Elon Musk's SpaceX Hits the Public Market with a Record $1.77 Trillion Valuation
New York, Friday, 12 June 2026.
SpaceX shares begin trading today. Raising $75 billion at a $1.77 trillion valuation, Elon Musk’s aerospace giant has officially launched the largest public market debut in financial history.
The Financial Architecture of a $1.77 Trillion Behemoth
Justifying a valuation that makes SpaceX the seventh most-valuable U.S. company—and places it globally ahead of both Saudi Aramco and Tesla [3][6]—requires examining its aggressive capital expenditure, particularly following its early 2026 merger with Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence venture, xAI [3][5]. While SpaceX saw its first-quarter 2026 revenue climb by 15 percent to $4.69 billion from $4.07 billion in Q1 2025, the company simultaneously recorded a staggering net loss of $4.28 billion for the quarter [3]. This shortfall was driven heavily by $10.1 billion in capital expenditures, of which $7.7 billion was allocated directly to AI infrastructure [3].
Governance Concerns and the “Musk Premium”
Investors buying into SPCX are effectively making a leveraged bet on Elon Musk, who retains absolute control over the company’s strategic and financial decisions [4]. Through Class B super-voting shares, Musk controls over 82 percent of the voting power [3][6] [alert! ‘Forbes notes 85% while CNBC notes over 82%; using the conservative estimate’]. This concentrated power structure prompted Senator Elizabeth Warren to send a 12-page letter to SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins earlier this week, requesting a delay of the IPO to investigate risks associated with such governance [6]. Furthermore, pension fund officials from California and New York formally protested these provisions, including mandatory arbitration for shareholder claims, in May 2026 [4].
Sky-High Expectations vs. Fundamental Realities
The market remains sharply divided on SpaceX’s intrinsic value. Optimists point to the company’s vertically integrated model. Oppenheimer initiated coverage on Thursday with an “outperform” rating and a $190 price target, while New Street Research set a $165 target, valuing the xAI component alone at $575 billion [3]. Conversely, Morningstar analysts maintain that the stock is severely overvalued, issuing a fair-value estimate of just $63 per share, which equates to a valuation of approximately $780 billion [1][7]. Morningstar notes that the $1.77 trillion valuation trades at roughly 94 times the company’s revenue, requiring an extraordinary 75-fold increase in earnings from 2025 levels by 2035 to justify the price [7].