In a few days, SpaceX will go public on the Nasdaq, the largest IPO of all time. Now, of all times, Morningstar calculates that half the valuation is pure future fantasy.
It’s set to be the largest IPO in history, and it’s practically around the corner. On June 12th, the shares will be listed on the Nasdaq under the symbol SPCX. The price has already been set: $135 per share, 555.6 million shares, around $75 billion in proceeds. That works out to a valuation of about $1.77 trillion. It is precisely this number that sparks the dispute.
Morningstar estimates half that
A few days before the debut, Morningstar of all companies did the valuation and came up with a fair value of around 780 billion US dollars. That’s not a little less than what the previous owners assume. That’s 55 percent less. Analyst Nicolas Owens expects discounted cash flows: The core business with rocket launches and the Starlink satellite internet together have an enterprise value of around 611 billion US dollars. For everything related to artificial intelligence and its subsidiary xAI, he only adds around 170 billion, probability-weighted. Owens believes the group is significantly overvalued and advises waiting for more attractive prices until after the IPO.
Sounds strong, but is in the red
The skepticism has solid reasons. Last year, SpaceX had sales of around $18.7 billion, driven primarily by Starlink, whose revenues increased by around 50 percent compared to the previous year. Sounds strong. The bottom line was that there was still a net loss of almost five billion US dollars. The biggest item behind this is the AI bet: xAI alone made an operating loss of $6.36 billion in 2025, and over the past five quarters more than $20 billion flowed into the chatbot Grok and the Colossus data center in Memphis. Anyone who gets in at 1.77 trillion is paying primarily for expectations, not for today’s profits.
The imagination is in orbit, and so is the risk
A detail from Owens’ model shows what the high rating is really betting on. Morningstar estimates the most optimistic scenario in which SpaceX puts data centers into orbit at $1.3 trillion, but only gives it a 7 percent probability of occurrence. If this plan fails, which Owens believes is significantly more likely at 43 percent, over $81 billion in value would be destroyed.
There is also the question of power: according to the updated securities prospectus Elon Musk after the IPO over 82 percent of the voting rights. And the February 2026 merger with xAI, which valued the combined entity at $1.25 trillion, was not between independent parties. For investors this means: a lot of vision, little say.
Bigger than Aramco, more expensive than Tesla
Even the path to the stock market breaks with convention. Instead of a price range that banks use to gauge demand, SpaceX directly sets a fixed price, typical of Musk. Either way, the dimensions are historic: With around 75 billion US dollars in proceeds, the IPO clearly eclipses Saudi Aramco’s previous record from 2019 with 29.4 billion. At 1.77 trillion, SpaceX would be among the seven most valuable companies in the USA, ahead of Tesla with currently around 1.6 trillion US dollars.
The only question is: Does the market go along with this number or does it agree with Morningstar?
The first real acid test comes on the first trading day on June 12th. It is then worth looking at two triggers: the next quarterly figures, which will show whether Starlink will continue to bear the AI losses, and the end of the holding period – according to the prospectus, Musk will hold his shares for 366 days. If you have SPCX on your list, both dates belong in the calendar. Because whether the 1.77 trillion will last or Morningstar’s 780 billion – the equivalent of less than $60 per share – will probably not be decided by the start alone, but by the numbers afterwards.
Leon Müller, editorial team at finanzen.net
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