SpaceX IPO at 94x Revenue? Why I'm Sitting This One Out

June 16, 2026·3 min read

At 94x revenue, this isn't just expensive — it's strange

SpaceX priced its IPO this week at $135 a share, about a $1.77 trillion valuation — the largest IPO in capital markets history. Google then effectively validated it as a major AI infrastructure company by signing a roughly $30 billion compute contract.

And yet, looking at the price, I took a step back.

Here's the analogy that sticks with me. Say your kid's lemonade stand makes $100 a year. A normal buyer might pay $300 — three years of sales — maybe $500, or even $1,000 if they think it'll grow fast. But imagine someone offers $9,400 for that stand. That's essentially what's happening with SpaceX today.

The numbers make it sharper

Recent estimates put SpaceX at roughly $18 billion in annual revenue, yet the IPO valuation being discussed is around $1.75 trillion. That means investors are paying about 94 years' worth of current revenue.

Company type	Typical revenue multiple
Mature companies	2–10x
Fast-growing tech	10–20x
SpaceX (IPO)	~90–100x

Finding a good stock isn't only about finding a good company — it's about finding a good company at a fair, or even low, price. SpaceX will almost certainly be a good company and will probably break a lot of records. My problem isn't the company. It's the valuation.

Even the best case is more modest than it sounds

Here's the part I find most interesting. The largest company in the world right now is Nvidia at about $5 trillion. If SpaceX lists around $2 trillion, it only needs to grow about 150% to become the biggest company on Earth.

So if you buy the IPO and SpaceX outperforms every other company on the planet to hit $5 trillion-plus, you gain roughly 150%. That's a nice return in a short window, but it's not insane. For perspective, Micron is up over 670% in the last year.

Dilution is a real risk, not a footnote

Heavy dilution is easily in SpaceX's future. On listing day, Musk holds the founder, CEO, CTO, and chairman titles, keeping about 85% of the voting power on roughly 42% of the equity through a super-voting class. SpaceX lists as a controlled company under Nasdaq rules, exempt from certain independent-director requirements.

The S-1 also discloses a performance grant of up to 1 billion additional shares tied to milestones — including a million-resident Mars colony. Tesla owners know this trade-off well. Concentrated control has produced extraordinary outcomes, but also governance disputes. Whether the founder-led premium justifies the discount is each investor's call.

The IPO data is consistently sobering

The data on IPOs is very consistent. The Ritter studies and the 2020–2022 IPO cohort show that, on average, IPOs trail the broad market by roughly 17 percentage points in their first 12 months.

Remember a comparison you've probably forgotten. Alibaba in 2014 was the previous record holder for the largest US IPO. It came public at $68, surged to $93 on day one, then drifted lower for almost three years before retaking its IPO price. SpaceX comes in at roughly three times Alibaba's size.

SpaceX could soar from the start and never look back. That still wouldn't make it the best investment for you. I'm not taking part in this one. This is not financial advice, and I'm not a financial advisor — do your own research.

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