In just its second trading day as a public company, Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 7.51%) blasted above a $2.5 trillion market value — pulling ahead of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM +4.90%) as the world’s sixth most valuable company behind Nvidia, Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon.
Here’s what SpaceX needs to deliver to still make it a good growth stock to buy now.
Image source: Getty Images.
The market is showing a lot of demand for SpaceX stock
SpaceX generated just $18.67 billion in 2025 revenue and reported a net loss of $4.94 billion. So red flags naturally emerged when its valuation topped that of Taiwan Semiconductor, which generated $35.9 billion in sales and $18.2 billion in net income in its last quarter alone.
Part of the reason SpaceX is soaring is that the shares it made available to the public (known as the float) were such a small percentage of its outstanding shares. SpaceX raised $75 billion by selling 555 million shares at $135 each, and then another $10.7 billion as underwriters like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley exercised their options to buy more shares. That means the float makes up around just 5% of SpaceX’s total market capitalization.
The float could soon increase once early investors can sell their shares. As my colleague Adria Cimino details, early investors may sell as much as 20% of their holdings on the second full day after the next earnings report, which will probably come in August. They may sell as much as 30% if the stock price is at least 30% higher than its IPO price of $135 for a minimum of five of the 10 days following the earnings report.
After closing at $192.50 per share on June 15, SpaceX is already 43% above its IPO price. This means that the stock could go nowhere between now and that post-earnings window to trigger an eligible 30% sale by early investors (if they choose to).
SpaceX’s golden opportunity
SpaceX will face much more scrutiny as a public company, which may lead investors to expect faster revenue growth than it has delivered. In SpaceX’s Form S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, its key Starlink segment of low-Earth orbit satellites showed slowing growth. In fact, artificial intelligence (AI) could be the bigger near-term catalyst for SpaceX.
SpaceX merged with xAI earlier this year, which was a key move leading up to its initial public offering. Morgan Stanley forecasts $330 billion in SpaceX revenue by 2030, $190 billion coming from AI. Goldman Sachs is even more optimistic, expecting $470 billion by 2030. CEO Elon Musk is targeting $1 trillion in 2031 revenue. If SpaceX hits that five-year target, then its current market cap is easily justified.
Investors will likely get more details on what is going into such an aggressive forecast from Musk when SpaceX reports its first quarterly earnings as a public company for the period ending June 30, 2026. But if I had to guess, that figure is based on assuming that SpaceX successfully deploys orbital data centers. SpaceX has a lot of moonshots, but none compare to building data centers in space. To quote its Form S-1:
Specifically, we believe SpaceX’s reusable rockets, scaled satellite manufacturing, and operational expertise can enable the cost-effective and rapid deployment of massive AI compute satellite constellations — with potentially millions of satellites — for orbital data centers. We believe these AI compute satellites in Sun-synchronous orbit will be able to handle energy-intensive AI workloads, such as inference demand, at far greater scale and efficiency than terrestrial alternatives, with Starlink providing low-latency, global connectivity linking these orbital AI systems to people around the world and delivering real-time intelligence. We expect to begin deploying our orbital AI compute satellites as early as 2028.
While these AI compute satellite constellations sound far-fetched, they intersect perfectly with SpaceX’s industry-leading experience in low-Earth orbit satellites, its unique reusable rocket technology to send payloads into space while minimizing costs and emissions, and its position in AI. Data centers in space would likely have far higher start-up costs than land-based systems, but they would benefit from free solar energy and from avoiding water-intensive cooling systems, since they would be closed-loop systems. However, maintenance could be a major headwind.
Tempering expectations
Starlink’s mobile and broadband internet only scratch the surface of the ways in which SpaceX plans to monetize space. Even if SpaceX shows rapid revenue growth, it’s highly unlikely that the company will be consistently profitable anytime soon. To justify its current valuation, SpaceX will need to execute to perfection.
Investors with an ultra-high risk tolerance who believe SpaceX can rapidly advance toward these lofty targets may want to open a starting position in SpaceX. But for the vast majority of investors, it’s probably best to wait for the public markets to digest SpaceX, for its float to make up the majority of outstanding shares, and to see if orbital data centers will be a realistic medium-term goal or an endeavor that won’t come till further down the road.
