SpaceX’s proposed IPO has already captured global attention, with expectations it could become the largest public offering in the history of the United States. Yet beyond the headlines and eye-watering valuation lies a business facing enormous technical, financial and operational challenges. In this piece, our Investment Director William Lamond examines whether investor enthusiasm can continue once the market begins scrutinising the long-term economics behind Elon Musk’s most ambitious ventures.
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Last Wednesday, Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) released its IPO prospectus with the hope it will be able to raise $75bn, which would make it the largest IPO in U.S. history and eclipsing the previous raise of $22bn by Alibaba in 2014. If successful, SpaceX market capitalisation would be circa $2tn and put it in the 10 ten largest companies by market capitalisation.
The prospectus gives investors the opportunity to have a detailed look into the inner workings of SpaceX and the significant capital expenditure it expects to spend over the coming decades. Currently hugely loss-making to the tune of $4.9bn in 2025 due to capex, investing in AI and the acquisition of xAI. The only business with commercial scale and potential to grow further profitability in the next few years is Starlink, the provider of broadband and enterprise connectivity and potentially Grok the AI chatbot.
What is clear is that this will not be the last time SpaceX looks to raise money as the businesses it is trying to develop are heavily capital intensive and highly complicated to build. You only need to look at the last major advancement in human transportation, commercial aircraft. The two main producers; Airbus and Boeing. They produce large aircraft that take years to develop from concept to 1st delivery, it is rare that these programs are delivered on time and on budget. SpaceX, Falcon rockets, Starship, Dragon spacecraft and launch services are all highly complicated and technically advanced products to develop and manufacture and it will take years if ever for these products to become profitable as well as operate reliably.
SpaceX plan to build data centres in space and taking humans to Mars, let alone putting a colony on the planet, can only be described as a very distant option with unlimited risk and you would normally expect to see these considerations in books written by L. Ron Hubbard.
Given the sheer scale of the capital raise, the SpaceX IPO in June will be a major focus to investors and journalists. It will be hardly surprising to see the shares appreciate quickly as the IPO is expected to be oversubscribed and retail investors will look to buy shares. After this initial euphoria, the market will then look for evidence of earnings progression and successful utilisation of capital expenditure. With the company going public, it will be harder for SpaceX to disguise cost overruns or worst realisation that the products they are trying to build are too advanced for the current technology, ala Boeing’s Sonic Cruiser. Starlink the only profitable division in the business is expected to continue growing strongly over the medium term but it is very unlikely that it will be able to prop up the whole business for a protracted period of time.
The price and value of investments and any income that might accrue may fall as well as rise and is not guaranteed. You may not get back the amount of your original investment.
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