlying. Dealers hedging gamma have to sell into weakness and buy into strength. This is fine when flows are neutral and ugly when they are not.

You could see this in the Reddit data. r/options carried a “Long SPCX 180 puts 30dte” post on June 20, before the worst of the move, and r/wallstreetbets lit up with a “Hold my $170 HatePut until the 26th or sell it now?” thread once losses mounted. Sentiment on the name swung from a bullish 72 on Saturday afternoon to a very bearish 18 by Tuesday morning. That looks like positioning unwinding in fast-forward against a company that launched more than 80% of the world’s mass to orbit each year since 2023 and runs a Starlink constellation of roughly 9,600 satellites serving 164 countries.

The Asia bleed and what comes next The damage exported cleanly. The MSCI Asia index fell 2.3%, its biggest intraday loss in two weeks, and South Korea’s Kospi fell more than 8% on its own tech concentration. NASDAQ futures pointed 1.3% to 1.7% lower. When one stock can drag a region, the region was never really diversified.

Wilson’s takeaway for anyone who is not trading three-day expiries was patient. “As far as longer-term investors are concerned, they buy into the opportunity. It’s really about momentum in terms of whether it’s good or bad and we have to wait until the middle of August and we get to earnings to see what the next moves are.”

Until then, the same mechanics that pulled SPCX down can pull it back up. SpaceX’s SEC filings under CIK 0001181412 will eventually show what the bond deal was actually for, and a January 2026 acquisition of xAI inside the same corporate envelope adds another moving part. Charlie Warzel writing in The Atlantic on June 20 called the resulting entity “a seven-headed Hydra at the end of finance.” Whatever it is, it now sets the tone for global tech, which means watching the leverage rather than the rocket.