When SpaceX eventually went public, the response was a mix of a cultural moment and a stock market event. After witnessing the nearly flawless, simulation-like landing of Falcon 9 boosters on drone ships in the middle of the Atlantic, people wanted a piece of that. $135 was the IPO price. It briefly reached $150 in a matter of days. Then, as of mid-2026, it was trading below $120, down more than 40% from its peak due to a slow, grinding selloff.
The market’s most honest assessment of SpaceX thus far is likely this discrepancy between enthusiasm and reality.
What the company has truly created cannot be disputed. In 2025, more than half of SpaceX’s revenue came from its satellite internet service, Starlink. That is actual, recurring income from subscribers on farms, ships, isolated villages, and military installations that comes in each month; it is not a futuristic forecast. Total revenue for the second quarter of 2026 was $7.8 billion, a 92% increase from the previous year. Revenue from the launch increased. Starlink expanded. Even the more recent AI solutions market, which is essentially renting out processing power, expanded sevenfold. The company is growing more quickly than nearly any publicly traded company of its size by practically every metric.
Nevertheless, Morningstar, one of the more sober voices in equity research, estimates the stock’s fair value at $62. It was trading at about twice that after hours on the day of the earnings. That is a significant disparity. That is the market pricing for a SpaceX version that hasn’t yet occurred and might not for some time.
The bull case for SpaceX isn’t really about the company’s current earnings, so it’s worth pondering that for a while. It concerns what the company might become if reusable rockets continue to become more affordable, if orbital data centers truly function at scale, and if Starship eventually makes Mars missions financially feasible. Believers liken it to purchasing a car from Ford when the Model T was first introduced or from Amazon in 1999. That’s a fair historical analogy, but it conveniently ignores the fact that many businesses from 1999 have since ceased to exist.
The truly murky part of the business is the AI side. Instead of creating its own chips in collaboration with Tesla, as had previously been suggested, SpaceX declared that it would only use Nvidia chips for its orbital AI satellites. It’s still unclear if that’s a quiet abandonment of a more ambitious plan or a strategic shift. It is evident that the business reported an operating loss of $143 million despite spending $3.5 billion on research and development during the previous quarter. For a business expanding at this rate, that is not concerning, but it does make one wonder when and to what extent profitability will truly materialize.
Timing is another problem. Lockup agreements continue to prevent many early investors from selling. A flood of fresh shares will enter the market after those expire. This type of supply pressure often causes prices to decline, sometimes dramatically. That is a significant short-term obstacle that should be taken into consideration by anyone considering purchasing right now.
Then there’s the more difficult question that nearly all serious SpaceX investors eventually ask themselves: What percentage of the company’s worth is directly related to Elon Musk? Not SpaceX as an organization, but Musk as an individual—his standing, his presence, his capacity to draw talent, money, and public interest. Without him, the business might still run smoothly. If he left, the stock might also drop by 30% in a week. There is a genuine risk associated with that type of key-person dependency, which is not well represented in any financial model.
In actuality, SpaceX is doing things that no other business on the planet is. Its launch business has made reaching orbit seem almost commonplace, which is impressive in and of itself. In regions of the world where building terrestrial infrastructure would take decades, Starlink is revolutionizing internet access. Even though the majority of them are still years away from turning a profit, the goals beyond that—orbital computing, lunar manufacturing, and eventually Mars—are astounding.
A fairly subjective calculation will determine whether or not that makes it a wise investment. There is a case to be made if you are able to hold for ten years, can withstand actual volatility, and sincerely believe in the space economy’s long arc. However, this is probably not what you would expect if you were hoping for SpaceX to act like a typical stock with steady appreciation and predictable earnings. Not yet, anyway.
