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Retail has really been crowding the SpaceX trade in these earlier days, and where there’s been no shortage of twists and turns for those hyper-volatile shares of Space Exploration & Technologies (NASDAQ:SPCX | SPCX Price Prediction), I do think that investors must, at the very least, attempt to gauge the ambitious narrative to determine if today’s prices (less than $10 above the IPO price of $135 per share) are, in fact, a decent, or, at the very least, a fair deal.
Of course, you’ve probably heard about how outrageously expensive the shares are. But, at the same time, the hyper-growth story is equally explosive. However, whether or not that’s enough to justify today’s sticker price remains the big topic of debate on Wall Street.
What’s the fair price to pay for SpaceX? As analyst projections and price targets are coming in from all over the place, from a high of $800.00 to as low as the double digits (really, who can blame them, since a lot of SpaceX stock’s value comes from some pretty out-there growth drivers that might be a profound success, or they might fall flat). Before you subscribe to the bull camp or the bear camp (Morningstar’s sober price target of $62.00 entails a more than halving the shares if they’re to hit its estimate of fair value), I do think it’s worth hearing out the bear and bull camp theses and targets.
If you’re not a hyper-growth investor and are more inclined to go for classical, easy-to-predict firms with steady cash flows, you’re probably going to find shares of SpaceX will be wildly expensive, perhaps close to the most expensive stock on the market.
But if you’re a believer in Elon Musk and think the man will stop at nothing to win the AI race and the corporate space race, perhaps there are ways to justify that seemingly hefty multiple. Even if it’s still hard to gauge what an appropriate price is to pay for one of the biggest new mega-cap tech titans to land in recent memory (actually, of all time), perhaps it’s worth checking in to see what the top hedge funds are doing with the name.
The smart money has been buying (more like nibbling) Surprisingly, the smart money crowd has not been waiting around to punch their ticket to Elon Musk’s $1.89 trillion space and AI titan. Whether that gives you the confidence and green light to punch your ticket, though, remains the big question.
With big names, including the great David Tepper, Daniel Loeb, and Chase Coleman, all doing some buying last quarter, you’d be in some pretty good company by buying in at these levels. Indeed, nobody wants to get left behind once Elon Musk’s firm finally does blast off. But at the same time, there’s a lot of work to do, and I’m not so sure SpaceX can soothe investors with the hefty CapEx, which I think can only move higher from here.
Whenever a heavyweight champ like David Tepper picks up some shares, it only makes sense to follow suit. But, at the same time, investors should be cautious since the hedge fund buying has been relatively tame. When it comes to the overall portfolios, second-quarter buying activity has barely moved the needle, with new positions accounting for far less than 1% of overall portfolios.
In my view, that screams nibbling a bit today is the move as one looks to add more on weakness, which might not be all too far off. Given the recent pressure on shares, it will be interesting to learn whether or not hedge funds added to the dip that took shares several dollars below the IPO price.
Whether you look at analyst price targets, institutional buying activity, the retail frenzy, or Dr. Michael Burry’s reluctance to short the stock, it’s going to be hard to stay sidelined if there’s another shot to buy at the IPO price in this second half.
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SpaceX(SPCX -4.28%) spent $18.37 billion on capital projects in the second quarter. It booked $7.81 billion of revenue. For every dollar of that, about $2.35 went out for data centers, chips, satellites, and rockets. That ratio was deliberate.
What makes the arithmetic possible is the balance sheet June's initial public offering (IPO) built. SpaceX ended the quarter with $93.5 billion of cash and equivalents, up from $24.7 billion at the end of last year.
The offering raised about $85.7 billion in net proceeds, and a debut bond sale in late June raised $25 billion more, most of which repaid a bridge loan.
So the money exists. How long does it last at this pace of spending, and what takes over when it runs low?
Image source: Getty Images.
A year ago, SpaceX spent $2.8 billion on capital projects in a quarter. In this year's first quarter, it spent $10.1 billion. Last quarter's $18.37 billion was a more than sixfold jump from a year earlier, and nearly double the quarter before.
Of the latest total, $15.83 billion went to artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, the data centers and chips behind the company's expanding cloud platform. The rockets and satellites SpaceX is known for accounted for about $2.5 billion combined.
Sure, revenue is climbing fast too, up 92% year over year to $7.81 billion, with AI segment revenue up 247% year over year to $2.6 billion on new cloud computing contracts. But spending is climbing faster. The gap between capital outlays and revenue widened to about $10.6 billion last quarter, from about $5.4 billion in the first quarter.
A narrow profit baseCash flow tells the cleanest story. Through the first half of 2026, SpaceX's operations produced about $3.5 billion of cash, while capital spending ran $28.5 billion.
In other words, the business funded about 12% of its own build-out. The balance sheet funded the rest.
The profit base underneath is, I'd argue, narrower than the revenue growth makes it look. Starlink's connectivity segment produced $1.7 billion of operating income last quarter, up 79% year over year, and it remains the only segment running at a profit. The AI segment cut its operating loss to $1.3 billion, 49% smaller than the first quarter's, and swung to positive non-GAAP (adjusted) EBITDA of $1.1 billion. Companywide, the net loss narrowed to $541 million from $1 billion a year earlier.
Set the cash against the spending, and the arithmetic is quick. At the second quarter's pace, $93.5 billion covers about five quarters of capital projects. Add what operations currently generate, and it stretches to just under six.
The pace is designed to riseThose five quarters assume the pace holds, and the company's own capacity targets say it can't for long.
After all, SpaceX ended June with 1.4 gigawatts of computing capacity, up from 1 gigawatt three months earlier. On the Aug. 4 earnings call, the company said it expects more than 2 gigawatts by the end of 2026, and closer to 10 gigawatts than 5 by the end of 2027. Building toward that means capital expenditures grow before long.
Management's defense is that the AI spending pays back unusually fast.
"All capex is not the same," said chief financial officer Bret Johnsen on the call. "Specifically on the AI compute side, we're able to deploy capital in such a way that we're getting less than a one-year payback."
And to be fair, there is contracted revenue behind the claim. SpaceX signed $14.1 billion of cloud services agreements during the quarter.
Johnsen said the company added another $6.7 billion of cloud contracts in the first weeks of the current quarter, and that SpaceX expects to reach a $100 billion annualized revenue run rate by the end of the year -- a target that counts the newly acquired Cursor along with the cloud deals. If deals keep landing at that rate, the gap the balance sheet has to cover could shrink quickly.
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But if they don't, the alternatives are more borrowing or more stock, and SpaceX is already using both: it sold $25 billion of bonds in late June, and it paid for Cursor, the AI coding company, entirely in newly issued shares -- a $60 billion deal that closed Aug. 14.
Ultimately, the IPO bought time, not a finished transition. The stock, around $146 as of this writing, values SpaceX near $1.9 trillion -- roughly 60 times its annualized second-quarter revenue. A valuation like this arguably treats the shift to self-funding as nearly done.
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Daniel Sundheim’s D1 Capital Partners disclosed on Aug. 14 a SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX | SPCX Price Prediction) stake that dominates its entire reported equity book: 126,042,232 shares valued at $21,535,575,760, representing 61.91% of its disclosed portfolio as of the June 30 snapshot. For context, D1’s next largest disclosed holding, Maplebear (NASDAQ:CART), sits at 3.07% of the book. That gap is the story.
What the Filing Actually Discloses This is a first disclosure of SpaceX, not evidence Sundheim bought aggressively last quarter. SpaceX only began trading publicly in June 2026, so a crossover fund like D1 almost certainly held these shares privately long before the IPO forced them onto a 13F. The filing tells us Sundheim carried that pre-IPO conviction straight through the listing rather than trimming into the listing.
Peer filings for the same quarter frame just how unusual the weighting is. Gavin Baker’s Atreides Management reported SpaceX at 32.58% of portfolio, itself an aggressive concentration. Philippe Laffont’s Coatue disclosed 18,561,780 shares flagged as a genuine new position. Brad Gerstner’s Altimeter came in at 3.09%, and Alex Sacerdote’s Whale Rock at 0.21%. The counterpoint: Leopold Aschenbrenner’s AI-dedicated Situational Awareness fund filed no SpaceX position at all, concentrating instead in Sandisk, Micron, Bloom Energy, and CoreWeave. Not every sophisticated AI-focused manager wanted this name.
The Underlying Thesis The bull case rests on treating SpaceX as an AI holding company wearing an aerospace jersey. The AI Investor Podcast’s SpaceX deep dive argues that within the next year, the majority of revenue will come from renting data centers on Earth, and that Musk’s $60 billion acquisition of Cursor is a direct bet on that transition. The Q2 numbers back the framing. AI segment revenue reached $2.56 billion, up 247% year over year, Starlink hit $4.29 billion with subscribers doubling to 12.0 million, and total revenue grew 92% year over year to $7.81 billion.
The podcast also flagged a technical setup worth remembering: only 4% of shares trade, and the number of ETFs holding the stock jumped from four to 120 in days around the IPO. Forced passive demand met a tiny float. Sundheim was on the right side of that mechanic.
What This Means for a Retirement Investor Do not confuse disclosure with endorsement of the trade at today’s price. Sentiment has since turned defensive. The composite prediction-market read is bearish at 35.22, and shares trad around $143.06, well off the post-IPO high of $211.39. Analysts still carry a $227 target with 27 Buy ratings, but Q2 also showed a $541 million net loss and $18.37 billion in single-quarter CapEx.
The verdict: the filing is worth studying. A 61.91% single-name weight reflects a hedge fund’s professional risk budget and sits far outside a typical retirement allocation. What the disclosure actually tells us is that one of the sharper crossover investors carried unusually large conviction through the IPO window. That is a data point for sizing rather than a signal to concentrate a retirement book behind him.
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NYU Stern professor and Prof G Markets host Scott Galloway told listeners this week that SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX | SPCX Price Prediction) shares are worth a fraction of where they trade today. On an episode released around Monday, Aug. 17 to 18, 2026, he said the stock is “still crazy overvalued. I think this is a $10 to $30 stock.” Measured against the Aug. 17 close of $146.23, that range implies roughly 79% to 93% downside. Shares then closed down 1.98% at $143.34 on Aug. 18.
The Unusual IPO That Set the Stage SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) price and key stats:
SpaceX priced at $135 per share on June 11, 2026 and began trading the next day on NASDAQ, implying a valuation of roughly $1.75 to $1.77 trillion at the IPO price. CNBC reported the stock closed up 19% at $161 on debut. Only about 4.2% of total equity floated publicly (555.6 million Class A shares), with retail earmarked 30% of the float, three times the mega-cap IPO norm. The offering represented a 61% premium to the December 2025 tender-offer valuation of roughly $800 billion. SpaceX was fast-tracked into the NASDAQ-100 effective July 7, 2026, forcing QQQ-tracking funds to buy. Around June 23, 2026, less than two weeks after listing, the company priced a $25 billion bond offering that drew nearly $89 billion in orders, even though it already held $100.8 billion in cash.
Galloway’s Three-Part Bear Case Galloway’s argument rests on three pillars. First, an artificially scarce public float of only 4% to 5% of shares, combined with forced index-fund buying from NASDAQ-100 inclusion, inflates the price through market mechanics rather than fundamentals. Second, he cast Elon Musk’s talent in financial terms, saying “Musk will go down as the greatest engineer of our time, but as a financial engineer,” framing the valuation as substantially a function of Musk’s ability to generate investor enthusiasm. Third, the $25 billion bond raise despite $100.8 billion in cash shows investors pricing in speculative AI-infrastructure ambitions well beyond the existing rocket and satellite businesses.
Galloway said he would not personally short the stock, because Musk’s ability to drive investor enthusiasm could keep pushing the price higher regardless of fundamentals. His $10 to $30 range reflects an attributed opinion about intrinsic value rather than a forecast of where shares will trade.
The Aug. 20 Supply Overhang A structural share unlock is scheduled. A 319 million-share unlock is set for Aug. 20, 2026, and roughly 4.9 billion shares, about 70% of non-Musk holdings, will unlock by the end of 2026. The stock fell as much as 4% intraday the day after Galloway’s comments before paring losses, with reporting attributing the move to a mix of his remarks and investors weighing the looming unlock.
The Bull Case Cuts the Other Way Wall Street disagrees. Consensus is a Moderate Buy with an average 12-month price target of roughly $226 to $232, implying 55% to 62% upside. A Yahoo Finance opinion piece argues the absence of a clean comparable is a feature of SpaceX’s uniqueness rather than evidence of an unanchored price, noting Amazon and Alphabet also lacked clean IPO-era comparables and later reached $2.7 trillion and $4.1 trillion. The same piece argues SpaceX’s three integrated businesses (reusable heavy-lift launch, a newly profitable Starlink broadband unit, national security contracts) have no public equivalent, and that gains have tracked concrete milestones, citing prediction markets pricing SpaceX around $1.5 to $2.5 trillion.
Operating momentum is real. Q2 2026 revenue of $7.81 billion beat the $6.82 billion consensus, EPS came in at -$0.09 versus a -$0.29 estimate, and adjusted EBITDA was $3.54 billion, up 191% year over year. Starlink subscribers doubled to 12.0 million and AI segment revenue grew 247%, per the company’s Aug. 4 earnings release.
What to Watch The Aug. 20 unlock is the near-term test. It will show how much of SPCX’s price reflects scarcity from a 4.2% float pinned by index buying, and how much reflects durable demand for a business generating 92% revenue growth with a $47.50 billion backlog. Galloway’s bear case rests on real mechanics. The bull case rests on real precedent and operating momentum. The unlocks will pressure both.
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Buy SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX). The August 6 unlock added massive supply yet the stock rallied (+6.1% day-of, +16% next session). That signals strong absorption from index/ETF demand. With another 319M shares becoming eligible Aug 20 and a Nasdaq-100 rebalance before Sept 21, passive flows can keep demand ahead of supply and extend the momentum into September.
Key Risk: The Aug 20 eligibility finally triggers real selling (insiders monetize) and the stock breaks the post-unlock support, proving buyers can’t absorb the float increase.
SPCX sell/short into valuation risk
Sell or short SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) into the September catalyst. Even if index buying happens, it doesn’t fix the valuation argument: Morningstar flags overvaluation, and the stock has been extremely volatile since the IPO. If the market has already priced “Nasdaq funds fuel the rally,” any supply wave (Aug 20) or rebalance disappointment can cause a sharp mean reversion.
Key Risk: Index/ETF demand overshoots expectations and keeps SPCX grinding higher through the rebalance, leaving valuation bears behind.
SpaceX stock NASDAQ:SPCX faces another major supply test on Thursday, but investors are already looking beyond the August lockup to a September catalyst.
Another 319 million shares are expected to become eligible for trading on August 20, following the release of 912 million shares on August 6.
Yet the first unlock failed to trigger the selloff many investors feared.
SpaceX rose 6.1% that day and nearly 16% in the following session, while shares have risen about 35% since the restrictions lifted.
The Nasdaq-100’s September quarterly rebalance is scheduled to take effect before trading begins on September 21.
SpaceX joined the Nasdaq-100 on July 7. JPMorgan estimated at the time that inclusion could attract roughly $4.3 billion in passive inflows from funds tracking the benchmark.
“Clearly, there’s a lot of demand; that’s why they fast-tracked the integration into the index,” Morningstar strategist Michael Field told Reuters. He also warned that Morningstar considered the shares overvalued.
The next question is whether SpaceX’s growing public float could increase its index representation.
Investor Tangerine Tan Capital calculates that SpaceX currently carries about a 1.16% Nasdaq-100 weight, well below the 4% to 5% allocation he believes its market value could justify without the float constraint.
As more insider shares become tradable, the investor expects index funds to increase their holdings around future rebalances.
“I am expecting a price increase around the time of the rebalancing,” Tangerine Tan Capital wrote.
The September thesis first has to survive Thursday.
About 319 million additional shares become eligible for trading, increasing the pool available to insiders and early investors.
Eligibility does not mean those holders will sell, but it creates another potential source of supply.
Research analyst Ed Elson expects “a lot of selling pressure” as early backers gain opportunities to monetise years of gains.
The August 6 unlock offered an encouraging precedent. More than 900 million shares became eligible, but SpaceX instead climbed 6.1% to $114.92. Elson suggested short sellers closing positions may have helped absorb the new supply.
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas was also bullish around that event. The Associated Press reported that Jonas viewed the unlock as a buying opportunity and believed SpaceX could reach $300 by mid-2027.
Any additional passive buying would not automatically make SpaceX fundamentally cheap.
The stock has remained highly volatile since its $135 IPO, climbing as high as $225.64 before falling below the offer price and subsequently recovering.
NYU professor and investor Scott Galloway told Business Insider this week that SpaceX remained “crazy overvalued,” arguing that its limited initial public float and rapid Nasdaq-100 inclusion had created unusually strong demand.
A NASA spacecraft has captured images of a new crater on the moon after a SpaceX rocket crashed into the surface.
The abandoned Falcon made contact with the equivalent power of three tonnes of dynamite earlier this month, having been drifting thorugh space for more than a year.
SpaceX moon crash as it happened
NASA released before and after pictures on Tuesday showing its impact in the greatest detail yet. Scientists said the crater appears to be around 60ft across and 10ft deep.
Dark and bright streaks can be seen emanating from the crater.
The former are from excavated material close to the surface, shaped by solar wind and cosmic rays; the latter are fresh rocks and dirt that were hurled up from further down.
NASA said its spacecraft, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), captured the images one week after the collision from 60 miles above. Remote flight controllers worked to position the onboard cameras towards the crater.
South Korea's Danuri spacecraft was first on the scene to beam back photos.
Images appear to show debris on moon after SpaceX rocket crash
LRO has been orbiting the moon since 2009 and is helping NASA prepare to eventually return astronauts to the surface via its Artemis programme.
Artemis II earlier this year saw a crew journey around the moon and back.
Artemis II: Earth sets behind moon during lunar flyby
Artemis III, due in 2027, will see a crew practice docking with lunar landers in orbit around Earth.
It won't be until Artemis IV that humans are set to return to the lunar surface.
Shares in SpaceX Corp (NASDAQ:SPCX) are poised to open lower on Tuesday as investors brace for a fresh wave of insider stock hitting the market.
About 319 million shares held by employees and early backers become eligible for sale on 20 August, the latest tranche to escape the lock-up that followed the rocket maker's record June flotation.
The stock was trading down 2.5% ahead of the opening bell in New York.
That marked a reversal from Monday, when the shares climbed almost 6%.
The rally came as a run of regulatory filings showed more than 1,500 institutions had built positions in Elon Musk's space and satellite company, alongside a clutch of bullish analyst notes.
Ownership is unusually concentrated, however, with just 23 investors controlling more than 80% of the reported shares.
Alphabet, the Google parent, is the largest holder at 551.2 million shares, followed by Fidelity on 302.6 million.
Thursday's release is the second big supply event in a fortnight.
An earlier expiry on 6 August freed roughly 912 million shares, more than doubling the pool of stock available to trade.
That unlock had been widely feared, yet the anticipated flood of selling failed to materialise and the shares rose instead.
The next batch is seen as a sterner test, since early investors can now take profits at a much higher price.
SpaceX sank to an all-time low of $104.83 on 3 August, but has since recovered to around $146, back above its $135 float price.
The staggered releases run through the rest of 2026 and into 2027.
Musk's own stake, of roughly 6.4 billion shares, stays locked until June 2027, the single largest overhang still to come.
When Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SPCX -1.98%), more commonly known as SpaceX, went public in June, much of the excitement centered on its future growth opportunities. Growth investors were optimistic about the company's potential to send people to Mars and revolutionize space travel and the tech sector as a whole by also putting data centers into space.
SpaceX's focus is on the long term, and it's those growth opportunities that may lead to significant payoffs for investors in the end. CEO Elon Musk's grand visions helped make Tesla a leader in the electric vehicle market. The hope is that Musk can work his magic once again, make SpaceX profitable, and create an even larger, more valuable business than it is today.
The problem, however, he warns, is that investors should brace for short-term pain.
Image source: Getty Images.
Musk admits the company is likely to fall short of quarterly earnings estimates In a recent interview with The Economist, Musk discussed his long-term vision for SpaceX, which includes having "a growing civilization" on the moon, Mars, and other places. He also admits that, in the short term, the space company will be spending heavily on bases on the moon and Mars, predicting that he'll be criticized for falling short of earnings targets due to those initiatives. Musk, however, admits it is a very real possibility, and he outlined these types of risks in the company's S-1 filing.
Musk's goals are long-term, so falling short of short-term quarterly earnings expectations is likely inevitable. For investors, this can make it a challenging proposition to invest in the business because while the goals may take many years to achieve, the stock's high valuation suggests its success is already baked into the price tag; SpaceX, at $1.9 trillion in market cap, isn't trading as though its business is full of risk but instead as if it's a guarantee to succeed.
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SpaceX's stock is inevitably going to be volatile It's only been a couple of months since SpaceX went public, and already its share price has gone as high as $225 and as low as $104. The range has been significant, and with Musk foreshadowing underwhelming quarterly results, the stock will likely trade more on hype and company announcements and developments than on earnings and fundamentals. It's a recipe for volatility, and investors should consider that before investing in the stock.
Given how lofty the company's goals are, the safest option for investors is to take a wait-and-see approach, as buying this early, with so many question marks still around the business, will involve significant risk and potentially lead to hefty losses.
SpaceX is going to be extremely volatile near-term given its wildly rich valuation but ambitious growth potential. SPCX's Q2 2026 revenue surged 92% year-over-year to $7.81B, driven by Starlink subscriber growth and AI segment expansion, despite operating and net losses. Expect much more cash burn. Vertical integration and aggressive infrastructure investments present substantial execution risk.
@ProsperTradingAcademy's Charles Moon discusses why he remains bullish despite a volatile, headline-driven market. He highlights growth opportunities in SpaceX (SPCX) and maintains a positive long-term outlook on CoreWeave (CRWV) following its recent pullback.
Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX -2.17%) went public on June 12. In the days that followed, the stock quickly rallied to a peak of $225.64, but it has since plummeted to as low as $104.83. As of Monday afternoon, it was trading around $146 -- still down by 35% from its peak, and below its first-day opening price.
SpaceX could create significant long-term value for investors through its space transportation, satellite internet connectivity, and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure businesses -- in fact, Musk thinks $1 trillion in annual revenue might be in the cards by 2030. But the stock's sky-high valuation might be a barrier to further upside in the near term. Here's where I predict its stock will be trading one year from now.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
SpaceX has an incredible long-term opportunity No company has ever generated $1 trillion in annual revenue, but although Musk's forecast sounds ambitious, SpaceX might have a whopping $28.5 trillion total opportunity to capture across its three core businesses.
First is space transportation, which currently has a $370 billion addressable market. SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy reusable rockets launch around 2,500 tons worth of commercial payloads into orbit per year on behalf of other businesses, representing a 90% global market share. But the company believes that number could grow to 10 million tons per year in the future as businesses race to send advanced satellites and even AI infrastructure into space.
Then there is the connectivity business, which presents SpaceX with a $1.6 trillion opportunity. The company has launched over 10,200 of its own Starlink satellites into orbit, where they provide broadband internet access to 12 million paying customers here on Earth. Later this year, it will start launching its new V3 satellites, which have 10 times the bandwidth of the current V2 generation. They will travel on the new Starship reusable rocket, which will have a record payload capacity, allowing it to carry far more satellites into orbit per trip.
But SpaceX believes its biggest opportunity is in AI, which presents a $26.5 trillion addressable market across infrastructure, consumer subscriptions, and enterprise applications. The company acquired another Musk-owned company, xAI, earlier this year, along with a series of data centers, including Colossus and Colossus II. The infrastructure aspect of the AI opportunity is compelling, as SpaceX has already signed several deals to rent computing capacity to other businesses, including Anthropic, Alphabet, and Reflection AI.
SpaceX now wants to deploy solar-powered AI infrastructure in space, where it doesn't need complex cooling systems or expensive energy solutions. Its new Starmind satellite uses a variant of Nvidia's Vera Rubin systems and will beam data back to Earth via the existing Starlink network. Having the distribution infrastructure already in place puts SpaceX light-years ahead of any competitor trying to enter this area of the AI market.
Upside might be limited for SpaceX investors over the next year SpaceX's business is growing rapidly. The company generated $7.8 billion in revenue during the second quarter, a whopping 92% increase from the year-ago period. The connectivity business was the largest contributor, bringing in $4.3 billion, while the AI business grew the fastest, with revenue soaring 247% to $2.6 billion.
Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen thinks the AI business could reach an annual revenue run rate of $100 billion by the end of 2026, such is the incredible demand for computing capacity from AI developers.
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But right now, SpaceX's trailing-12-month revenue totals $23 billion across all segments. Based on its market capitalization of $1.9 trillion, its stock trades at a sky-high price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 83, making it 13 times as expensive as the tech-centric Nasdaq-100 index, which has a P/S ratio of 6.3. Simply put, SpaceX looks wildly overvalued relative to its big-tech peers.
Wall Street doesn't seem convinced that SpaceX's AI business will achieve a $100 billion annual revenue run rate before this year is over, as the average analyst forecast is around $98 billion in total revenue for 2027 (according to Yahoo! Finance).
If we assume that the estimate is accurate, that places the stock at a forward P/S ratio of more than 19. That implies SpaceX stock would have to decline by about 67% over the next 16 months or so just to trade in line with the P/S ratio of the Nasdaq-100.
I'm not predicting that will happen, but I certainly think there is scope for the stock to fall to a price below $100 over the next year -- particularly if the recent jitters in the AI industry result in a tangible drop in infrastructure demand.
As a result, while SpaceX is packed with long-term potential, I think investors might have better opportunities to buy its stock in the future.
Before SpaceX (SPCX -2.17%) went public on June 12, its founder and CEO, Elon Musk, claimed his company could generate more than $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2031. After its IPO, Musk moved that target up by a year to 2030.
To reach $1 trillion in revenue by 2030, which no company has even accomplished, SpaceX must grow its top line at a 5-year CAGR of 121.7% from its 2025 revenue of $18.67 billion. That would be an unprecedented growth rate for a company of SpaceX's size. Let's review the math behind that outlook to see if it can achieve that ambitious goal.
Image source: Getty Images.
How can SpaceX reach $1 trillion in annual revenue? SpaceX operates three main businesses: Starlink's satellite internet services, its rocket launch services, and its AI business. In 2025, Starlink generated $11.4 billion in revenue, or 61% of SpaceX's top line. It's also SpaceX's only profitable business segment.
SpaceX's rocket business, which handles its Falcon rockets and upcoming Starship, generated $4.1 billion in revenue, or 22% of its top line. Its AI segment -- which houses Grok, X, and other AI assets -- generated $3.2 billion in revenue, accounting for the remaining 17% of its top line. This is what Musk claims will happen to those three business segments over the next 5 years.
Segment
2025 Revenue
2030 Revenue (Estimated)
Starlink
$11.4 billion
$200-$250 billion
Launch
$4.1 billion
$30-$50 billion
AI
$3.2 billion
$700-$750 billion
Total
$18.7 billion
$930 billion-$1.05 trillion
Data source: SpaceX, analysts' estimates.
SpaceX expects Starlink, which already serves more than 13 million subscribers, to further expand its satellite constellation over the next five years. By doing so, it can break out of its niche as a supplementary coverage provider and evolve into a full-fledged competitor for terrestrial mobile carriers like AT&T and Verizon. It can also provide more satellite connectivity for autonomous vehicles, robots, and AI agents.
SpaceX expects its rocket launch services segment to continue growing as Starship, its largest rocket ever, secures more government contracts. It will also use Starship to launch Starlink's V3 satellites (which have more than 100x the bandwidth of its earlier satellites) and to place solar-powered orbital data centers into orbit to support its AI infrastructure business.
As for its AI business, the company expects to expand its terrestrial and orbital data centers to lock in more commercial hyperscalers. It believes it can bring 15 to 20 GW of power capacity online for those AI data centers by late 2027 or early 2028. It also plans to integrate more of xAI's native AI tools (including Grok and Cursor) into that cloud and AI ecosystem.
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But can SpaceX hit those targets? For now, analysts expect SpaceX's revenue to grow to $184.5 billion by 2028. That's a near-tenfold increase from 2025, but it would be tough to reach $1 trillion by 2030.
SpaceX's $1 trillion target seemingly assumes it will dominate the satellite internet, rocket launch, and AI markets unopposed. But in reality, it faces fierce competitors in all three markets.
AST SpaceMobile (ASTS -5.52%) is rapidly expanding its satellite constellation to support AT&T, Verizon, and other terrestrial telecom companies. Rocket Lab's (RKLB -2.98%) reusable orbital rocket business is still thriving in SpaceX's shadow. Amazon (AMZN -0.41%) is also launching its own satellites to support its cloud services and AI infrastructure.
Moreover, SpaceX's target assumes it can overcome supply chain bottlenecks in the energy infrastructure market and that the AI market will continue to expand at a breakneck pace. Rising interest rates, a market crash, or a recession before 2030 could all darken that outlook.
I'm not saying SpaceX can't reach $1 trillion in revenue by 2030. But it will be extremely difficult, and investors should be skeptical of Musk's rosy outlook -- which is generating a lot of buzz but glosses over the company's near-term and long-term challenges.
As Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ: SPCX) shareholders experienced a relief rally of more than 17% over the past three weeks, fueled by its blowout second-quarter (Q2) earnings report, Glenn Thum, an analyst at Phillip Securities, cautioned investors of a potential capitulation for this stock to a new all-time low (ATL) over the next 12 months.
Thum reiterated a ‘Sell’ rating for SpaceX stock, according to a note sent to clients on August 17, and analyzed by Finbold on August 18. He maintained the firm’s 12-month price target of $75, which implies a potential 46.6% downside as SPCX traded at $140.50 at press time.
This analyst based his bearish outlook on the company’s heavy capital expenditure (CapEx), Artificial Intelligence (AI) customer concentration, and temporary cloud contracts. Phillip Securities argued that a re-rating for SpaceX could require longer-term commitments.
SpaceX’s overall Q2 2026 revenue surged 92% year-over-year to $7.8 billion. Connectivity revenue grew 66% to $4.3 billion, powered by Starlink subscribers doubling to 12 million and strong enterprise and government demand that lifted segment operating income by 79%. Meanwhile, the company’s AI revenue jumped 247% to $2.6 billion, driven primarily by new cloud services and infrastructure agreements.
SpaceX stock forecast Although Phillip Securities signaled a potential further selloff for SpaceX over the next 12 months, the majority of Wall Street analysts have predicted a bull rally. Specifically, 31 analysts surveyed by TipRanks have set an average 12-month price target of $232.35, suggesting a possible 64% upside.
Worth noting that the highest SPCX price forecast is about $800, while the lowest remains at $75.
SPCX performance outlook Although SPCX stock rebounded over 17% after reporting its debut earnings results, it has faced its first major resistance level around $149. As a result, SpaceX’s stock price has fallen by more than 4% over the past 24 hours, thus its market capitalization is approximately $1.9 trillion at the time of publication.
SPCX’s 30D chart. Source: Finbold Consequently, if SpaceX announces more long-term contracts for its AI and Starlink subscribers, the bullish target for all Wall Street analysts could be reached. However, if the company fails to secure more long-term contracts for its AI and Starlink subscribers, the recent rally may turn out to be a dead-cat bounce.
Featured image via Shutterstock
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Every generational bubble wears the same disguise: a technology so obviously transformative that investors stop asking what they’re paying for it. Railroads did it in the 1800s. The internet did it in 1999. Now it’s AI’s turn, and the person saying so isn’t a permabear on financial television — it’s Ray Dalio, the billionaire who built Bridgewater Associates into the largest hedge fund on Earth by studying exactly these cycles.
On Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO podcast, Dalio laid out why he sees “classic signs” of a bubble in today’s market, and unlike most bubble callers, he came with a specific mechanical explanation for how it happens — and how it ends.
The Wealth-Money Trick Nobody Notices Dalio makes a distinction between wealth and money to prove his point: Money is cash you can spend, while wealth is what your assets are marked at on paper. Dalio’s go-to example is a startup that raises $50 million and gets valued at $1 billion. Only $50 million in real cash ever moved, yet the founder is now a “billionaire” — on paper.
That gap is precisely how AI valuations are behaving in 2026. SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX | SPCX Price Prediction) just completed the largest IPO in history, while Anthropic is angling toward a valuation near $2 trillion. Every dollar of new funding gets marked up into many dollars of implied wealth, but the actual cash supporting that wealth barely grows.
Dalio’s math is stark: buy an asset at $100, borrow against it, and when confidence cracks, and everyone needs cash at once, that $100 can become $25 while the loan still comes due. Multiply that dynamic across an entire market, and you get forced selling that feeds on itself — which is exactly what happened in 1929 and again in 2000.
The billionaire behind the world’s largest hedge fund reveals the hidden mechanics of the 'wealth-money trick'—and why today’s market is closer to a 2000-style crash than you think. What the Numbers Actually Show Granted, “bubble” gets thrown around loosely by pundits with no framework behind it. Dalio’s isn’t loose. He’s watching the cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio, or CAPE, which smooths S&P 500 earnings over 10 years and strips out inflation. That ratio currently sits near 42.6. For context:
Period CAPE Ratio Today (2026) 42.6 1929 peak 32.6 2000 dot-com peak 44.2 Today’s market is already more expensive than the market that produced the Great Depression, and closing in on the dot-com top that erased roughly three-quarters of the Nasdaq’s value once it broke.
Dalio has been consistent on this point for months — in a June interview he said conditions were “rising closer” to 2000-era extremes, and by November he pegged the AI cycle at roughly 80% of 1929-level euphoria. He’s not calling the top. He’s saying the ingredients are further along than most investors want to admit.
The Bubble’s Other Casualty Here’s the part that gets less airtime than the crash talk, and it may matter more for how investors think about this cycle. Dalio argues the AI boom is producing a severely lopsided distribution of the winnings — a small slice of the population capturing extraordinary gains while a much larger group sees little benefit and rising costs.
That’s the K-shaped economy in practice: one line trending sharply up, another flat or falling, both stemming from the same underlying trend. Dalio has tied this pattern directly to political instability, pointing to situations such as the U.K. cycling through six prime ministers in seven years as the kind of governing chaos that shows up when a bubble’s wealth gains concentrate this narrowly.
Key Takeaway Dalio isn’t predicting a crash next week, and neither should you. What he’s offering is a valuation gut-check: a CAPE ratio near all-time highs, private AI companies minting paper billionaires on a fraction of the cash their valuations imply, and a wealth gap widening fast enough to become a political story as much as a market one.
In any case, the lesson from 1929 and 2000 wasn’t “avoid the technology” — railroads and the internet both delivered on their promise eventually. It was “avoid paying any price to own it.” Smart investors can stay in AI stocks while keeping position sizes sane, holding enough cash to avoid forced selling, and diversifying into sectors that don’t live or die on one narrative. That’s not fear. That’s just remembering what happened the last two times the story sounded exactly this good.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Shares in SpaceX Corp (NASDAQ:SPCX) are poised to open lower on Tuesday as investors brace for a fresh wave of insider stock hitting the market.
About 319 million shares held by employees and early backers become eligible for sale on 20 August, the latest tranche to escape the lock-up that followed the rocket maker's record June flotation.
The stock was trading down 2.5% ahead of the opening bell in New York.
That marked a reversal from Monday, when the shares climbed almost 6%.
The rally came as a run of regulatory filings showed more than 1,500 institutions had built positions in Elon Musk's space and satellite company, alongside a clutch of bullish analyst notes.
Ownership is unusually concentrated, however, with just 23 investors controlling more than 80% of the reported shares.
Alphabet, the Google parent, is the largest holder at 551.2 million shares, followed by Fidelity on 302.6 million.
Thursday's release is the second big supply event in a fortnight.
An earlier expiry on 6 August freed roughly 912 million shares, more than doubling the pool of stock available to trade.
That unlock had been widely feared, yet the anticipated flood of selling failed to materialise and the shares rose instead.
The next batch is seen as a sterner test, since early investors can now take profits at a much higher price.
SpaceX sank to an all-time low of $104.83 on 3 August, but has since recovered to around $146, back above its $135 float price.
The staggered releases run through the rest of 2026 and into 2027.
Musk's own stake, of roughly 6.4 billion shares, stays locked until June 2027, the single largest overhang still to come.
Smart money is executing a land grab in the commercial space sector. Following a historic $75 billion initial public offering in June 2026, institutional investors are aggressively accumulating shares of SpaceX NASDAQ: SPCX.
SpaceX Today
$141.02 -5.21 (-3.56%)
As of 10:17 AM Eastern
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$104.83▼
$225.64$224.34
Driven by a revenue surge and the disruptive economics of the newly deployed Starlink V3 network, this accumulation validates space infrastructure as a foundational technology pillar poised for long-term expansion.
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The commercial space industry has officially transitioned from a speculative playground for venture capital into a necessary allocation for serious institutional portfolios. When an enterprise controls the majority of the world's active satellites and provides the exclusive launch infrastructure for defense sector and commercial payloads, it effectively operates as a terrestrial monopoly in a zero-gravity environment.
Whales Enter the Zero-Gravity ZoneWhen assessing the viability of a newly public mega-cap, tracking where the world's most risk-averse capital chooses to park its cash offers incredible insight. Recent 13F and 13G filings reveal an unprecedented level of institutional conviction in SpaceX that goes far beyond typical post-IPO speculation.
Harvard Management Company recently disclosed an approximate $2.2 billion stake in SpaceX. To put that into perspective, this single position accounts for more than half of Harvard's U.S. equity portfolio. The University of California quickly followed suit, revealing an approximate $1 billion position of its own, alongside significant allocations from the University of North Carolina and Washington University.
This accumulation extends well past legacy university endowments. Form 13G SEC filings submitted in mid-August reveal that Google LLC and Founders Fund II LP have established sizeable equity positions. When corporate treasuries and elite venture capital firms move in tandem with the world's largest academic endowments, it signals a rare consensus. These institutions are not looking for a quick swing trade. They are locking up shares because they view low-earth orbit infrastructure as a critical utility, much like the fiber-optic networks and cell towers of the previous two decades.
Simultaneously, U.S. House members are quietly building positions. Recent disclosure forms highlight targeted accumulation by several congressional representatives immediately following the June IPO. Combining corporate treasury entrenchment, endowment capital, and congressional purchasing creates a classic setup for a prolonged holding.
Starlink V3 Accelerates Top-Line VelocityInstitutional investors do not allocate billions of dollars on a compelling story alone. They require cold, hard cash-flow potential, and the underlying fundamentals are beginning to justify the astronomical influx of capital. In the second quarter of 2026, SpaceX delivered a distinct bottom-line beat, posting an earnings-per-share loss of 9 cents against consensus Wall Street estimates of a 26-cent loss. While SpaceX is still operating at a net loss due to the heavy capital expenditures required for the Starship and Super Heavy development programs, top-line growth is where the true story unfolds. Revenue was up by roughly 92% year-over-year.
This revenue velocity is directly tied to the aggressive rollout of the Starlink network. A recent analyst note from UBS highlights the deployment of Starlink V3 satellites as an immediate revenue accelerant. Previous iterations of Starlink provided excellent broadband internet, but they required a dedicated receiver dish. The V3 satellites are unlocking direct-to-cell communication networks.
By beaming connectivity directly to unmodified smartphones, SpaceX could bypass traditional telecom bottlenecks. This fundamentally shifts the business model. Instead of relying solely on hardware sales and specialized installations, SpaceX is rapidly transitioning to a high-margin, recurring-revenue software-as-a-service model on a global scale. This transition from hardware dependence to scalable, software-like margins is the precise catalyst that institutions are attempting to price in ahead of the broader retail market.
The 100x Multiple: Short Sellers Brace for Re-EntryDespite institutional bullishness and accelerating revenue growth, investors must approach SpaceX's current market capitalization with a clear understanding of the embedded risks. Trading at a valuation hovering around $1.9 trillion, SpaceX carries a price-to-sales multiple of nearly 102. A multiple that high means the market has already priced in years of flawless operational execution. If launch cadence slows or the Starship program faces unexpected regulatory delays, that premium valuation will be severely compressed.
Wall Street analysts are currently experiencing significant polarization over how to accurately value a low Earth orbit monopoly. Recent rating actions from early August highlight this divide perfectly. Susquehanna downgraded SpaceX to an Underperform rating, citing the stretched valuation. Conversely, Guggenheim initiated coverage with a Buy rating, and Argus upgraded its stance to a Buy. The average 12-month consensus price target is around $224, but the spread among individual analysts is dangerously wide, ranging from a floor of $75 to a street-high of $800.
Skeptics will quickly point out that short interest spiked by roughly 26% over the last month, bringing the total to nearly 208 million shares sold short. While an increase in short selling can sound alarming, context is everything. That short volume represents only about 1.59% of the public float, yielding a days-to-cover ratio of just 3.1. Rather than a systemic panic, this slight bump in short interest is due to institutional funds building natural hedges against a stock that trades at a triple-digit sales multiple.
Docking Your Portfolio With the Orbital EconomyThe commercialization of space is no longer a distant, futuristic concept. The infrastructure is currently being built, deployed, and monetized. The coordinated flight of institutional capital into this sector validates the long-term viability of reusable launch vehicles and satellite broadband monopolies.
While the fundamental top-line growth is undeniably impressive, the current valuation demands a cautious, strategic approach to portfolio allocation. Investors looking to participate in this historic infrastructure build-out may want to add SpaceX to their watchlist and monitor the upcoming quarters for continued direct-to-cell revenue growth.
SpaceX (SPCX) Price Chart for Tuesday, August, 18, 2026
Cautious investors might prefer to wait for a broader pullback to scale into a position, mitigating the risk of the current triple-digit sales multiple while still gaining exposure to the defining industry of the next decade.
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When Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +4.45%) reported Q2 results earlier this month -- its first earnings report as a publicly traded company -- this triggered the first unlocking of SpaceX's shares after its June initial public offering (IPO), letting insiders sell as much as 20% of their SpaceX stock. Pundits predicted a wave of selling to hit SpaceX when that happened. (It didn't, but it still might. A further 7% of insider shares will unlock on the 70th day after the IPO -- Aug. 21).
SpaceX stock fell after earnings -- down 13.6%. But it bounced right back the next day and has continued to climb in fits and starts and is approaching $150 (as of Aug. 17)
The question is: Should investors have bought SpaceX stock after earnings?
Image source: The Motley Fool.
SpaceX Q2 earnings: by the numbers By some measures, SpaceX had a blowout Q2. Quarterly sales rose 92% from a year earlier to $7.8 billion across the company's three big business divisions, and crushed analyst predictions of $6.8 billion. SpaceX didn't earn a profit, but the $0.09 per-share loss it reported was much better than the $0.29-per-share loss analysts expected.
When you zoom in to examine SpaceX's business unit, by unit, however -- that's where the problems start to become visible.
SpaceX Starlink Take Connectivity, for example. The business, better known as Starlink, expanded its satellite constellation past 10,000 units and doubled its subscriber count to 12 million. Revenue didn't double, however, growing only 66%, as most of Starlink's growth these days comes from foreign jurisdictions where SpaceX charges lower subscription fees.
The good news is that, with its costs largely fixed, even adding customers at discounted rates increased profit incrementally, so Connectivity's operating profit grew 79%. But do keep an eye on that subscriber growth/revenue growth divide. It bears watching.
SpaceX launch Or consider the space launch business that gave SpaceX its name. SpaceX put more than 1,000 tons of cargo into orbit in the first half of 2026, launching 78 times in six months, yet revenue in the business rose only 29% year over year, the slowest growth of the company's three divisions. And despite getting bigger, Space didn't get better -- not from a profit perspective at least. Instead, losses in the Space division grew even faster than revenue, up 47% to $542 million.
Last and least, we come to artificial intelligence (AI), the division comprising Grok and the X social media service, both of which SpaceX added to its corporate structure at the last minute, just ahead of the IPO. Elon Musk has boasted that his AI division will one day be nearly as big as the entire U.S. economy, with a total addressable market of $26.5 trillion -- and it's certainly off to a great start.
SpaceX AI set a blistering pace in Q2, with revenue growing 247% year over year to $2.6 billion. The division also pared its losses slightly. Still, AI lost $1.3 billion in the quarter.
AI is also the most likely culprit for SpaceX burning through $16 billion cash, resulting in negative free cash flow in Q2, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. Added to the $9 billion SpaceX burned in Q1, that makes $25 billion burnt in just the first half of 2026 -- with six more months to go.
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Why I (still) won't invest in SpaceX stock AI is, in fact, the entire reason that SpaceX is losing money.
Consider: Before adding Grok and X to the fold, SpaceX ran a pretty simple business. SpaceX launched rockets that put satellites into orbit. Its Starlink subsidiary operated most of those satellites to provide internet services to the world.
In Q2, if those two businesses had been all SpaceX owned, the company would have been profitable. The space division might have lost $542 million, but Starlink would have more than made up the difference with nearly $1.7 billion in operating profit. Combined, the two businesses would have been profitable, with $1.1 billion in pretax earnings.
AI's $1.3 billion loss erased that profit, resulting in a net loss for SpaceX last quarter.
Two months ago, I explained that Musk's money-losing gamble on AI was the single reason I was no longer interested in owning SpaceX stock. Two months later, SpaceX just reminded me that -- thanks to AI -- there's still no good reason to own stock in an unprofitable SpaceX.
Retail investors flocked to Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +4.45%), better known as SpaceX, after its initial public offering (IPO) in June. However, some institutional investors also bought the artificial intelligence and space stock. Billionaire Israel "Izzy" Englander was one of them.
Englander's Millennium Management loaded up on SpaceX in the second quarter of 2026. Notably, the hedge fund purchased over 17.6 million shares before SpaceX's first lockup expiration on Aug. 6. Many viewed this lockup expiration as a reason to avoid the stock, at least temporarily. Does Englander know something that most investors don't?
Israel "Izzy" Englander. Image source: Getty Images.
A brilliant move -- or a boneheaded one? We don't know exactly when Englander bought shares of SpaceX. However, I'd wager that he began buying days after the space technology company's record-setting IPO when its stock plunged more than 20%.
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Initiating a stake in SpaceX in late June might seem like a questionable decision, given the downward pressure on the stock that many expected when insiders began selling their shares. In retrospect, Englander's decision to buy SpaceX could appear to be a poor one, with shares down a double-digit percentage since the end of Q2.
Does the billionaire have inside information about SpaceX that isn't publicly available? There's absolutely no reason to think so. He is, though, an astute evaluator of businesses' growth prospects. You could argue that his track record of success reflects that he indeed does have greater knowledge than the average investor.
Englander has good reason to view SpaceX's growth opportunities in a favorable light. The company's Starlink satellite internet services business is booming. The momentum in its artificial intelligence (AI) segment is accelerating. If SpaceX founder Elon Musk achieves his vision of hosting AI apps on satellites in space where free solar power is abundant, SpaceX's revenue could skyrocket (no pun intended).
For what it's worth, Wall Street seems to think that Englander's investment in SpaceX was smart. The average 12-month price target for the stock reflects an upside of more than 60% above SpaceX's share price as of the market close on Aug. 14 and roughly 33% above the stock's price at the end of Q2.
Hedging his bet I think it's also important to remember that Englander runs a hedge fund -- and hedge funds... hedge. That's exactly what he's doing with his bet on SpaceX.
Yes, Millennium Management bought around 17.6 million shares of SpaceX in Q2. But it also held call options on 349,300 shares and put options on 902,000 shares at the end of the quarter. Buying both calls and puts on a stock is a classic hedging strategy.
This kind of hedging is something that many investors don't attempt. However, Englander does it all the time. Does he know something that most investors don't? The honest answer is "yes."
SpaceX Corp (NASDAQ:SPCX) could be on the cusp of a major growth inflection for its Starlink satellite broadband business, with UBS arguing that the company's next-generation satellites and an unconventional ground-network strategy could significantly expand its reach.
Analysts expect SpaceX shares to continue trading on demand for tokens, reflecting the leverage it sees in the company as both a major cloud provider and a frontier-model player.
Over the medium term, however, the investment bank believes Starship's ability to accelerate Starlink's expansion could become an important source of value.
Shares of SpaceX gained 5.6% on Monday.
UBS expects Starlink growth to accelerate once SpaceX reaches critical mass with its V3 fixed broadband satellites, which it expects to happen sometime next year.
The picture is more complicated for mobile services. SpaceX's V2 mobile low-Earth-orbit constellation cannot provide coverage in some of the most challenging environments, including dense urban locations and the interiors of office buildings and multi-dwelling units.
SpaceX has said it plans to address those gaps by incorporating small terrestrial radios, known as femtocells, into its next-generation Starlink terminals.
UBS said SpaceX’s femtocell strategy hinges on securing low-band spectrum and achieving sufficient deployment density.
Frequencies below 1GHz are attractive for their broad coverage, with potential sources including spectrum held by EchoStar, NextNav and Anterix, while UHF spectrum could offer a longer-term opportunity. However, reallocating broadcast spectrum would likely take years.
Femtocells typically cover 10 to 50 metres, with range dependent on spectrum, power and antenna gain. Their effectiveness will ultimately depend on the number and geographic distribution of Starlink subscribers, as the devices would be built into next-generation terminals.
UBS currently models around 3 million US Starlink subscribers, rising to 6 million by the end of 2027 and 20 million by the end of 2031.
UBS continues to believe SpaceX's preferred route for US mobile services would be an MVNO agreement with an existing wireless carrier. If such a deal does not materialize, however, the bank expects SpaceX could pursue a hybrid network combining Starlink satellites with ground infrastructure, including towers where femtocells cannot provide sufficient coverage.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:SPCX) shares are trading higher and above their IPO price after a fresh batch of 13F filings showed several major institutions holding multibillion-dollar positions in the company.
SpaceX shares are powering higher. Why are SPCX shares rallying? Google Discloses A $94 Billion Stake in SpaceXAlphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) topped the list of disclosed holders by a wide margin, reporting ownership of approximately 551 million SpaceX shares worth close to $94 billion in an Aug. 7 filing.
Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) reported holding roughly 122.76 million shares worth close to $21 billion, a stake linked back to the chipmaker’s prior investment in xAI. Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) also appeared as a SpaceX shareholder for the first time, listing a $565.5 million position in a filing submitted Aug. 14.
Harvard, Citadel and Other Major Investors Reveal SpaceX StakesBeyond the tech sector, a broad range of institutions also emerged as SpaceX backers in this filing cycle. Harvard’s endowment manager reported a $2.2 billion SpaceX stake, its biggest publicly disclosed equity position of any kind.
No investor concentrated its bet quite like Atreides Management did. SpaceX alone accounts for roughly 42% of the hedge fund’s holdings, a stake worth $4.67 billion as of quarter-end. Elsewhere, Fidelity Investments reported owning 302.6 million shares, Gigafund Management listed 171.8 million and BlackRock disclosed close to 51 million shares. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund reported a 154.1 million-share position worth about $26.3 billion.
Separately from Google’s own lockup terms, SpaceX’s broader share-unlock timeline is rolling out gradually rather than in one release. Roughly 912 million shares held by other early backers and employees became tradable on Aug. 6, with an additional 319 million shares due to unlock Aug. 20, Barron’s reported.
SPCX Shares Are ClimbingSPCX Price Action: SpaceX shares were up 4.17% at $145.84 at the time of publication on Monday, according to Benzinga Pro.
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ToplineElon Musk’s net worth once again crossed $900 billion on Monday, as shares in his SpaceX extended a weekslong rally after dozens of institutional investments in the rocket maker were revealed.
A regulatory deadline revealed dozens of institutional investments in Musk’s rocket firm.
Getty Images
Key FactsShares of SpaceX jumped more than 6% to near $150 as of Monday afternoon, adding to a nearly 87% surge since hitting an all-time low of $104 on Aug. 3.
A boost in SpaceX’s stock added $47.7 billion to Musk’s net worth, valued at $911.9 billion, ranking him the world’s richest person, well ahead of Google co-founder Larry Page ($281.4 billion) at No. 2 and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos ($268.8 billion) at No. 3.
Friday was the Securities and Exchange Commission’s deadline for institutional investors to disclose their stakes, including Harvard’s endowment, which revealed a roughly $2.2 billion stake—making SpaceX its largest stock holding.
Nvidia disclosed a nearly $21 billion stake totaling 122.8 million shares, while BlackRock disclosed an $8.7 billion stake, Gigafund Management revealed a $29.3 billion stake, and Fidelity disclosed a $51.6 billion stake.
Several billionaires unveiled equity in SpaceX: Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital disclosed a $3.2 billion stake, entities controlled by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund—the rocket maker’s first institutional investor—disclosed a roughly $73 billion stake and Hancock Prospecting, the mining firm owned by Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, revealed a $1.3 billion stake.
surprising factMusk’s net worth dropped below $700 billion in July, marking the first time his fortune fell below that threshold since December, after SpaceX shares extended a 50% plunge from an all-time high on June 16. As of July 23, Musk’s net worth had declined by about $750 billion after peaking at $1.45 trillion.
key backgroundSpaceX’s stock has rebounded since hitting an all-time low, with its first earnings report appearing better than Wall Street anticipated. Shares briefly stumbled by 13% after SpaceX’s first-ever earnings, but several brokerages, including Morgan Stanley, Oppenheimer and Cantor, praised the firm’s financial success and argued its AI business outweighed concerns about its increased spending. JPMorgan analysts wrote SpaceX was benefiting from “extreme vertical integration” and noted its “pace of change in AI is incredibly fast,” and that a step-up in AI infrastructure and higher monetization could push SpaceX’s AI revenue to $100 billion in 2027.
further readingForbesElon Musk’s Wealth Sinks Below $700 Billion As SpaceX Rout ExtendsBy Ty Roush
Shares of SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX | SPCX Price Prediction) have climbed roughly 5.9% in Monday morning trading, reaching $148.21 with a session high of $148.67, a sharp rebound off a 52-week low of $104.83.
Neocloud peers Nebius Group (NASDAQ:NBIS) and CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV) moved in the opposite direction, in the morning with each stock slipping. However, as of 1:20 p.m. ET, CoreWeave shares are up 1.2% while Nebius has narrowed its losses to .7%.
Let’s dive into the biggest news amongst this group of data center stocks.
Space Report, Cursor Close, and 13F Disclosures Fuel the Rally Per Investing.com reporting this morning, several distinct threads converged on SpaceX at once. Goldman Sachs Global Institute’s report The Second Space Age, released earlier this week, projected the global space economy could reach $1.8 trillion by 2035 and identified launch infrastructure as the sector’s key upstream chokepoint. That framing lands directly on SpaceX’s core space business.
The company also completed its $60 billion acquisition of AI coding startup Cursor on August 14, folding the asset into its SpaceXAI division and reinforcing the AI compute thesis behind Q2’s numbers. That quarter saw revenue of $7.81B, AI revenue up 247% year over year to $2.56B, and Starlink subscribers doubling to 12.0M.
UBS also weighed in Monday, reiterating its Buy rating with a $210 price target, citing AI token demand and Starlink expansion, with Starship and V3 satellites accelerating broadband next year and femtocells built into Starlink terminals offering mobile upside. UBS flagged one caveat: success depends on securing scarce low-band spectrum and achieving enough network density, particularly in urban areas where coverage remains challenging.
13F Filings Show Deep Institutional Positioning Quarterly 13F filings were released on August 14, 2026, showing positions as of June 30, 2026. These are point-in-time snapshots as of that date.
NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) disclosed 122,764,805 SpaceX shares valued at $20,975,594,582, its second-largest disclosed position behind only Intel. Atreides Management, run by Gavin Baker, disclosed 27,332,943 shares valued at $4,670,106,641, its single largest disclosed position. Appaloosa LP, run by David Tepper, opened a new position of 225,000 shares valued at $38,443,500, a toe-in-the-water stake. Other larger holders include Harvard and Alphabet. The search giant reported a $94 billion position in SpaceX, while Harvard Management reported a $2.2 billion stake.
Nebius and CoreWeave Digest a Violent Run Over the past week, Nebius rose 47.73% and CoreWeave gained 16.09%. Today’s morning dip reads as digestion after a violent run rather than any new news about either firm. As noted earlier, both stocks are regaining ground in afternoon trading.
Nebius’s Q2 backed the enthusiasm: group revenue of $582 million (+454% YoY), ARR of $3 billion, and adjusted EBITDA margin of 41%. CoreWeave posted record revenue of $2.6 billion (+112% YoY) with backlog of $104 billion, and CEO Michael Intrator said “Q2 marked the quarter in which we saw margins inflect”.
Same-day 13F color: NVIDIA disclosed 47,213,353 CoreWeave shares valued $4,699,617,158, equal to 10.29% of the class, and 1,190,476 Nebius shares valued $328,773,757, while Appaloosa opened a new CoreWeave position of 1,078,248 shares valued $107,328,806.
One read of today’s action: money is rotating out of AI capacity renters and into the hardware supply chain that sells into them (we profiled seven of those AI infrastructure suppliers, from power to cooling, in a free report you can grab here). Separately, per 24/7 Wall St. reporting, Intuitive Machines climbed 6% to $20.22 after authorization to proceed on a multi-satellite communications program valued at more than $600 million. The SpaceX rally developed later in the morning session.
What to Watch Near-term catalysts for SpaceX include the pending $60B Cursor acquisition close scheduled for Q3 2026 and any updates on low-band spectrum flagged by UBS. For Nebius and CoreWeave, watch whether the neocloud group can hold post-earnings gains as backlogs convert to revenue through year-end.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
SpaceX Corp (NASDAQ:SPCX) could be on the cusp of a major growth inflection for its Starlink satellite broadband business, with UBS arguing that the company's next-generation satellites and an unconventional ground-network strategy could significantly expand its reach.
Analysts expect SpaceX shares to continue trading on demand for tokens, reflecting the leverage it sees in the company as both a major cloud provider and a frontier-model player.
Over the medium term, however, the investment bank believes Starship's ability to accelerate Starlink's expansion could become an important source of value.
Shares of SpaceX gained 5.6% on Monday.
UBS expects Starlink growth to accelerate once SpaceX reaches critical mass with its V3 fixed broadband satellites, which it expects to happen sometime next year.
The picture is more complicated for mobile services. SpaceX's V2 mobile low-Earth-orbit constellation cannot provide coverage in some of the most challenging environments, including dense urban locations and the interiors of office buildings and multi-dwelling units.
SpaceX has said it plans to address those gaps by incorporating small terrestrial radios, known as femtocells, into its next-generation Starlink terminals.
UBS said SpaceX’s femtocell strategy hinges on securing low-band spectrum and achieving sufficient deployment density.
Frequencies below 1GHz are attractive for their broad coverage, with potential sources including spectrum held by EchoStar, NextNav and Anterix, while UHF spectrum could offer a longer-term opportunity. However, reallocating broadcast spectrum would likely take years.
Femtocells typically cover 10 to 50 metres, with range dependent on spectrum, power and antenna gain. Their effectiveness will ultimately depend on the number and geographic distribution of Starlink subscribers, as the devices would be built into next-generation terminals.
UBS currently models around 3 million US Starlink subscribers, rising to 6 million by the end of 2027 and 20 million by the end of 2031.
UBS continues to believe SpaceX's preferred route for US mobile services would be an MVNO agreement with an existing wireless carrier. If such a deal does not materialize, however, the bank expects SpaceX could pursue a hybrid network combining Starlink satellites with ground infrastructure, including towers where femtocells cannot provide sufficient coverage.
Space Exploration Technologies' (SPCX +6.16%) initial public offering (IPO) drew huge interest from retail and institutional investors, and according to reports, it was more than four times oversubscribed.
So far, though, SpaceX's stock performance has been unspectacular, and it traded below its IPO price for several weeks. However, it's been rising since it delivered its second-quarter earnings report, its first as a public company.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
If you'd invested $10,000 when the stock began trading on the public markets, you would have received just over 66 shares at $150 apiece. At Friday's closing price of $140.00, you'd have a position worth $9,333.33, or a 6.67% decrease.
That's pretty disappointing, but SpaceX has only been on the market for two months. As with any stock, investors should take a long-term approach to SpaceX, not buy it in hopes of a quick gain.
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A relatively small number of retail investors were able to buy in at the IPO, getting the $135 price that was otherwise limited to institutions and wealthy buyers. But they haven't fared too much better. SpaceX stock was sitting below its IPO price of $135 for many weeks, although on Friday, it was back above it.
If you missed the chance to buy at IPO or on the first day of trading, you haven't missed much.
My personal view is that the stock is too expensive right now, trading at 64 times trailing-12-month sales, and too volatile while lockup periods remain.
Jennifer Saibil has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:SPCX) shares are climbing on Monday. They have gained more than 40% since the Aug. 6 low.
But they have reached a resistance level and may consolidate or even reverse. This is why SpaceX is the Stock of the Day.
There is no doubt that SpaceX is revolutionary. But stocks don’t solely move based on fundamental metrics such as P/E ratios or news. They usually move because of the emotions and psychology of the people who are trading them.
SpaceX is no exception.
As you can see on the chart, the shares have previously stalled at resistance around $150. There is a reason for the resistance at this level. You can see on the chart that it was support in June and early July.
Support levels convert into resistance due to trading psychology and emotions.
People who bought shares around $150 thought they made a good decision when the price moved higher. But when this support broke and the price dropped, some of them changed their minds.
They decided that buying was a mistake.
A number of people decided that they would sell their shares around $150 if they could eventually do so. This way they can get out at breakeven.
The sell orders being placed by remorseful buyers have formed resistance.
SpaceX holders are watching closely. Stocks have a tendency to sell off after reaching resistance. This is also because of trading psychology.
Some of the sellers who created the resistance can become impatient and anxious. They decide to reduce their offers because they know the buyers will go to whoever is selling at the lowest price.
The future of SpaceX and AI stocks looks very promising. But traders need to remember that their stocks trade in a market, and markets can move due to the psychology and emotions of the people trading them. It isn’t always related to future prospects.
SpaceX is no exception.
SPCX Stock Price Activity: SpaceX shares were up 5.39% at $147.55 on Monday, according to Benzinga Pro data.
Photo: PJ McDonnell / Shutterstock
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SpaceX SPCX stock rose 6% on Monday as investors responded to a series of disclosures showing significant institutional holdings in the company and a number of bullish analyst calls.
The stock also benefited from stronger sentiment across technology and artificial intelligence stocks following reports that Anthropic generated more than $11.5 billion in second-quarter revenue, a sharp increase from a year earlier.
The broader market was relatively subdued. The Nasdaq was up almost 0.1% on Monday, while the S&P 500 was down by roughly the same amount.
Nvidia disclosed on Friday that its SpaceX investment was valued at about $21 billion at the end of the second quarter.
The chipmaker said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that it held 122.8 million Class A shares in SpaceX.
At SpaceX's Friday closing price of $140, Nvidia's holding would be worth about $17.2 billion.
The position nevertheless remains substantial and reflects significant gains as compared to the reported $10 billion investment in the company through xAI in January, part of a $20 billion funding round.
FactSet data ranks Nvidia as the sixth-largest investor in SpaceX.
Alphabet has an even larger position.
The Google parent disclosed a SpaceX stake worth approximately $94 billion at the end of June, according to its latest filings.
That represents a more than 100-fold increase from Alphabet's initial $900 million investment in Elon Musk's rocket company in 2015.
A Reuters analysis of publicly available quarterly filings identified Alphabet as the largest single institutional holder of SpaceX following the company’s IPO.
Harvard Management Co. has also disclosed a sizeable SpaceX investment.
The university endowment reported a $2.2 billion position in the company, representing a significant portion of its disclosed $4.3 billion US equity portfolio.
Norway’s $2.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund has also reported a SpaceX holding.
Norges Bank Investment Management disclosed a 0.05% stake valued at slightly more than $1.2 billion as of June 30.
The SpaceX investment is relatively small compared with the fund’s holdings in other major technology companies.
NBIM held a 1.3% stake in Nvidia worth about $61.8 billion and a 1.2% stake in Apple valued at around $52.7 billion at the end of June.
Other investors disclosing SpaceX positions include early backer Fidelity Investments, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Hancock Prospecting, controlled by Australian mining billionaire Gina Rinehart.
The disclosures have given investors a clearer view of the institutional support behind SpaceX as the company enters public markets.
SpaceX has also received a broader boost from expectations for continued growth in the space industry.
In its recent report, “The Second Space Age”, Goldman Sachs described space as a potential “new pillar of the industrial economy” and said the sector was becoming increasingly important to economic activity on Earth.
The bank forecasts the global space economy will reach $1.8 trillion by 2035.
More than $55 billion was invested in the space ecosystem in 2025, while investment reached a record $36 billion in the first quarter of 2026, according to Goldman Sachs.
The growth is increasingly visible in public markets.
Aerospace companies have raised about $89 billion through IPOs since the start of 2025, which Goldman said reflected the growing institutionalisation of space as a distinct investment sector.
Firefly raised about $999 million through its IPO following its successful Blue Ghost lunar mission.
York Space Systems raised approximately $629 million to support its national-security business, while HawkEye 360 raised around $478 million to expand its space-based signals intelligence operations.
SpaceX raised more than $86 billion through its IPO, making it the largest public offering in history.
"These listings represent a broader institutionalization of space as a distinct sector within public equity markets," it said.
"This maturation is crucial, as the next phase of space industrialization will require enormous sums of capital to build launch
capacity, satellite factories, lunar infrastructure, space-based data platforms, and resilient communications networks—upfront investments beyond what venture-backed companies can secure through private rounds alone. As space becomes
a core platform for defense, communications, data, and AI, the geopolitical value will only compound—accelerating
government demand and contracts in turn," it said.
UBS has reiterated a Buy rating and a $210 price target on SpaceX.
Analyst John Hodulik pointed to SpaceX’s position in cloud services and frontier artificial intelligence models as important parts of the company’s growth story.
UBS expects growth to accelerate as SpaceX reaches critical mass with its V3 fixed broadband satellite network, potentially sometime next year.
The company generated $23 billion in revenue over the last 12 months, while analysts are forecasting 138% revenue growth this fiscal year.
UBS also highlighted SpaceX’s plans to deploy small radios in its next-generation Starlink terminals.
The technology could help provide coverage in areas that the existing V2 mobile low-Earth-orbit constellation cannot easily reach, including dense locations and the interiors of office buildings.
The strategy will depend partly on access to low-band spectrum and the ability to deploy the devices at sufficient density.
UBS expects US Starlink subscribers to increase from about 3 million currently to 6 million by the end of 2027 and 20 million by the end of 2031.
Despite the bullish calls, Phillip Securities has maintained a Sell rating and a $75 price target on SpaceX.
The firm acknowledged the company’s strong second-quarter growth but questioned whether its revenue expansion can be sustained.
SpaceX reported second-quarter 2026 revenue of $7.8 billion, up 92% from a year earlier. First-half revenue reached 43% of Phillip Securities' full-year forecast.
AI revenue surged 247% year over year, including $1.6 billion from the initial ramp-up of cloud services agreements signed during the quarter.
However, Phillip Securities highlighted increasing customer concentration. One AI customer accounted for 19.5% of SpaceX’s second-quarter revenue, up from less than 10% a year earlier.
The company also recorded an operating loss of $542 million, while capital expenditure was 2.4 times revenue.
Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of NVDA, GOOG, AMD either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.
SpaceX’s (NASDAQ: SPCX) record-breaking public debut has attracted significant investor attention, and newly disclosed regulatory filings show that some of the world’s wealthiest individuals are among the company’s largest shareholders.
The aerospace and satellite communications giant completed the largest initial public offering in history on June 12, raising to $85.7 billion.
While the stock has pulled back from its post-IPO highs, several billionaire investors continue to hold substantial stakes, reflecting long-term confidence in the company’s businesses. Notably, SPCX ended the last session at $140.
SpaceX stock price chart. Source: Finbold
Antonio Gracias
Among the largest disclosed holders is billionaire Antonio Gracias, founder of Valor Equity Partners and a longtime SpaceX board member.
As of June 30, Gracias reported beneficial ownership of 503.4 million Class A shares through various Valor-affiliated entities. The position represented roughly 6.5% of the company’s Class A stock, making it one of the largest outside holdings disclosed after the IPO.
Valor Equity Partners 13F filings. Source: Whale Wisdom
Gracias has backed SpaceX for nearly two decades, and the stake reflects years of investment through multiple funds focused on the company.
Peter Thiel
Billionaire Peter Thiel and entities associated with Founders Fund disclosed ownership of 427.3 million Class A shares, equal to approximately 5.5% of outstanding Class A stock.
The investment dates back to one of the earliest institutional bets on SpaceX in 2008 and has since grown into one of the most successful venture capital investments on record.
Regulatory filings show that Thiel directly controlled 17.4 million shares, while the remainder were held through various Founders Fund partnerships and affiliated investment vehicles.
Gina Rinehart
Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, emerged as one of the most notable new SpaceX IPO investors.
During the second quarter, Rinehart acquired 8 million SpaceX shares valued at approximately $1.37 billion as of June 30. The investment became the largest position in her disclosed U.S. equity portfolio.
The purchase marked a major diversification beyond Hancock Prospecting’s mining operations and signaled growing interest in long-term opportunities tied to space technology and communications infrastructure.
Luke Nosek
PayPal co-founder Luke Nosek, who has served on SpaceX’s board since 2008, remains one of the company’s largest individual shareholders.
Nosek disclosed beneficial ownership of nearly 33 million Class A shares. About 25 million shares were held directly, while an additional 8 million were owned through Nosek Capital LLC.
The position highlights the substantial returns generated for some of SpaceX’s earliest outside investors following the company’s public listing.
Gwynne Shotwell
SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell ranks among the company’s most significant insiders.
Her disclosed holdings included several million Class A shares held directly and through family trusts, alongside more than 7 million Class B shares. Combined ownership across both share classes places the value of her stake in the multibillion-dollar range.
Shotwell has played a central role in SpaceX’s growth and remains one of the company’s most influential executives.
SpaceX stock fundamentals
The billionaire-backed holdings were disclosed alongside SpaceX’s first quarterly earnings report as a public company.
For the second quarter, the company reported revenue of $7.8 billion, up 92% year over year, driven by continued expansion of its Starlink satellite internet business and growing artificial intelligence cloud contracts.
SpaceX also narrowed its net loss to $541 million while reporting a sharp increase in adjusted EBITDA. Capital expenditures remained elevated as the company continued investing in launch systems and AI infrastructure.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPCX -0.91%) went public on June 12, ultimately selling 638.9 million shares at $135 through its initial public offering (IPO), raising a record-setting $85.7 billion in the process.
Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, who owns more than 6 billion in combined Class A and Class B shares -- about 42% of the company by value -- agreed to a 366-day lock-up of his stake. That means he can't sell any shares until June 12, 2027.
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He's not the only one, however. Early investors and SpaceX employees are also temporarily barred from selling their shares. But they don't have to wait a year to do so. During the next year, nearly 6 billion additional shares will become available for sale through staggered lock-up releases before Musk gets his chance to sell.
Let's take a look at that schedule and what it means for SpaceX investors.
SpaceX lock-up expiration schedule: when shares unlock
The first release has actually already happened. On Aug 6, just shy of 912 million shares were unlocked, more than doubling the shares available for sale.
And during the next year, SpaceX employees and investors will have the chance to sell more of their stakes. Here's the schedule:
Lockup stageTriggerNewly eligible sharesCumulative eligible sharesNotesTimed releaseAug. 20, 2026319 million1.69 billionAutomatic calendar-based releaseTimed releaseSept. 9, 2026319 million2.01 billionAutomatic calendar-based releaseSeparate trancheSept. 10, 202659 million2.07 billionSeparate lockup trancheTimed releaseSept. 24, 2026328 million2.39 billionAutomatic calendar-based releaseTimed releaseOct. 9, 2026328 million2.72 billionAutomatic calendar-based releaseTimed releaseOct. 24, 2026328 million3.05 billionAutomatic calendar-based releaseQ3 earnings releaseTwo full trading days after Q3 2026 results1.300 billion4.349 billionLargest 2026 earnings-linked trancheEnd of 180-day lockupDec. 8, 2026342 million4.691 billionCompletes the main 180-day lockup groupExtended lockup releaseTwo trading days after Q4 2026 results352 million5.043 billionApplies to extended-lockup holders excluding MuskExtended timed releaseMarch 18, 2027176 million5.219 billionExtended-lockup groupExtended earnings releaseTwo trading days after Q1 2027 results352 million5.571 billionExtended-lockup groupExtended timed releaseMay 17, 2027176 million5.747 billionExtended-lockup groupExtended timed releaseJune 12, 2027352 million6.099 billionExtended-lockup groupMusk lockup expiresJune 12, 20276.400 billion12.499 billionMusk's equivalent Class A shares, with no automatic early releaseFinal extended earnings releaseTwo trading days after Q2 2027 results352 million12.851 billionCompletes the extended-lockup group
Source: Reuters
So, by spring of next year, there will be about 10 times as many shares eligible for sale as were sold in the IPO. And by mid-June, when Musk is finally able to sell his shares, 20 times as many will be eligible as at the IPO.
Eligible to sell doesn't mean shares will be sold
I want to make this clear: eligible does not mean sold. Although these unlocks could flood the market with newly released shares, there's no guarantee that will happen. Insiders could very well choose to hold on to their shares, believing that SpaceX stock will rise in the future.
Image source: Getty Images.
And we already saw this happen. Despite fears of the opposite, the first unlock on Aug. 6 didn't lead to a huge selling spree. Not only did SpaceX stock not get hammered as many worried, but it's also gained more than 20% since then.
What this means for SpaceX investors
Still, I don't think we are out of the woods by any means. Just because new supply didn't swamp the market on Aug 6 doesn't mean it won't happen during the next 12 months.
SpaceX went public with an unusually small float -- the shares available to the public. It's part of what made the stock shoot up to more than $225 in the days after the IPO. When you only offer a tiny slice of the pie, it's easier for demand to outstrip supply.
But that works in reverse too -- if a large portion of employees and investors decide they want to make their profits real, each unlock could seriously increase public supply, and I'm not convinced there's enough demand to compensate.
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The scale of AI infrastructure spending has moved from staggering to almost incomprehensible. In this segment of the AI Investor Podcast, hosts Austin Smith and Eric Bleeker unpack what they called potentially their most important episode of the year: the economics behind SpaceX‘s (Nasdaq: SPCX) plan to expand from 1.4 gigawatts of AI compute capacity to 6 to 10 gigawatts, and what a headline-grabbing figure of up to $500 billion in data center spending means for the broader arms race. We cover the inference economics driving hyperscaler behavior and why Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT | MSFT Price Prediction), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), and Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE:TSM) will all have pivotal decisions to make in 2027.
Listen to the Full Episode
Below is the full episode from the AI Investor Podcast, where Austin Smith and Eric Bleeker walk through the SpaceX thesis, the bull case, and the bullwhip risk investors need to weigh right now.
If you’re unable to view this video, you can copy and past the following URL into your browser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98dk_2os6sg
The SpaceX Compute Buildout: A 6 to 10 Gigawatt Ambition
Bleeker opened the most recent episode with numbers from research firm Semi Analysis. Per the company’s recent research, OpenAI and Anthropic are seeing roughly $100 billion annually per gigawatt of inferencing compute on GB300 clusters, an 8.3x payoff. Those inference economics are the reason every hyperscaler with a balance sheet is racing to lock in power, chips, and land.
SpaceX has already stepped into the ring. On May 6, SpaceX struck a deal with Anthropic to rent out part of its Colossus infrastructure. Anthropic is going to pay them $1.25 billion per month, and for that fee they’re getting close to about 300 megawatts of compute capacity. Semi Analysis places the deal at about $31 billion annually per gigawatt of compute. Then on June 5, SpaceX announced another deal, this one to rent out about 110,000 GPUs to Google, stretching from 2026 to mid-2029, at $920 million per month.
Bleeker pointed out that SpaceX’s deal with Google yields $48 billion annually per gigawatt of compute, a 4x payoff over 5 years. That is a lower multiple than what OpenAI and Anthropic are pulling on their own compute, yet still rich enough to reshape SpaceX’s revenue profile. Its these economics that are leading SpaceX to push to build at such a frantic rate. Semi Analysis believes the company is positioned to spend $300 billion to $500 billion in 2027 alone.
The Bull Case: An Arms Race With No Off Switch
Austin Smith articulated the central tension of the episode in a single sentence. “The demand for superintelligence is unlimited, therefore we need to build, build, build. The other side is that all of the economics and the high ROI we’re seeing from people being able to rent this capacity is still in the bottleneck phase, and a bullwhip will happen eventually.”
Bleeker’s point was that Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Anthropic, and OpenAI all have unique individual incentives pushing them to build as aggressively as possible, creating a self-reinforcing arms race. Microsoft’s fiscal Q4 disclosures back that up. Azure revenue surpassed $100 billion, up 41% for the full fiscal year, and management added 31 new data centers this quarter across five continents, with 88 total added in fiscal year 2026. Commercial RPO grew 84% to $678 billion, and calendar-year 2026 capex is expected to land around $175 billion.
On the Google side, Q2 2026 capex reached $44.92 billion, funded in part by roughly $70 billion in combined equity and debt raised to fuel AI expansion. Microsoft has a unique position where it can serve OpenAI models, creating an incentive for the company to undergo a massive expansion beginning late next year that will likely be beyond Wall Street’s expectations. Meanwhile, Google’s models have fallen behind other rivals and now cofounder Sergey Brin is pushing the company to go all-in on getting back in the race. To do so, the company will need even more compute as its fallen behind in part because its data center capacity is increasingly going toward Google Cloud rather than being used internally.
Why the Inference Economics Look So Good, For Now
The reason capex is going vertical is that current inference margins are extraordinary. Bleeker cited two data points : Anthropic’s Opus 4.8 carries an 85% gross margin, and Deepseek’s leaked investor call revealed a 10-month GPU payback period. When you can pay back a GPU cluster in under a year at those margins, the incentive to build as quickly as possible is enormous.
That is also why the coming IPO calendar matters. SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic are all targeting IPOs across a 6 to 9 month window (with SpaceX already having IPO’d and Anthropic targeting one in the next 60 days), potentially combining for around $6 trillion in market value. Public-market capital would accelerate the buildout further, and every dollar raised effectively becomes an order at TSMC and a request for gigawatts of power.
The Supply Side: Taiwan Semiconductor Is the Choke Point
The Q2 2026 TSMC call made the constraint explicit. Chairman and CEO Dr. C.C. Wei said “I believe from this day on all the way to probably 2029, 2030, the demand is very strong… I believe we are witnessing a kind of a new industry called AI technology.” Asked about the shortage, he added, “The gap is so big. So we are working very hard to narrow the gap.”
TSMC raised full-year 2026 revenue guidance to slightly above 40% year-over-year in U.S. dollar terms, hiked capex to $60 to $64 billion, and announced an additional $100 billion USD Arizona investment, bringing total Arizona commitments to $265 billion. Advanced nodes at 7nm and below accounted for 77% of wafer revenue, with 2nm debuting at 3%. Shares of TSM are up 41% year to date on that demand backdrop.
Yet, Taiwan Semiconductor may also be the bottleneck the industry needs. Its limited capacity of advanced nodes could limit the buildout from overbuilding and causing a steep correction across AI infrastructure stocks.
The Bullwhip Risk: What to Watch
Smith and Bleeker closed on the risks rather than a victory lap. Three items topped the list from the notes: spot pricing per unit of compute, Taiwan Semiconductor capacity constraints, and whether supply eventually outpaces demand.
If spot compute prices roll over, if TSMC’s capacity gap stays wide enough to strand the next wave of dollars, or if hyperscaler build plans finally overshoot demand, the current 8.3x payoff math evaporates. That is the bullwhip Smith was warning about, and the reason the hosts want investors watching the arms race with both eyes open.
Subscribe to the AI Investor Podcast
If you enjoyed this segment, subscribe to The AI Investor Podcast for weekly breakdowns of the stocks, suppliers, and infrastructure names powering the AI buildout. New episodes are available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast providers. Recent episodes are linked below. We’ve recommended more than 50 stocks (for free!) on the podcast, and our average recommendation is up 147%. Don’t miss out on the biggest news in the investing world and new stock recommendations each week!.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
It's not surprising that Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX -0.91%) hasn't blasted off since its initial public offering on June 12. IPO stocks are notoriously wobbly as they come out of the gate, as the novelty wears off, and reality sets in.
SpaceX stock had an IPO price of $135, opened at $150, and rose to $225 in its first few days as investors lined up to buy a piece of Elon Musk's newest venture. But shares are back in the $150 range, having fallen nearly 35% at the two-month mark of trading.
But the space-and-AI company has a world of potential, according to Morgan Stanley analysts. The investment bank has a $300 price target on SpaceX stock, but says the company has potential for even greater gains.
"The implied valuation for SpaceX's AI business at the current price is, in our opinion, extremely conservative," analysts led by Adam Jones wrote in a note. They argue that investors do not appreciate the AI potential that underpins their $300 price target.
"From our conversations, very few investors are bullish (on) SpaceX's AI business beyond neocloud," they wrote, referring to its data center leasing deals with Anthropic and Alphabet.
There is a major tailwind, according to the analysts, that could push SpaceX stock higher. Let's review.
Image source: Getty Images.
The three-pronged case for SpaceX
SpaceX does a lot of interesting things. First, there's the Space segment, which is home to SpaceX's rocket business. SpaceX deploys reusable rockets that are cheaper to use and have much faster turnaround times. At the end of the second quarter, SpaceX had completed 78 launches this year. However, it's still losing money -- in the second quarter, the Space segment generated $962 million in revenue but lost $542 million.
However, SpaceX's Starship vehicle, which will be its largest rocket, could be operational as early as the fourth quarter, and that could be a game-changing development. Launch costs are projected to drop to $500 per kilogram by 2030 and less than $150 by 2040. Meanwhile, the company is projected to continue increasing launches, from 46 Starship launches in 2027 to more than 6,000 annually by 2040.
The Connectivity segment includes SpaceX's Starlink business, which involves thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit to provide mobile services and internet connectivity to people in remote locations. Starlink currently has 12 million subscribers and about 10,200 satellites in orbit, but Musk believes Starship will allow it to accelerate growth, making Starlink available in more locations.
The Connectivity segment is SpaceX's only profitable business right now, with revenue of $4.29 billion in the second quarter and income of $1.65 billion.
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That brings us to the segment with the biggest potential -- artificial intelligence. In its prospectus, SpaceX estimates that Enterprise AI is a $22.7 trillion market opportunity. This includes software that automates workflows and improves productivity.
Shortly after SpaceX went public, the company made its first major move by announcing it would buy the AI start-up Cursor for $60 billion. Cursor operates an AI coding tool that generates code using agentic AI, and it is used by many tech companies, including OpenAI, Nvidia, and Adobe.
Morgan Stanley suggests that investors are undervaluing the upside of the pending acquisition, as new Grok models that incorporate Cursor data improve the outlook for the company's AI efforts. Analysts expect Cursor to increase its annual revenue run rate from $4 billion in June to $8 billion by end of the year, and then grow to $17 billion in 2027 and $33 billion in 2028.
"As investors see more breadcrumbs on the Cursor/Grok story, we see potential for the implied valuation discount on SpaceX's AI business to lift, driving potentially substantial appreciation of the stock," they wrote in the research note.
Is $300 a realistic price target?
Morgan Stanley paints a rosy picture for SpaceX. And I agree that the Cursor acquisition has significant potential to both generate revenue and improve the Grok LLM. Those are important wins for Musk's company.
But I also recognize that investors today are punishing companies that spend heavily on AI without delivering results. And SpaceX will have tremendous losses for the next few years -- its lead underwriter, Goldman Sachs, projected negative free cash flow of $105 billion in 2029 before turning things around.
Is $300 per share possible? Of course. Musk has proven his detractors wrong over and over. But I also think a lot has to go right for SpaceX to achieve even the $300 price target in the next year or so.
I have a lot of skepticism about SpaceX hitting $300 -- or more -- in the next couple of years. It's still too speculative an investment for my taste.
The initial surge in Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX -0.91%) shares when the company went public had some people wondering whether SpaceX stock would continue to climb higher. Instead, its share price is hovering around $140, below its opening price of $150 when it first began trading.
Some investors are no doubt wondering whether now is a good time to buy. If so, could buying $5,000 of SpaceX stock make one a millionaire over the coming years? Here's what you should know.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
SpaceX is making some huge bets
SpaceX has a lot of ambitious projects. The company just completed the 13th test of its reusable Starship rocket, the largest rocket ever flown, which is key to reducing launch costs and boosting selling prices for SpaceX's rocket business. Once Starships are used for commercial launches, SpaceX estimates that it will reduce the cost of reaching orbit by 99% compared to historical launch costs.
The company also has a frontier AI model, Grok, and is in the process of building data centers for its own use and to sell AI compute power to other companies. SpaceX is also exploring the possibility of building orbital data centers, which it says could eventually be run more efficiently than those on Earth.
Doing all of this costs a considerable amount of money. SpaceX's capital expenditures (capex) accelerated in its second quarter (which ended June 30) to $18.4 billion. That was a significant increase of 550% in capex spending from the year-ago quarter, and it could go higher as SpaceX builds 10 gigawatts of AI data center capacity by the end of next year.
Despite generating $7.8 billion in revenue -- mostly from the company's Starlink satellite internet business -- SpaceX reported a loss of $541 million in the quarter due to high spending.
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Why $5,000 put toward SpaceX stock won't make you a millionaire
While SpaceX has a lot of potential for future growth from its big bets, the math just doesn't add up for you to become a millionaire with just a $5,000 investment. With that amount, SpaceX's shares would have to increase by nearly 20,000%. This would be an impossible feat considering that SpaceX's market cap is already $1.8 trillion.
This doesn't mean that SpaceX stock can't make significant gains or that its big bets on AI and rockets won't pay off, but investors should temper their expectations. SpaceX is spending heavily on its businesses at a time when many investors are questioning whether the return on investment for AI will pan out.
That could result in investors reacting strongly to any negative developments for the company, adding significant instability to SpaceX's short-term share price growth.
Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX -0.91%) generated $18.7 billion in revenue in 2025. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk just predicted that the company will hit $100 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR) by the end of this year, and $1 trillion in revenue by 2030. That would be a more than a 50-fold increase in five years, mainly on the back of artificial intelligence (AI) data center sales.
No company has ever generated $1 trillion in revenue in a single year. How likely is it that SpaceX can achieve this number by 2030? Here's my honest take on whether SpaceX stock is a buy today.
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Less space, more AI SpaceX just went completed the largest initial public offering (IPO) in history. The company is known today for space services, but it's transitioning quickly into an AI infrastructure business. Capital expenditures were $19 billion across the business last quarter, mainly attributable to building data centers for AI.
Musk, unsurprisingly, is being aggressive in building out data centers to serve the AI market. The company has signed deals with the likes of Alphabet and Anthropic that could get ARR up to $100 billion by December, Musk said on the company's first earnings call since the IPO earlier this month.
By the end of next year, Musk expects to bring on between 15 and 20 gigawatts (GW) of electric power capacity for SpaceX's current and future AI data centers. With the cost of bringing on a gigawatt of capacity approaching $50 billion, it will take enormous capital spending for SpaceX to deliver on its plans.
Since AI compute is a hot commodity at the moment, SpaceX can sign lucrative deals with third parties to lease out this computing power, even if those third parties are competitors to the company's own AI software services, such as Anthropic.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. Image source: The White House.
Long-term, SpaceX is developing a data center concept that will operate in Earth orbit to save on power costs by using solar arrays outside Earth's atmosphere. Along with the terrestrial data centers, Musk and SpaceX believe there will be enough demand for AI software to reach $1 trillion in revenue by 2030. That's an audacious plan, to say the least.
Risks and profit margins Some revenue will come from other services provided by SpaceX, such as its Starlink internet and rocket launch contracts for third parties. However, if revenue hits $1 trillion in 2030, the vast majority of SpaceX's business will be AI data center contracts.
Right now, SpaceX is getting a nice level of revenue from such infrastructure deals, and likely with good margins. However, there is a risk that the AI spending boom could turn into a bust if demand for AI services does not meet these projections. This could lead SpaceX to build a gargantuan number of AI data centers as demand dries up.
SPCX Capital Expenditures (Quarterly) data by YCharts.
Today, SpaceX trades at a market cap of $1.9 trillion. In an ultra-bullish scenario, this $1 trillion in cloud computing revenue by 2030 could translate into hundreds of billions in earnings, at least compared to the competition, whose profit margins hover at about 30%. That might make the stock cheap for anyone buying right now.
However, investors should be skeptical of Musk's promises, especially when it means revenue increasing 50-fold in five years. Musk is notorious for making financial projections or product launches that only materialize years after his deadlines, and I think this $1 trillion revenue projection by 2030 is one of them.
Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX -0.91%) has taken investors on a rough ride since its initial public offering (IPO) in June. After reaching an all-time intraday high of $225.64 on June 16, the stock later fell below its $135 IPO price, sinking at one point to a low of $104.83. The stock has this month recovered back to around the IPO price, but it still sits well below $150, the price at which it opened its first day of public trading.
Image source: Getty Images.
That said, the company's financial performance is improving. In the second quarter, SpaceX's revenue surged 92% year over year to $7.8 billion, while adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) rose 191% to $3.5 billion.
Analysts have also been sharply raising their expectations for the company's future revenue and now expect SpaceX to generate roughly $102 billion in revenue in 2027, up from about $72 billion at the end of July 2026.
Here's why SpaceX stock can reach roughly $220 by June 2027, representing about 50.5% upside from its Aug. 12 closing price.
Starlink is the profit engine, but AI is growing faster
The connectivity segment, which includes the Starlink satellite internet business, remains SpaceX's profit engine. That segment generated $4.3 billion in revenue and $1.7 billion in operating income in the second quarter. Starlink's subscribers doubled year over year to 12 million.
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SpaceX's artificial intelligence (AI) business is growing even faster, with revenue rising almost 247% year over year to $2.6 billion in the quarter. While AI accounted for nearly one-third of SpaceX's total sales, the segment reported a $1.3 billion operating loss. SpaceX also spent $15.8 billion on AI capital expenditures in the second quarter.
The company's massive investments in infrastructure could pay off if analyst forecasts prove accurate. Analysts at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have projected that SpaceX could generate around $160 billion in revenue and $110 billion in adjusted EBITDA in 2028.
How SpaceX stock could reach $220
By June 2027, SpaceX's share price will most likely reflect investors' expectations for the company's 2028 growth.
Following its IPO, SpaceX had roughly 13.2 billion shares outstanding. The company's pending $60 billion all-stock acquisition of Cursor AI's parent company Anysphere could add close to 410 million shares based on the Aug. 12 closing share price. However, the actual share issuance will depend on where they are priced at the time the transaction is finalized.
SpaceX also has hundreds of millions of shares underlying outstanding employee stock options and restricted stock units, which will create additional dilution over time. In light of that, assuming that it will have 13.7 billion shares outstanding at the end of June 2027 provides a reasonable adjustment to anticipate additional dilution.
SpaceX was trading at about 18.9 times expected 2027 sales as of Aug. 12. If the company generates the roughly $160 billion in 2028 revenue projected by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and continues trading at that multiple, its market value would reach about $3 trillion. Dividing the market capitalization by the assumed 13.7 billion shares implies a stock price of roughly $220.
However, the biggest risk is SpaceX's enormous capital spending. The company's capital expenditures reached $18.4 billion in the second quarter, more than twice its revenue in the period. If investments in AI infrastructure and the next-generation reusable rocket system Starship fail to generate strong returns, investors could become less willing to give SpaceX stock the premium valuation it currently carries.
But if SpaceX delivers results near Wall Street's 2028 forecasts while maintaining a valuation close to current levels, the stock could generate significant returns for shareholders by the end of June 2027.
AI coding startup Cursor is now officially a part of SpaceX, according to an announcement on the Cursor blog.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX — which also acquired Musk’s xAI earlier this year — announced a deal in April for the companies to develop technology together; the deal also gave SpaceX the option to acquire Cursor for $60 billion. Two months later, as SpaceX became a public company, the companies said they were moving forward with the acquisition.
In its announcement that the deal has closed, Cursor repeatedly referenced SpaceX’s computing infrastructure, which the company has been renting out to customers including Anthropic and Google. (SpaceX also faces a lawsuit over the pollution created by its data center gas turbines.)
Cursor said that by becoming part of SpaceX, it will have “access to the largest fleet of GPUs in the world.”
“SpaceX is building the computing capacity needed to scale intelligence far beyond what exists today,” the company added. “Cursor will be one place where that intelligence becomes useful.”
Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX -0.91%) made its name by revolutionizing the space travel industry. The company's work on reusable rockets has enabled it to significantly reduce launch costs, making it the clear leader in the field. SpaceX is still at it. The company is working on a next-gen, fully reusable rocket, Starship, that could transform its grand space ambitions into reality. But what if the company's space-related efforts become a minuscule part of its business as it taps into much more lucrative opportunities elsewhere?
That may power exceptional stock market returns. And according to CEO Elon Musk, that's what could happen within four or five years. Let's dig into what Musk said and what it means for investors.
Image source: The White House.
Is SpaceX a space or an AI company?
SpaceX operates three business segments. In addition to its space business, the company owns Starlink, which provides internet connectivity through a large network of Low Earth Orbit satellites. SpaceX is also the leader in this industry. Then there is the company's artificial intelligence (AI) unit, where it offers several services, including access to Grok, a family of large language models (LLMs).
SpaceX also offers cloud and AI compute infrastructure services. In the company's Form S-1 (a required filing in the U.S. before a domestic company can go public), SpaceX argued that the large majority of its total addressable market (TAM) was in the AI industry. The rocket company estimated that its AI TAM was $26.5 trillion of the $28.5 trillion total opportunity it has identified across its entire business. And Musk thinks that within four or five years, AI will be 99% of SpaceX's value.
Beware of these risks
In the second quarter, SpaceX's AI revenue grew by about 247.5% year over year to $2.6 billion. It accounted for almost 33% of the company's total revenue. It grew much more rapidly than the rest of the business. SpaceX's top-line was $7.8 billion, up 92% compared to the year-ago period. Analysts expect the company to generate $44.58 billion in revenue this year and $95.49 billion next year, compared to $18.7 billion last year.
Let's suppose that SpaceX's revenue grows at a compound annual rate of 100% over the next four years (that's actually less than the company's projection, since Musk said revenue could reach $1 trillion by 2030). If the AI segment accounts for most of its top line, it will grow even more rapidly. And if SpaceX can pull that off, the stock will almost certainly soar, even if it fails to turn a profit over this period. The market is forgiving with growth stocks that aren't profitable, provided sales growth is impressive enough. But how likely is all that?
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Not very. This bull thesis assumes that AI infrastructure spending will continue to grow rapidly over the next five years and that SpaceX will capture a large share of it. According to some estimates, it may exceed $1 trillion by 2029. Even assuming it does, and then jumps significantly more by 2030, the competition is fierce, and several corporations are in a much better position than SpaceX to capitalize on this. Also, as the company noted, one customer accounted for 19.5% of its AI revenue in the second quarter.
Many analysts believe that Anthropic, a privately held company and leader in developing LLMs, is the one. Anthropic may go public relatively soon, improve its financial position, and double down on AI-related spending. But if Anthropic decreases AI spending, that could materially impact SpaceX's financial results. The space company's reliance on a single customer for nearly 20% of its AI revenue carries significant risks. At any rate, too much hinges on everything going just right for SpaceX, which makes the stock far too risky.
SpaceX remains rated Sell due to excessive valuation, surging CapEx, and mounting operational risks despite strong Q2 growth. Q2 revenue rose 92% Y/Y to $7.81B, but CapEx soared to $18.37B, with AI infrastructure alone consuming $15.83B. Starlink's pricing power is eroding as ARPU fell 22% Y/Y, and Amazon's entry threatens margins and growth.
SummaryCompaniesUkraine says it hit Russian airfield, rocket centreKyiv says rocket centre is linked to Russian version of StarlinkRussia says it hit long-range Ukrainian storage facilityKYIV, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Saturday its long-range strikes had hit a Russian military airfield and a rocket centre that Kyiv says supports Russia's nascent Starlink-style satellite internet network.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Flamingo cruise missiles struck the rocket facility, about 900 km (560 miles) from Ukraine's border, as part of Kyiv's campaign to pressure Moscow to end the more than four-year war by targeting sites deep inside Russia.
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"It is important that Russia's war potential be reduced. Peace is needed, and this must be evident in Russia – through concrete damage to specific facilities," he said in a post on X. He said the airfield hosted aircraft used to attack Ukraine.
'MASSIVE MISSILE ATTACK'Ukraine's General Staff said direct hits were recorded at both the airfield in Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region and the Progress rocket and space centre in Samara region. It said the strikes had sparked fires at both sites.
The General Staff said the Samara plant produces rockets used to launch satellites for the Rassvet broadband network, which Russia is developing as an alternative to SpaceX's Starlink. Starlink operates in Ukraine, but not in Russia, and has given Kyiv a major advantage in drone operations and battlefield communications.
There was no confirmation of the airfield strike from authorities in Nizhny Novgorod. In Samara region, local officials said air defences had repelled a "massive missile attack".
"Samara's industrial infrastructure sustained localised damage," Ivan Noskov, head of the regional capital, said in an online post, without specifying which site was affected. Emergency services were working at the scene, he said.
Overnight, Samara's regional governor said a missile had struck an unidentified industrial facility. Seven hours later, at around 1215 local time, he said emergency services were still dealing with the aftermath, without providing further details.
The Progress centre has played a key role in the Soviet and Russian space programmes, including through the production of the Soyuz family of rockets.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. While battlefield advances have slowed across much of the front this year, according to analysts, Russian forces continue to press towards key cities in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region. Both sides have meanwhile stepped up long-range strikes against a range of targets.
On Saturday, Russia's defence ministry said in the past 24 hours its drones, missiles and artillery had struck Ukrainian logistics centres and fuel, energy, and transport infrastructure used by the Ukrainian army, as well as assembly workshops for long-range drones and drone boats.
A long-range drone storage facility in Ukraine's Chernihiv region was among the targets hit, the ministry said.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports.
Reporting by Yuliia Dysa, Additional reporting and writing by Alessandra Prentice in London. Editing by Barbara Lewis and Mark Potter
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In this segment from The AI Investor Podcast, hosts Eric Bleeker and Austin Smith walk through a new portfolio addition tied directly to the SpaceX (Nasdaq: SPCX) and hyperscaler data center power buildout. The pick is Solaris Energy Infrastructure (NYSE:SEI), a behind-the-meter power provider that Bleeker sized as a $10,000 position, or about 1% of the million dollars he’s investing publicly in the AI Investor Portfolio. The discussion also revisits Power Solutions International (NASDAQ:PSIX) as evidence that supply-constrained power infrastructure names are already being repriced by the market.
Watch the Full Segment
You can watch the full podcast segment below, where Bleeker and Smith break down the Solaris thesis and how it fits into the broader SpaceX data center spending story.
If the above YouTube link doesn’t work, you can copy and paste the segment URL int your browser: ttps://www.youtube.com/embed/98dk_2os6sg?si=QNBm6qBDTs2gyES4&start=1663
About This Segment
This is a segment from The AI Investor Podcast episode titled A New Portfolio Add In Our Most Important Episode Of The Year, hosted by Eric Bleeker and Austin Smith.
Bleeker added Solaris Energy Infrastructure to the portfolio as a $10,000 position, citing its existing SpaceX relationship and its gas turbine fleet used for rapid behind-the-meter power at data centers.
Bleeker noted SEI is still trading roughly 30% below recent highs, with decade-power contracts signed with 2 data centers and 2 more coming in September, plus long-term contracts with 3 leading technology companies, all developed in the past 6 months.
Why Solaris Energy Infrastructure Made the Cut
Solaris already has a working relationship with SpaceX and deploys mobile gas turbines that can be dropped in place to power data centers behind the meter, sidestepping the multi-year grid interconnection queues that are choking new AI capacity. That practical, real-world plumbing is why Bleeker framed Solaris as the cleanest way to get exposure to SpaceX’s intention to spend $300 billion to $500 billion building out six to 10 gigawatts of capacity by the end of 2027.
Recent contract wins shows Solaris has momentum. In Q2 2026, Solaris reported adjusted EPS of $0.39 versus $0.23 estimated and revenue of $219.4 million, up 31.5% year over year. The company disclosed an expanded Hatchbo agreement for a full turnkey ~660 MW power plant with a tenor of up to 18 years to serve AI workloads, along with three long-term contract expansions expected to add more than $100 million in annual adjusted EBITDA. Management raised the Q3 2026 adjusted EBITDA outlook to $90 to $105 million and established a Q4 2026 range of $100 to $120 million.
CEO Bill Zartler summarized the momentum on the earnings report: “We are executing, expanding our contracted scope and continuing to build Solaris into a proven power and infrastructure business well positioned to serve our customers.”
A Rising Price, But Still 30% Below Recent Highs
Bleeker made a point about the entry price. SEI closed at $63.30 on August 14, well off the 52-week high of $86.19. Over the past three months, the stock is down 19.31%, even as year-to-date performance stands at +38.23% and the one-year return is +133.56%. That drawdown from the highs is what Bleeker referenced as the roughly 30% pullback, giving the portfolio a chance to enter a name that had otherwise been running.
Sell-side sentiment is positive. Alpha Vantage lists an analyst target price of $94.41, with 5 strong buys, 8 buys, and 1 hold. Forward valuation is rich, which reflects the growth curve baked in from the hyperscaler contract flow.
PSIX as the Proof of Concept
Bleeker used Power Solutions International to illustrate how fast the market is repricing behind-the-meter suppliers when SpaceX-related demand shows up. He cited the 22% rally in one week as a signal that hyperscalers and SpaceX will chase any available supply to outpace competitors. PSIX shares closed at $40.54 on August 14, with the one-month move at +21.16%, even as the stock remains down 50.08% over the past year.
PSIX’s Q2 2026 earnings report backs the narrative. Adjusted EPS came in at $0.78 versus consensus $0.27, revenue was $152.54 million versus $133.95 million estimated, and gross margin expanded roughly 420 basis points to 27.1%. New CEO Kenneth Li told investors: “Looking ahead, demand for our data center power solutions remains strong. Based on our current production schedule, we expect second-half sales to exceed first-half sales as larger Power Systems orders move into production.”
The Broader Setup: Bloom, Nebius, and $20 Billion per Gigawatt
Bleeker also pointed to Bloom Energy surging 15% after Nebius moved power at a New Jersey site to Bloom as another data point in the same trend. Later in the podcast, Bleeker referenced that Nebius earning showed compute deals being signed at $20 to $25 billion per gigawatt. Those figures explain why the race is on to build new capacity as quickly as possible.
Subscribe to The AI Investor Podcast
If you enjoyed this segment, subscribe to The AI Investor Podcast for weekly breakdowns of the stocks, suppliers, and infrastructure names powering the AI buildout. New episodes are available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast providers. Recent episodes are linked below. We’ve recommended more than 50 stocks (for free!) on the podcast, and our average recommendation is up 147%. Don’t miss out on the biggest news in the investing world and new stock recommendations each week!.
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Two months after investing $1,000 in SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) stock on June 15, an investor would now be holding about $714, reflecting a loss during a period marked by significant volatility following the company’s historic market debut.
On June 15, SpaceX shares traded at $196 just three days after the firm went public. By August 15, the stock had fallen to $140, representing a decline of about 28.6%.
Consequently, a $1,000 investment made at the June 15 price would have lost roughly $286 over the two-month period.
SPCX all-time stock price chart. Source: Finbold
SpaceX went public on June 12 at $135 per share, raising $85.7 billion in the largest IPO on record and valuing the company at about $1.77 trillion.
Initially, SPCX shares surged to a high of nearly $225, pushing its market capitalization above $2 trillion.
However, shares later fell below the IPO price, hitting a low near $105 in early August before recovering to $140.
SpaceX stock fundamentals
Meanwhile, SpaceX’s first quarterly earnings report as a public company highlighted rapid business expansion but also signalled concerns about heavy spending.
For the quarter ended June 30, revenue climbed 92% year-over-year to $7.8 billion, exceeding expectations. Net losses narrowed to $541 million, while adjusted EBITDA rose to $3.5 billion.
Notably, Starlink remained the company’s largest revenue contributor and most profitable business segment.
At the same time, the artificial intelligence division delivered strong growth as new cloud computing and infrastructure agreements began generating revenue.
Management also indicated that annualized revenue could reach $100 billion by the end of 2026, supported by a substantial backlog of contracted business.
However, investors remained focused on SpaceX’s aggressive spending plans, with the company investing about $18 billion during the quarter in AI infrastructure, Starship development, and capacity expansion.
Although the heavy spending initially pressured the stock, sentiment later improved as management highlighted growing AI revenue opportunities and ambitious computing expansion targets.
Looking ahead, investor confidence will largely depend on SpaceX’s ability to sustain growth while managing its significant capital requirements.
Last year, Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX -0.91%) generated $18.7 billion in revenue. By 2030, founder and CEO Elon Musk believes that figure will hit $1 trillion. How? Well, it's complicated, but it mainly has to do with an extremely rapid build-out of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, both on earth and in orbit.
No company has ever hit $1 trillion in revenue in a single calendar year. Musk believes SpaceX can achieve this feat five years from now. Will SpaceX be the first company ever to hit $1 trillion in revenue, and can it be the first to reach this goal?
When you run the numbers, it is clear what the answer likely will be.
Image source: Getty Images.
Aggressive investments for AI data centers
To grow revenue from less than $20 billion in 2025 to $1 trillion in 2030, SpaceX will need to compound sales at more than 100% annually for five straight years. It is working to do so by spending a boatload on constructing AI data centers. Capital expenditures on AI infrastructure were $15.8 billion last quarter alone, roughly double its revenue for the period.
If its current build-out trajectory holds, SpaceX will generate $100 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR) by the end of this calendar year. That is according to Elon Musk on the latest earnings call. From there, SpaceX plans to maintain its aggressive capital investments, believing there is near-unlimited demand from AI companies for cloud computing services.
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On top of AI data centers, SpaceX has a highly promising business in Starlink internet, which grew revenue by 66% year over year and is regularly launching new, more powerful satellites into orbit to expand its global coverage and bandwidth capabilities. The segment is now at $4.3 billion in quarterly revenue, and could generate tens of billions in revenue in the near future. Still, compared to the $1 trillion goal by 2030, it will not make a massive dent in these plans. To hit $1 trillion, most of the revenue will have to come from AI data centers.
What the math suggests
Investors should be confident that SpaceX can accelerate its revenue growth through the rest of 2026. It already has contracts with other AI companies, such as Alphabet and Anthropic, worth around $26 billion a year. The company's recent IPO gave it a massive war chest of around $100 billion, which it can use to invest in infrastructure that will likely lead to meaningful revenue gains in the near future. Musk himself said there is a line of sight to $100 billion in ARR by the end of this year.
However, to reach $1 trillion in revenue four years after 2026, Musk and the SpaceX team will have to 10x revenue, mainly from AI data center spending. This is going to run into electric power, computer chip, and construction bottlenecks.
Plus, even if SpaceX reaches $1 trillion in revenue by 2030, it will likely not be the first company to do so. Amazon has generated $775 billion in revenue over the last 12 months, and only needs to grow revenue by 10% per year for the next three years to surpass the $1 trillion mark. Amazon's revenue grew 20% year over year last quarter.
If the SpaceX bull thesis holds and it becomes one of the world's largest companies by revenue, the timeline is likely closer to the end of the next decade than to 2030. It is simply too difficult for a company to grow this quickly.
AMZN Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts
Is SpaceX stock a buy?
A more important question for investors is whether the inflection in AI revenue makes SpaceX stock a buy today.
Even if you are a believer that SpaceX will dominate the future of the AI market -- along with its bold plan for orbital data centers -- it will take many years, if not more than a decade, for it to reach $1 trillion in sales. On those sales, it is unclear what profit margins will be as a reseller of AI compute, much of which is sold to competitors today, like Alphabet and Anthropic. A 10% profit margin would equate to $100 billion in earnings on $1 trillion in revenue.
Today, SpaceX has a market cap of $1.93 trillion, meaning it trades at a price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of 19 based on these estimates at some point over the next 10 to 20 years. This indicates a ton of future growth is already priced into SpaceX stock, meaning investors should avoid buying today.
As international markets curb back on single-stock leveraged ETFs, Direxion's Global ETF Strategist Bilal Little talks about how his firm is boosting exposure for stocks like SpaceX (SPCX). He talks about the firm's new Daily SpaceX Bear 2x ETF (LOFD) and ways investors can use it while cautioning of risks that come with the product.
SpaceX (SPCX -0.91%) plans to catch a returning Starship upper stage with its launch tower for the first time this month.
"I'd say things look very good, and that's why we, assuming we receive regulatory approval to do so, will attempt to catch the Ship with the tower on the next flight, which is tentatively scheduled for the end of this month," CEO Elon Musk said on the company's Aug. 4 earnings call, its first since going public in June.
The confidence traces to Flight 13, which flew July 24 and ended with the Ship surviving reentry and splashing down softly in the Indian Ocean. Flight 14 is also slated to put Starlink V3 satellites into an operational orbit for the first time.
Two steps sit between here and the attempt: the preflight engine firings both vehicles still have to complete, and the regulatory sign-off Musk named.
The company's towers have caught the returning Super Heavy booster before, but never the Ship, which comes back from space at far higher speeds.
Elon Musk at the White House. Image source: The White House.
Reusability is the cost case
The reason a catch matters is money. Starship's economics rest on both halves of the rocket flying again quickly -- a booster and Ship recovered at the tower are meant to be turned around and reflown instead of rebuilt.
And a tower catch is the version of reuse that saves the most. The vehicle lands where it launched, gets inspected, and gets restacked, with no ocean recovery in between.
For now, the finances run through Starlink. SpaceX's connectivity segment grew revenue 66% year over year to $4.3 billion last quarter, the only segment operating at a profit, while the company overall narrowed its net loss to $541 million from $1.0 billion on revenue that nearly doubled to $7.8 billion.
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The company also closed the quarter with $100 billion of cash and marketable securities and a $47.5 billion backlog, resources it says are going into Starship, Starlink satellites, and its artificial intelligence (AI) platform.
The V3 satellites Flight 14 would carry are the larger generation that the network's next capacity step depends on.
Of course, a tentative date is just that. The flight could slip into September, and the regulatory review isn't on the company's clock. A missed catch wouldn't end the program, either. Test flights exist to find the failures.
But a catch that works would be the first time the Ship itself came back to the tower. And with the stock around $141 as of this writing and the company valued near $1.9 trillion, the reusability case is arguably carrying a lot of that price.
