SpaceX IPO on the Nasdaq: Experts Warn of Excessive Valuation

Independent Valuations Are Significantly Lower

A European fund manager, who did not want to be named, therefore considers the shares "völlig überbewertet," according to Handelsblatt. Georg von Wallwitz, head of the asset manager Eyb & Wallwitz, is also skeptical: "Vermutlich wird die Aktie eine Weile steigen," he says, as the small number of freely tradable shares would meet with enormous buying pressure from the index funds of ETF providers. "Dann werden sich die fortgesetzten Verkäufe der Insider wie die Schwerkraft an einer Rakete bemerkbar machen," von Wallwitz notes.

Granda sees it similarly: "Wenn man künstliche Nachfrage schafft, bläht man den Kurs zunächst stark auf," he explains. Should SpaceX fail to meet expectations, a crash threatens: "Das entspricht dem Platzen einer Mini-Börsenblase." Morningstar also says that "fast jede Investmentbank der Welt" is currently beating the drum for SpaceX.

Starlink as the Financial Foundation

Given the high demand, the IPO is nevertheless likely to succeed. The investment bank Morgan Stanley expects revenue of 3.4 trillion dollars by 2040. In the AI business alone, revenues are expected to rise from 3.2 to 322 billion dollars by 2030. From 2031 onward, this is expected to generate positive cash flow. Alexander Hahn cautions, however: "Wenn nicht fortgesetzt neue Käufer gefunden werden, könnte es unschön enden."

SpaceX's financial foundation has so far rested on a single pillar: Starlink, the satellite internet network with more than ten million users in over 160 countries, contributed around 11.4 billion dollars to total revenue of 18.67 billion dollars in 2025 — roughly 61 percent — and was the only corporate division with operating profit. The previous year, on revenue of 18.7 billion dollars, there was a loss of five billion dollars. By comparison, the world's most valuable company, Nvidia, posted a net profit of nearly 73 billion dollars in 2025 on revenue of 130 billion dollars.

Voting Rights and Lock-up Rules

In February 2026, SpaceX acquired the AI company xAI; in early May 2026, Musk announced the dissolution of xAI as a standalone company. Since then, Grok and the network X have been operated under the division SpaceXAI. In the first quarter of 2026, the group's revenue growth slowed to 15 percent, while the operating loss widened to 1.9 billion dollars. The AI segment recorded an operating loss of 2.47 billion dollars on quarterly revenue of 818 million dollars; 76 percent of the quarter's total capital expenditure flowed into this area. An initial external stress test is the contract with Anthropic: the AI company pays 1.25 billion dollars per month for access to the Colossus data centers; the contract runs until May 2029 at the latest and can be terminated with 90 days' notice.

The capital structure after the IPO remains heavily tailored to Musk: with an economic stake of around 42 percent, he controls 85 percent of the combined voting rights; no other shareholder reaches even five percent. His shares remain locked up for 366 days, departing from the staggered lock-up rules, while insiders can release their shares in several tranches. For retail investors, SpaceX plans, according to media reports, to provide around 30 percent of the issuance volume via broker platforms — three times as much as in a typical major IPO.

Risks in the Prospectus

The Nasdaq has relaxed its rules and is allowing inclusion in the Nasdaq-100 as early as five trading days after the IPO. Since SpaceX would rank among the heaviest-weighted stocks in the index at a valuation of two trillion dollars, index funds are forced to buy the shares within a few days. 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. The real stress test for the valuation thesis comes with the quarterly results for the second quarter of 2026: it will then become apparent for the first time whether the AI segment measurably turns profitable thanks to the Anthropic contract, or whether Starlink must continue to shoulder the group's losses alone.

The S-1 document explicitly names Musk's parallel leadership roles at Tesla, X, xAI, the Boring Company, and Neuralink as a risk factor, as well as conflicts of interest and reputational risks. For probable legal risks, the prospectus records a provision of 530 million dollars, the bulk of which relates to the xAI segment: this includes an Irish data protection investigation into Grok's handling of data belonging to European children, as well as probes into non-consensual sexualized images that the chatbot is alleged to have generated. Delays to the Starship heavy-lift system, which according to the S-1 is to carry the first V3 satellites from the second half of 2026, would weigh directly on revenue forecasts, as neither V3 nor V2 Mobile satellites can be launched with Falcon 9.