SpaceX's market value surpasses $2 trillion, and the "space + AI" combination is being revalued.

On June 12, 2026, SpaceX listed on the Nasdaq under the code name SPCX, setting a new record in global IPO history. Founded by Elon Musk, the rocket company priced its offering at $135 per share, issued 555.6 million shares to raise $75 billion, and closed its first day of trading at $160.95—up 19.22% from the offering price. Its market capitalization then jumped past $2.1 trillion at once, making it the sixth-largest publicly traded company by market cap in the United States. This event not only placed Musk at the very top globally as the “world’s first trillionaire,” but also re-anchored the market’s valuation ceiling for the “Space + AI” narrative combination at an unprecedented height.

However, the capital markets’ disagreement on this valuation is just as intense as their focus on its sheer scale. Morningstar analysts, using a discounted cash flow model, estimated SpaceX’s fair value at only $780 billion—less than half of the IPO pricing. Aswath Damodaran, a valuation expert at New York University, anchored fair value at $1.3 trillion and similarly believed there was substantial upside in the IPO price. Under the $2 trillion market cap on the first day, what are the core assets supporting this figure? In February 2026, when SpaceX carried out the merger with xAI, how did it reshape the company’s valuation benchmark through integration logic?

The Core of a $2 Trillion Valuation: How the xAI Merger Rewrites SpaceX’s Pricing Benchmark

To understand why SpaceX’s IPO valuation could reach $2 trillion, we must first trace back to the key restructuring milestones before it went public.

In February 2026, SpaceX completed a comprehensive acquisition of xAI and X through an all-stock, tax-free transaction. The deal was characterized as a “business combination under common control.” In the transaction, SpaceX’s own valuation was about $1 trillion, while xAI, founded in 2023, was valued at $250 billion. The combined entity’s overall valuation after the merger was $1.25 trillion. Judging from the deal structure, this effectively meant SpaceX completed an “internal valuation anchor” before the IPO: the merger was priced at $1.25 trillion, leaving an implied premium range of about $1.77 trillion to $2 trillion for the IPO—corresponding to an upside expectation of roughly 41% to 60%.

But the merger’s impact is not limited to a book increase in valuation. In its IPO prospectus, SpaceX broke its business into three segments. The communications segment is centered on Starlink. In 2025, it recorded revenue of $11.39 billion, with an adjusted EBITDA profit margin as high as 63%. The space segment includes launch services; in 2025 it had an operating loss of $657 million, mainly dragged by approximately $3.0 billion in annual R&D expenses for the Starship rocket. The AI segment is a “cash-drain” business; in 2025 it had revenue of only $3.2 billion, but an operating loss as high as $6.36 billion. The entire group posted a net loss of $4.94 billion in 2025, even though when operating independently in 2024 it was still profitable.

In other words, through the merger with xAI, SpaceX was transformed on paper from a profitable space company into a loss-making integrated technology enterprise—yet its IPO valuation was pushed up to $2 trillion instead. This “the more it loses, the more it’s worth” appearance reflects that the capital market is not valuing the company based on traditional period profits. Investors are effectively paying a premium for a “vertically integrated portfolio” that generates cash flow from Starlink, uses AI as a growth option, and is framed within a long-term narrative of space infrastructure.

Revenue and Cash Flow Structure: The Underlying Data Supporting the $2 Trillion

To test the reasonableness of the valuation, we must go back to the company’s revenue and cash flow structure.

As of March 2026, Starlink had approximately 9,600 satellites in orbit, serving more than 10.3 million subscription users across 164 countries. Total revenue in 2025 reached $18.67 billion. Using the $135 IPO price to estimate the implied market cap of $1.77 trillion, SpaceX’s price-to-sales (P/S) ratio at that time was about 94.7x. This multiple is extremely rare among technology giants—by comparison, NVIDIA’s P/S ratio is about 22x.

The logic supporting such a high P/S ratio depends on two assumptions.

First, whether Starlink’s user growth can continue. Average monthly revenue per user falls from $99 to $66, a decline of 33%, implying the company is taking market share in emerging markets with lower-priced packages to drive user growth. Second, when xAI’s AI business can achieve positive operating profit. In the first quarter of 2026, the AI division generated revenue of $818 million and an operating loss of $2.469 billion—far exceeding its ability to create revenue in the same period. In 2025, AI segment capital expenditures were as high as $12.73 billion, mainly used for NVIDIA chip procurement and the construction of the Colossus supercomputing center.

From a cash flow perspective, Starlink’s profits do fill the capital expenditure gaps of xAI and Starship. In the first quarter of 2026, AI capital expenditures were $7.723 billion, accounting for 76.4% of the group’s total spending, while Starlink’s capital expenditures in the same period were only $1.33 billion. SpaceX’s business model can be summarized as the structural characteristic of “Starlink funds AI, Starship burns money”—Starlink’s profits are reinvested as fuel for growth rather than distributed to shareholders. Under this framework, the 94.7x P/S ratio is not based on current operating efficiency, but on the market’s strong expectation that this “self-feeding loop” can achieve positive cash flow in the future.

A Tug-of-War in Institutional Valuation Disagreements

The capital market’s disagreement on this valuation perfectly reflects methodological conflicts among different pricing models.

The most representative bear case is Morningstar analyst Nicolas Owens. Using a discounted cash flow model, he calculated SpaceX’s fair value at about $780 billion—equivalent to roughly $60 per share. This valuation is built on conservative profit forecasts, in which the core launch and Starlink businesses are valued at $611 billion, while the AI business is given a probability-weighted valuation of only about $1700 billion (i.e., $1.7 trillion). Owens argues that xAI’s economic moat is not yet clear, and its AI business could become a “value destruction factor,” noting that xAI’s terminable AI compute contracts are insufficient to support an internal merger valuation of $2500 billion (i.e., $2.5 trillion).

The bullish logic relies more on pricing long-term technology narratives. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives views SpaceX’s listing as an important milestone for the development of the AI revolution and the space economy, pointing out that Starlink and space data infrastructure can provide AI with a physical layer support for edge computing and low-latency connectivity. Some Wall Street institutions decompose SpaceX’s valuation logic into “Starlink provides a cash flow anchor, Starship acts as a cost switch, and space AI data centers serve as long-dated price options.” Essentially, they position SpaceX as a hybrid platform spanning three sectors: communications, aerospace, and AI.

It is also worth noting that the IPO’s oversubscription multiple was about 4x. Retail demand exceeded $100 billion, but only about 20% of the shares were ultimately allocated to retail investors. This data indicates that even at an IPO valuation level of $1.77 trillion, short-term market demand still exceeded supply. As to whether the pricing is “too high,” there is no absolute answer—it depends on whether the valuation is compared against the discounted current earnings calculated using an DCF model, or whether it is evaluated based on the long-term scenario implied by the “Space + AI” synergistic narrative.

SPCX First-Day Trading Data: A 19% Jump and the “Siphoning” Effect

Looking at historical IPO data, SPCX’s first-day performance also needs to be observed over a longer cycle.

On June 12, SPCX opened at $150, reached a high of $176.52 intraday, dipped to $149.34, and ultimately closed at $160.95. The total trading volume for the day exceeded 500 million shares, with total transaction value of about $80 billion. The 19% first-day gain is considered strong performance in the IPO market, but compared with the first-day trading figures of tech stocks during certain internet bubble periods—where shares often doubled—it is still within a reasonable range.

SpaceX’s listing mechanism is designed to reduce first-day volatility, including initially allocating as much as 20%-30% of shares to retail investors, and implementing tiered lock-up restrictions for shares after the IPO to prevent immediate selling. The underwriters also hold an 8.3 billion share “green shoe” over-allotment option, which can increase market supply when demand remains strong.

A related effect worth paying attention to is the “siphoning effect.” On the day SPCX listed, other space-themed stocks suffered notable declines: Virgin Galactic plunged 31%, while Rocket Lab and EchoStar fell by approximately 10%. The phenomenon of funds flowing from similar sector peers into the first-day listing leader suggests that SPCX, in the short term, created a liquidity squeeze on comparable assets. It also further validates that the market has extremely high allocation intent for this single underlying asset.

Bitcoin Holdings Verification: The Strategic Logic of 18,712 BTC

The SpaceX IPO documents also include disclosures that are relevant to the crypto market.

According to the amended S-1 filing submitted to the SEC, SpaceX held 18,712 bitcoins as of March 31, 2026, with a cost basis of about $661 million, an average purchase price of approximately $35,320 per BTC, and a fair value of about $1.293 billion (i.e., $1.293 billion). Based on the current Bitcoin price of about $65,300, the value of this holding exceeds $1.2 billion, and the unrealized gain is close to double. With this position, SpaceX became the world’s eighth-largest publicly listed company Bitcoin holder, ranking behind Strategy, MicroStrategy, and Coinbase.

SpaceX classifies this Bitcoin holding as “non-core treasury assets.” This means the position is not essential for company operations, but it is large enough on the balance sheet to trigger disclosure requirements. This complements Tesla’s holding of 11,509 BTC. Together, the two Musk companies hold 30,221 BTC, and if combined, the scale would place them among the top five corporate Bitcoin holders globally.

From the perspective of corporate financial management, SpaceX’s choice to retain rather than liquidate its Bitcoin assets during the IPO process at least reflects two pieces of information. First, the company has some confidence in the medium-to-long-term value of the asset (at least it does not monetize the position during the listing window). Second, Bitcoin has become one of the selectable reserve tools for some leading technology companies’ treasury management. Unlike Strategy, which treats Bitcoin as a core asset, SpaceX’s Bitcoin position represents only about 0.06% of its $2 trillion market cap—so it is a “marginal presence but with symbolic significance.” Nevertheless, adopting Bitcoin as a reserve asset within the broader corporate narrative still has a first-mover effect.

Gate Stock Trading: Participate in SPCX Investment Directly Using USDT

For crypto investors who want to participate in SPCX, Gate’s stock trading feature offers a direct channel.

On June 9, 2026, Gate launched its “Direct IPO” product. The first project is SpaceX (SPCX). Users can submit subscription applications before SpaceX officially lists. After being allocated shares, they can enter the Gate stock account directly to trade real stocks. At 10:00 on June 13 (UTC+8), Gate listed the SPCXX/USDT spot trading pair. Users can use USDT to directly buy and sell SPCX stock assets, and instant swap trading is also supported.

The core advantage of Gate stock trading is that it integrates crypto accounts with stock accounts. Users do not need to open a separate traditional brokerage account, nor do they need to exchange fiat currency. Instead, they can complete stock trading within the existing Gate platform using USDT. The Gate stock section has already supported more than 10,000 U.S. stocks (such as NVIDIA and Apple), and it offers a minimum split-trading threshold of $1, greatly lowering the barrier to investing in high-priced technology stocks.

In addition, Gate’s stock trading fees can be as low as 0.023% (for users meeting VIP tier requirements), and it supports various derivative tools such as perpetual contracts and leveraged ETFs to meet different investment strategy preferences. For users who hold crypto and are interested in U.S. equity opportunities, there is no need to switch accounts and fund channels between two markets. This integrated approach is Gate’s differentiated competitive advantage versus traditional brokerages.

Conclusion

SpaceX’s $2 trillion listing valuation is a stress test of how the capital market prices the “space infrastructure + AI compute capacity + satellite communication network” triple narrative. The $1.25 trillion internal valuation anchor formed by the xAI merger, combined with retail subscription enthusiasm and institutional growth expectations during the IPO, ultimately pushed the market cap to $2.1 trillion on the first day. This figure does not reflect the company’s current value based on 2025 revenue of $18.67 billion, but rather the market’s long-term convergence expectations for Starlink user growth, a turnaround to profitability in the AI business, and Starship commercialization.

The true value of the bulls-vs-bears disagreement lies in revealing the boundaries of valuation uncertainty. Financial data for the next few quarters—especially Starlink’s ARPU trend, changes in xAI’s operating losses, and the capital expenditure pace of AI infrastructure—will become the key variables for testing whether the $2 trillion valuation is “worth it.” For crypto investors, the unexpected disclosure of Bitcoin holdings in SpaceX’s IPO documents, as well as the rollout of functions that let platforms such as Gate use USDT to directly trade SPCX, are gradually eroding the tool barriers between traditional stock markets and digital asset markets.