The SpaceX IPO: Vision, Valuation, and the Lessons of IPO Exuberance

The S-1 is filed. The ticker is set. The roadshow opens June 4, pricing lands June 11, and SPCX trades for the first time on June 12. We know you’re watching, and we know why – this is the largest equity offering in capital markets history. ^[1]

Some of you are frustrated that retail access at the IPO price will be nearly impossible – institutional investors will absorb the allocation. That frustration is earned. And it makes the discipline we’re asking for here even harder to hear.

Our job isn’t to mirror your excitement. It’s to tell you what the history of IPO markets has consistently and expensively shown.

The SpaceX Story: Vision at a Price

SpaceX targets a $75 billion raise at a $1.75 trillion valuation -ticker SPCX, listed on Nasdaq. That dwarfs Saudi Aramco’s $29.4 billion record raise. Nothing in public markets history compares. ^[1]

This is not a rocket company. Starlink – now past 10 million subscribers – drove roughly $11 billion of SpaceX’s $18.6 billion in 2025 revenue. Add xAI, the X platform, satellite communications, and orbital logistics, and the company’s own total addressable market estimate reaches $28.5 trillion. ^[1]

And yet here is the number that deserves equal attention:

Against $18.6 billion in revenue, SpaceX burned $4.9 billion in 2025. Capital expenditures hit $20.7 billion – AI alone consumed more than Space and Connectivity combined. ^[1]

The $1.75 trillion valuation does not price what SpaceX is today. It prices what SpaceX must become. Public markets have settled that distinction before – and the settlement has rarely been cheap.

The governance structure deserves equal attention. Class A shares – the ones retail investors can buy – carry one vote. Class B shares, held overwhelmingly by Elon Musk, carry ten. After the IPO, Musk controls the company. Full stop. Public shareholders ride as passengers; he flies the plane. ^[1]

When Excitement Becomes Expensive: Case Studies in IPO Exuberance

The IPO market follows a pattern, and it does not vary much: visionary companies generate outsized enthusiasm, valuations price a best-case future, and retail investors (who can only buy after institutions have fixed the opening price) absorb the gap when reality arrives. The four cases below are not cautionary tales chosen to discourage you. They’re chosen because they happened.

WeWork (2019): The $47 Billion Implosion

WeWork stands as the definitive IPO cautionary tale of the modern era. SoftBank had valued it at $47 billion in private markets. Then the S-1 landed in August 2019. ^[3] Investors who read it found governance chaos, a cash furnace, and a business model that required unlimited patient capital to survive.

The IPO died. WeWork reached public markets in 2021 via SPAC – at $9 billion, an 81% haircut from its private peak. Two years later it filed for bankruptcy at a market cap of roughly $45 million. SoftBank absorbed more than $14 billion in losses. ^[2] The capital destruction was total.

Uber & Lyft (2019): Ride-Sharing Meets Reality

Both companies arrived at public markets carrying massive brand recognition and VC-era valuations to match. Both dropped on day one. Lyft slid below its offering price within hours; Uber, which had traded privately above $100 billion, did the same. In their IPO quarters, Uber posted a net loss of $5.2 billion and Lyft posted $644.2 million. ^[5]

Private market valuations and public market expectations run on different logic. When they collide at the IPO window, retail investors absorb the shock. Institutions rarely do.

Peloton (2019): Priced for Perfection, Delivered Pain

Peloton priced at the top of its range – double its last private funding round. ^[3] The stock fell 11% on day one. Within three weeks it was down 17%. The company generated $915 million in revenue but carried $195.6 million in net losses. Roughly $900 million in investor capital vanished on opening day alone. ^[4] In retrospect, analysts observed, the gap between venture-era optimism and public market discipline had been obvious all along.

Rivian (2021): The EV Dream and the 90% Decline

Rivian’s November 2021 IPO raised $11.9 billion – the largest U.S. offering in more than five years. Within days, its market cap eclipsed both Ford and General Motors, despite minimal revenue and factories still figuring out production. ^{[6] [7]} The excitement was real. The valuation was not.

Eight months after the IPO, the stock sat 66% below its offering price. By October 2024, it had shed roughly 90% from its post-IPO peak. ^[6] Retail investors who bought at the $106.75 opening price watched the stock retreat toward the $78 IPO price almost immediately. ^[9] The company then faced a securities class action alleging it had misrepresented vehicle pricing during the offering – ultimately settling for $250 million. ^[8]

What This Means for SpaceX

None of this predicts that SpaceX follows the same path. Starlink’s subscriber base and recurring revenue give the company real, tangible ground to stand on – more than WeWork’s coworking model or Rivian’s pre-revenue EV ambitions ever had. The launch technology is proven. The competitive position in orbital services is defensible.

But the questions worth sitting with are these:

• At a $1.75 trillion valuation on $18.6 billion in revenue and a $4.9 billion loss, how much future success is already priced into Day 1? ^[1]
• What happens to the share price if Starlink’s revenue-per-user continues declining as subscriber growth accelerates? ^[1]
• How does a retail investor, who will buy after institutions have already set the opening equilibrium, identify a fair entry point?
• With single-vote Class A shares and no meaningful governance influence, what recourse do public shareholders have if the strategy changes course? ^[1]

The SpaceX filing itself notes the NVDA parallel: after quarter after quarter of record growth, NVDA stock barely moved on its most recent results. ^[1] When expectations price in perfection, there is nowhere left to go but down. SpaceX opens with more optimism baked in than nearly any company in market history.

Our Perspective and Recommendation

We are not dismissing the significance of this moment. The SpaceX IPO is a landmark event in capital markets history, and the underlying businesses (Starlink in particular) represent real and substantial commercial achievement. What we are doing is being direct with you about how we approach it: we do not make individual stock recommendations, and we do not believe chasing single-name IPO trades serves our clients’ long-term interests. That discipline applies even here.

Our guidance, as always, is grounded in evidence and your individual circumstances:

• We don’t recommend individual stocks, including SPCX. Our view is that concentrated single-name positions, particularly at IPO valuations, introduce risk that diversified strategies are specifically designed to avoid. That principle does not bend for marquee names.
• If the underlying themes – satellite broadband, commercial space infrastructure, AI-integrated connectivity – align with your long-term portfolio goals, there are diversified vehicles that provide exposure to those trends without concentrating risk in a single company’s IPO outcome. We are happy to walk through those options with you.
• Passing on an IPO is not the same as passing on the future. The history of transformative companies shows that patient, diversified investors have consistently captured long-term value without bearing the concentrated risk that IPO-day buyers absorb. Our job is to help you be that investor.

 June 12 marks a moment in market history. That significance is real. But our responsibility to you is not to mirror the moment – it is to keep your portfolio anchored to the principles that have served long-term investors well: diversification, discipline, and the patience to let evidence, not excitement, drive decisions.

We’re here to help you think through this, whether that means reviewing your current allocation, discussing diversified exposure to the sectors SpaceX operates in, or simply talking through what you’re reading in the news. Reach out anytime.