The SpaceX IPO is Bullshit

SpaceX is about to IPO at $1.75 trillion. We're not early. We're the exit.

It could come as early as June 2026.

SpaceX is hoping to raise $75B, which would value SpaceX at $1.75T...

Here's why it's bullshit:

SpaceX went from a $46 billion valuation to $1.75 trillion in six years. That's 38x. Every dollar of that gain happened in private markets, accessible only to VCs, sovereign wealth funds, and billionaires.

By the time you and I can buy a single share, the growth has already been captured... unless we're assuming that SpaceX will be.. what? A $100T business?

For this, and many more reasons we'll get into I can safely say: this IPO is bullshit.

Let's put this in perspective. Google IPO'd at a $23 billion valuation, roughly 10x its revenue. Facebook went public at $104 billion, about 26x revenue.

Both were considered expensive at the time.

SpaceX is asking for 110x its 2025 revenue of $15.5 billion. Higher than any comparable public company, according to PitchBook.

So the business must be on fire, right? Nope.

(source - this article was written in 2025)

And the growth story? It's already decelerating.

Revenue growth went from 90% in 2023 to 51% in 2024 to 18% in 2025.

Starlink is a real, profitable, incredible business generating about $10.6 billion a year with strong margins. I'm not questioning the business. I'm questioning what you're being asked to pay for it, and perhaps more importantly... why now?

On top of that, they merged xAI into SpaceX right before the planned IPO. That unit is burning $1 to $2 billion a year, all 11 original cofounders have left, and it was folded in to juice the valuation narrative.

A Cornell finance professor put it plainly: the xAI merger lets Musk bundle launch, Starlink, and AI into a single "mega story" that supports a richer valuation than any of the businesses would fetch on their own.

They sold themselves out

Here's what really pisses me off. COO Gwynne Shotwell said in 2018 that SpaceX wouldn't go public until it was "flying regularly to Mars." That was the whole thesis for staying private.

Mars missions are too risky, too long-horizon, public shareholders wouldn't tolerate the volatility. Makes sense. But in February 2026, Musk delayed the Mars mission by five to seven years to focus on the moon. So Mars isn't closer. It's further away. The only thing that changed is this IPO will make Elon Musk the first trillionaire in human history. His 44% stake would be worth roughly $770 billion at the IPO valuation.

So it was the money all along, huh? Bastards.

Lumping in his cash burning/unprofitable businesses

The SpaceX bought xAI earlier this year. xAI bought X (formerly twitter) in 2025.

X was brought under the same corporate umbrella alongside xAI.

It's hard to write how stinky this transaction was.. i'm suprised more people haven't talked about it. Here's a quicktime:

By late 2024, Fidelity had marked down its Twitter stake by 79%, implying the whole platform was worth about $9 billion.
Five months later, xAI "acquired" it for $33 billion in equity.
- That's not a business recovery. That's Musk selling a company to himself at a price he made up.
Then xAI went from an $80 billion valuation to $250 billion when SpaceX absorbed it less than a year later, despite burning $1 to $2 billion annually with barely any disclosed revenue.

Each step in this chain exists for one purpose: to inflate the number that eventually lands on your lap at IPO... and guess who's next (hint: they want it to be us)

That's three separate businesses - launch, AI, and social media- bundled into a single "mega story" to juice valuation.

The xAI angle alone is... fine...even if the valuation is bonkers... but bringing Twitter along makes the bundling even more egregious.

So let's be clear about what's happening. Musk overpaid for Twitter. Twitter's value collapsed. He folded it into xAI at a magically inflated valuation. Then he folded xAI into SpaceX at an even more inflated valuation. Now he's IPO-ing the whole thing at $1.75 trillion and inviting retail investors to buy in. As one venture capital principal told TechCrunch, "All of Elon's companies today are basically one company. The xAI merger just ends some of the fiction that the two businesses were separate."

But, Dave, they're giving 30% to retail investors. Stop being so mean

According to Yahoo Finance, SpaceX could be reserving up to 30% of the IPO for retail investors

And the 30% retail allocation everyone is celebrating? Don't be fooled. They're raising $75 billion, the largest IPO of all time. They need retail money to absorb that amount. The 30% "retail" bucket also includes family offices and high-net-worth clients, not just regular people on brokerage apps. One analyst at MarketWise said it best: "If you look around the table and can't figure out who the sucker is, it's you."

Also, the verge is reporting as of today that they have reportedly filed for the IPO but they're keeping the numbers secret (for now)... wtf?

Here's what should bother you about the confidential filing. SpaceX gets to have the SEC review its financials behind closed doors before anyone else sees them. That's legal. Plenty of companies do it. But this is supposed to be the largest IPO in human history, and they're specifically courting retail investors with an unprecedented 30% allocation. They want your money. They just don't want to show you the books first. You're being asked to get excited about a $1.75 trillion price tag without being allowed to see what you're actually buying.

So we won't really know what the numbers really look like until that's out in public. That's not sus at all.

I don't think trillionaires are good for society

If this IPO happens at a $1.75T valuation, Musk will be the world's first trillionaire.

It's really hard to imagine how much money $1T is.

It's... $1,000,000,000,000. It's a thousand-billions. It's too much fucking money (and power) for one man.

I don't want to share this world with trillionaires.

My final thoughts

This is how the system works now. Companies stay private through the entire hypergrowth phase, insiders capture all the upside, then they IPO at the absolute peak valuation and invite retail investors in to hold the bag.

Retail used to get access to companies 3 to 5 years after founding. Now it's 10 to 13 years. SpaceX is 24 years old.

I think SpaceX could be a wonderul longterm hold at the right price.

But we always must remember the difference between price and value. Believing in the business and paying 110x revenue for it are two completely different things. Don't confuse excitement with opportunity. That's not investing. That's fandom.

Sentiment: I hope it burns for the good of humanity