Discussion

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nutjob2: > Musk is a storyteller.Musk is a bullshitter.This is true by any objective measure. He goes beyond "marketing" and just tells lies to keep the balls in the air. That he's not held to account is an indictment of the SEC and the whole public equity system in the US.

Betelbuddy: These two comments seem to tell you, everything you need to know about this IPO. Sadly I cant get the same level of analysis, from CNBC or Bloomberg, so have to come here...https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47606845https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47613231

guywithahat: > The SpaceX IPO in 2026 is unlikely to mirror the 500x or 1,000x returns of early Amazon or GoogleI don't think this is right; when Google first IPO'd the sentiment was that they had a single successful product, search, and the stock was expected to track search. Now they have a whole suite of successful products.Similarily SoaceX is viewed as a rocket company, but they're likely to continue to expand their product range, and for all we know some of their future products could be bigger and more profitable.

nutjob2: Yes hard-nosed analysis, from a couple of retail investors but not finance journalists. The latter don't want to bite the hand that feeds, the former is on the menu.

gavinray: This other comment by the same user in one of the links from 2 weeks ago I found the easiest to understand, in brief:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47389233

mattkrick: The post fails to mention that spaceX is not just a rocket company. Bundled with it is xAI, which is presumably losing money hand over fist. Package enough risk together and sell for a higher price to retail consumers. We’ve seen this play…

outside2344: If S&P change their rules, I am going to sell my index funds, taxes be damned.Sadly, this is not the only trash that is going to be hoisted on us retirement investors. OpenAI is waiting in the wings as well.I am sure I am not the only one. That doesn't seem like it will be good for the market.

kjkjadksj: Going to be a circus when our only viable launch capacity is publicly traded and only looking a quarter ahead. Guess that is the end of rocket development as we know it. Hopefully academia bails us out and carries on fundamental research. Then again the orangutan is in the whitehouse disinclined to fund any science.

kortilla: Tesla is not targeting quarterly goals. Most of its valuation is from long bets like robotaxi and the robot

wing-_-nuts: What I don't get is what happened to 'I'm keeping spaceX private so we can actually get to mars', with the understanding that'd be almost impossible as a public company.Welp, guess that idea got sold out...

localfields: Search for Golden Dome

wat10000: For this valuation to make sense, you’re betting on one or more of:1. Orbital data centers become not only a real thing, but a dominant thing.2. Grok goes from being a second-tier model mostly useful for not having guardrails to being a step above all other offerings.3. Twitter realizes its “everything app” ambitions and becomes the WeChat of the West.4. Starship not only flies operationally, but finds a niche with orders of magnitude more business than Falcon 9 gets. Something like Earth-to-Earth passenger transport at a level that substantially displaces airlines.All of which seem extremely unlikely. I’m fairly bullish on SpaceX, but as something of a “normal” business. Starship shows promise. Falcon 9 is a cheap workhorse. Starlink seems to just print money. But not anything like a trillion dollars’ worth.

benj111: It's an Elon company, the valuation is never going to make sense.

wing-_-nuts: I don't know how anyone takes that program seriously

lapcat: > What I don't get is what happened to 'I'm keeping spaceX private so we can actually get to mars'Mars was always a lie to attract naive space nerds. Nobody is going to Mars.Haven't you heard that Musk has already pivoted from Mars to the Moon? https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/feb/16/elon-musk-mo...

kakflelajf74: I am considering the same. Of course this happens to be a bad time to sell with the Iran war. Maybe we finally found the real reason for the war (only 90% sarcastic).

boringg: You have to add that while SpaceX is an impressive company -- R&D on rockets is extremely capital intensive as they step into larger payloads.

amluto: > Starlink seems to just print money.Does it? Those satellites are individually dirt cheap compared to historical communication satellites, but Starlink requires a whole lot of them and they depreciate outrageously quickly.Compare to my personal favorite communication medium, single-mode-fiber. SMF from 20-30 years ago still works, is compatible with most current-generation wavelengths, and can carry extremely high bandwidth per strand if users are willing to put fancy optics and mixes at the ends or can carry lower speeds at transceiver prices that would have been almost unimaginably low 20 years ago.Starlink satellites seem to have zero or even slightly negative value after five years.

bob1029: The potential for incredible forced demand has me considering participating for a period of time. I have no faith in things like datacenters in orbit, but I do have strong faith in the greed and recklessness of others.

u1hcw9nx: Say a number.In your opinion how much SpaceX should be valued to be overpriced?If $1.75T is OK. Is $5T too much? I think the idea is that with over 1.5 valuation that is already taken into account (as is the narrative fallacy)

guywithahat: I don't know what the correct value is, however my understanding of IPO's is that a bank buys (underwrites) the shares first and then lists them. This would suggest a large bank has taken a massive financial bet on the company, and I trust they understand the market and SpaceX's current value.I know this is a lame answer because it's an appeal to authority, but I don't have an opinion on the share price other than very knowledgeable people have agreed it's fair and put up a lot of their own money.What I do have an opinion on is that I think there's plenty of room for them to expand the market and grow. I also know the EBITDA for SpaceX is outrageously high for a hardware company, would would suggest it's a lucrative industry that others have trouble entering with low recurring costs. It seems likely to me they could continue to grow on 15 billion of revenue, and this growth is likely to be profitable.

chasebank: Ya but all the financial logic in the world doesn’t account for Elon god, number go up.

jmye: Meme it till it's true, I guess? People are nuts.

timzaman: I have become so disillusioned by some of the Hacker News crowd on here. It used to be full of nuanced smart people with interesting takes. Nowadays it seems very one sided - makes me very sad. People seem to be completely forgetting that SpaceX is one of the most "inspiring" companies that currently exist. They produce things (Starship) that give adults long-lost goosebumps and excitement just looking at it. SpaceX tech and launch stats speak for themselves. I know its hard to extend an exponential, but just try. All the comments on here feel like they were made against Tesla in 2017, and look how that worked out.

wing-_-nuts: I'm invested in VTI, VXUS, and VT in various places, so I'm definitely going to be buying it whether I want to or not

dweez: If it's any consolation , VTI is free-float weighted so won't pick up very much SpaceX initially.

tencentshill: Ford was the same at one point. 100 years later, revolutionary technology being attached to incredibly toxic and unethical leaders has consequences (Ideally).

sifar: >> I trust they understand the market and SpaceX's current valueIt is more likely that the parties involved know that they can create/manipulate conditions to make it a success.

AndrewKemendo: The world finally woke up to the fact that “colonizing mars” was fake bullshit.The same way “full self driving” was (and is) fake bullshit used to do what the rich always do:Take from you (via taxes and inflation spending) and give to themselves via government contracts that are done via lobbyists and capture.Musk literally raided the govt via DOGE to ensure these contracts got done.Are you really making this point?

nickburns: [delayed]

lokar: This is exactly what they are hoping for, and why wall street is playing along, they all see the chance to soak a bunch of suckers.

paxys: "I know it's a scam, but I'll sell at the peak and get out before all the suckers" - every meme stock and crypto bubble investor in the last decade. Ultimately you will be the sucker that others (VCs, banks, insiders) will make money off of.

margalabargala: Isn't something like "the company that makes really cool reusable rockets may also be engaging in securities fraud" exactly the sort of nuance you're looking for?"SpaceX is inspiring! Be nice to them!""SpaceX is neither all good nor all bad! They do good things and bad things."One of those has nuance, the other does not.

chasd00: for retail investors every failed engine test, pressure test, or anything else is going to be a sell event. Every succesful launch, engine delivery, installed pane of glass is going to be a buy event. The youtubers like Nasaspaceflight and the others who stalk Spacex's every move with livecams at every site are going to add the stock price to their streams i bet.