Experts Critical of SpaceX IPO: Warnings of Excessive Valuation

Despite its record size, sentiment among experts is subdued. An unnamed European fund manager told Handelsblatt that SpaceX is "völlig überbewertet." Morningstar analyst Franco Granda is also critical of the valuation. He estimates SpaceX's fair value at $1.15 trillion and warns: "Wenn man künstliche Nachfrage schafft, bläht man den Kurs zunächst stark auf." Speaking with Handelsblatt, he also cautioned that a disappointment would amount to "dem Platzen einer Mini-Börsenblase."

Business Figures Between Losses and the Starlink Backbone

The valuation range among experts is wide. While Morningstar values SpaceX at $780 billion, Aswath Damodaran of New York University—also known as the "Dean of Valuation"—sees the value at $1.25 to $1.35 trillion. Goldman Sachs, serving as lead bank of the IPO consortium, forecasts revenue growth for SpaceX's AI business from $3.2 billion to $322 billion by 2030, with positive cash flows from 2031. Morgan Stanley, also involved in the IPO, expects group revenue of as much as $3.4 trillion by 2040.

The company's operating situation, however, gives cause for caution. In the first quarter of 2026, the group's revenue growth slowed to 15 percent, while the operating loss widened to $1.9 billion. The AI segment posted an operating loss of $2.47 billion on quarterly revenue of $818 million. The xAI segment alone—which was acquired by SpaceX in February 2026 and integrated into the SpaceXAI division—recorded an operating loss of around $6.4 billion. The only stabilizing factor is Starlink, the satellite internet network with more than ten million users in over 160 countries, which in 2025 was the only group division to generate an operating profit, contributing around $11.4 billion to total revenue of $18.67 billion—roughly 61 percent.

Low Free Float and High Index Demand

A key short-term price driver could be inclusion in major indices. NASDAQ has relaxed its rules for newly listed large companies, allowing inclusion in the NASDAQ-100 just five trading days after the IPO. Inclusion in the MSCI World is also imminent, according to announcements from major index providers. Georg von Wallwitz, managing director of asset manager Eyb & Wallwitz, therefore expects initial price increases driven by strong demand from index funds. "Wenn nicht fortgesetzt neue Käufer gefunden werden, könnte es unschön enden," he warns at the same time.

However, the free float in the IPO is unusually low. SpaceX is expected to place only around three to four percent of total shares in free trading, with roughly 5 percent of all SpaceX shares being issued overall. Franco Granda estimates that this factor alone can trigger price swings of 20 to 30 percent in the first trading days, compared with typical Tesla swings of 10 to 15 percent on comparable catalysts. According to media reports, the limited supply is oversubscribed multiple times, with nearly four buy orders for each share. Around 30 percent of the issuance volume is said to be going to retail investors via broker platforms—three times the share of a typical large IPO, equivalent to roughly $22.5 billion on a $75 billion volume.

Risk Factors in the Prospectus

The ownership and voting structure reinforces dependence on a single individual. With an economic stake of around 42 percent, Musk controls 85 percent of the combined voting rights; no other shareholder even reaches five percent. The dual-class structure gives Musk's Class B shares ten votes per share, while Class A shareholders hold only one vote. Musk himself is not selling any of his own shares in the IPO. The S-1 document explicitly identifies Musk's parallel leadership roles at Tesla, X, xAI, Boring Company, and Neuralink as a risk factor, as well as conflicts of interest and reputational risks.

The prospectus also discloses a provision of $530 million for probable legal risks of the entire group, the bulk of which relates to the xAI segment. These include, among other things, an Irish data protection investigation into Grok's handling of European children's data, as well as probes into non-consensual sexualized images allegedly generated by the chatbot. For the AI business, there is also an agreement with Anthropic, which pays $1.25 billion per month for access to the Colossus data centers—a contract with a maximum term until May 2029 that either side can terminate with 90 days' notice. Musk himself described it as 180-day leasing.

The lock-up mechanism is staggered: after the Q2 quarterly report, up to 20 percent of the restricted shares are released, with a further 10 percent on strong price performance. This is followed by five time-based tranches of 7 percent each at 70, 90, 105, 120, and 135 days after the IPO, another 28 percent after the Q3 report, and full release after 180 days. Von Wallwitz expects the real stress test for the SpaceX share to begin only around seven weeks after the IPO, when insiders are allowed to sell their shares. "Dann werden sich die fortgesetzten Verkäufe der Insider wie die Schwerkraft an einer Rakete bemerkbar machen," he warns. The roadshow began as scheduled on June 4, 2026.