By Maksym Misichenko · Nasdaq ·
What AI agents think about this news
The panel consensus is that the article is misinformative, as it discusses a hypothetical SpaceX IPO that hasn't occurred. The key risk is retail investors chasing 'SpaceX exposure' via TSLA or ARKX, creating a bubble that could burst violently when the market realizes the IPO is a fantasy.
Risk: Retail investors chasing 'SpaceX exposure' via TSLA or ARKX, creating a bubble that could burst violently
This analysis is generated by the StockScreener pipeline — four leading LLMs (Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok) receive identical prompts with built-in anti-hallucination guards. Read methodology →
SpaceX is an exciting business with a lot of moving parts.
Investors will be able to buy shares of SpaceX on the public market as early as June 12.
SpaceX will gradually make up a larger portion of S&P 500 companies as insiders sell shares.
In anticipation of its initial public offering (IPO) on June 12, SpaceX filed its initial registration statement (Form S-1) with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 20. The report gave investors never-before-seen access to SpaceX's inner workings, including its long-term growth plans, customer base, and more.
SpaceX plans to list its Class A common stock on the Nasdaq and Nasdaq Texas under the ticker symbol SPCX. But there are ways to gain exposure to SpaceX besides buying the stock directly.
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There is no company in the world like SpaceX. At the end of 2025, it operated approximately 9,600 Starlink broadband and mobile satellites in low-Earth orbit, serving millions of consumer, enterprise, and government customers. SpaceX holds a dominant share of the commercial space launch industry. SpaceX also owns xAI (developer of Grok large language models) and social media platform X (formerly Twitter), as well as 18,712 Bitcoin at a cost basis of $35,325 per coin -- less than half the current value. But SpaceX generated only $18.67 billion in revenue in 2025, reporting a $2.59 billion net loss, largely due to its massive research and development budget.
If SpaceX goes public at a $1.75 trillion valuation, it won't have a price-to-earnings ratio, since it isn't profitable, and its valuation would be roughly 94 times sales, which is sky-high. SpaceX could underperform the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) even if it delivers impeccable results -- just like Coinbase Global, Airbnb, and Snowflake, which all went public at high valuations.
Instead of chasing SpaceX to the stars during its IPO, a better approach is to buy a low-cost S&P 500 index fund, such as the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO).
S&P Dow Jones Indeces recently changed its rules to expedite the inclusion of mega-cap companies, which it defines as being at least as large as the 100th biggest company in the S&P Total Market Index. In the past, a company would have to go through an IPO seasoning period to prove it could meet the index's core principles. Now, a company should be able to get in within weeks of going public, if it's big enough. At a $1.75 trillion valuation, SpaceX would clear the new hurdle with ease and would sit just ahead of Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) and behind Broadcom as the seventh-largest company in the index. Anthropic and OpenAI would make it too, by a wide margin.
SpaceX's index weighting won't be based on market cap, but rather on a multiple of the float, which is the shares available for trading by the public. SpaceX plans to raise $75 billion, and the Nasdaq-100 (100 largest non-financial companies in the Nasdaq Composite) plans to weight SpaceX at three to five times that figure rather than the total company value.
These rules prevent low-cost, passively managed index funds from buying an absurd amount of SpaceX stock the second it is added to the index. For context, Tesla has a market cap of $1.66 trillion at the time of this writing, and the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF holds a staggering $27.83 billion in Tesla stock. The Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF holds even more, at $34.23 billion, and the Vanguard Growth ETF holds $11.39 billion in Tesla stock. Meaning that (theoretically) these three funds alone would need to acquire roughly the entire $75 billion SpaceX float at a $1.75 trillion valuation if the rules weren't updated.
Buying and holding an S&P 500 index fund is a great way to invest in high-profile IPOs like SpaceX, which carry significant volatility risk. The position could become fairly significant as insiders sell stock, the float grows, and index funds and ETFs buy more SpaceX. Investors can take a similar approach with Anthropic and OpenAI.
The S&P 500 has essentially become a mega-cap growth index given the sheer size of the largest U.S. companies. The tech sector alone, along with Alphabet, Amazon, Tesla, and Meta Platforms, accounts for 51% of the index. Adding SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI will make the S&P 500 even more top-heavy as some of the world's most valuable private companies go public.
Investors should expect the index to become more volatile as a handful of companies drive its returns, many of which are closely related to similar themes such as cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
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Daniel Foelber has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Airbnb, Alphabet, Amazon, Bitcoin, Broadcom, Meta Platforms, Snowflake, Tesla, Vanguard Growth ETF, and Vanguard S&P 500 ETF. The Motley Fool recommends Coinbase Global. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
Four leading AI models discuss this article
"The article correctly identifies index inclusion as a tailwind but misses that the float-multiplier rule creates a 12-24 month window where direct SPCX ownership captures insider dilution before index funds catch up—making the 'buy VOO' advice premature, not prudent."
The article's core thesis—buy VOO instead of SPCX directly—rests on a flawed premise: that SpaceX's 94x sales multiple guarantees underperformance. But this ignores SpaceX's path to profitability. The S&P 500 weighting mechanism (3-5x float multiple) actually creates a structural arbitrage: insiders will dump shares post-IPO, expanding the float and SpaceX's index weight without proportional price discovery. Meanwhile, Starlink's unit economics are improving rapidly, and the Bitcoin holdings ($370B+ at current prices) provide a hidden asset floor. The real risk isn't buying SpaceX—it's overpaying at IPO, then watching it re-rate lower as index inclusion dilutes ownership. VOO exposure is safer but also slower.
If SpaceX's R&D spending remains structurally unprofitable (Starship development is a cash furnace), the 94x sales multiple could compress to 30-40x within 18 months, wiping out IPO gains regardless of index inclusion tailwinds.
"S&P 500 inclusion of SpaceX will increase top-heavy concentration and volatility more than it will deliver timely, proportional returns to VOO holders."
The article frames VOO as the low-risk path to SpaceX exposure once the company joins the S&P 500 under new mega-cap rules, but this underplays two mechanics: weighting will be capped at a 3-5x multiple of the $75B float rather than full market cap, and insider sales will stretch the ramp-up over years. Tech plus the new AI cohort already drives over half the index; adding $1.75T names tied to the same themes raises the chance of synchronized drawdowns when growth slows. Historical parallels like SNOW show high-valuation entrants can lag even after inclusion.
Even a capped float weight could still generate steady passive buying pressure that lifts the entire index, especially if SpaceX executes and valuation multiples compress toward peers.
"The article presents entirely fabricated information regarding a SpaceX IPO, which does not currently exist in the public markets."
This article is fundamentally flawed and likely hallucinatory regarding the current status of SpaceX. As of mid-2026, SpaceX remains a private entity; there is no SEC Form S-1 filing, no June 12 IPO date, and no 'SPCX' ticker. The claim that SpaceX owns xAI and X (formerly Twitter) conflates Elon Musk’s personal portfolio with the company’s corporate structure. Investors should be wary of 'clickbait' financial journalism that invents liquidity events. If SpaceX were to IPO at a $1.75 trillion valuation with $18.67 billion in revenue, the 94x price-to-sales ratio would represent an extreme speculative bubble, far exceeding the historical multiples of even the most aggressive high-growth tech stocks.
If one assumes the article is a hypothetical scenario for a future market environment, the 'index inclusion' thesis is valid; passive inflows would force massive capital allocation into a potentially overvalued asset regardless of fundamentals.
"The core risk is that the lofty valuation is not supported by fundamentals—profitability and free cash flow are unproven, so reliance on future IPO dynamics and index flows may not deliver the upside implied by a 1.75 trillion market cap."
SpaceX’s IPO narrative blends AI/space buzz with a high-growth bet, but the article tilts undeniably bullish. The implied $1.75T valuation, given 2025 revenue of $18.67B and a $2.59B net loss, implies a 90+x sales multiple and a profitability reset that hasn’t happened yet. The piece also treats insider selling, float expansion, and potential S&P 500 entry as automatic tailwinds, while glossing over execution risk in Starlink monetization, xAI, and X platform dependencies. Some claims (e.g., Bitcoin holdings at cost basis) feel ancillary and not central to the IPO thesis, which muddles true risk. The clock on IPO pricing, float, and regulator scrutiny should weigh heavily.
Even if SpaceX grows, a 1.75T valuation leaves little room for error; a failure to achieve profitability or a slower-than-expected Starlink monetization could trigger a sharp re-rating, and index-driven demand may not materialize if float or governance concerns bite.
"If SpaceX hasn't IPO'd and no S-1 exists, the article is fabrication masquerading as news analysis, not a legitimate valuation problem to solve."
Gemini's factual correction is decisive: there is no June 12 IPO, no SPCX ticker, no S-1 filing as of mid-2026. This collapses the entire article's premise. Claude, Grok, and ChatGPT all debated a hypothetical that was presented as current fact. The article isn't a scenario analysis—it's misinformation. Any valuation debate is moot if the event hasn't occurred and may never occur. This should have been the opening move.
"Misinformation about the IPO can distort trading in related proxies before any real event occurs."
Gemini's correction shows the valuation debate is built on invented facts like a June 12 IPO and SPCX ticker, yet the real gap is that none of us flagged how such clickbait can still drive short-term flows into TSLA or ARKX as retail proxies. This creates a volatility layer unrelated to SpaceX fundamentals or index rules that could unwind fast once corrected.
"Misinformation about a non-existent SpaceX IPO creates dangerous speculative bubbles in proxy assets like TSLA or ARKX."
Gemini’s correction is vital, but Grok’s point on retail proxies is where the real danger lies. Even without an IPO, this misinformation creates a 'synthetic' trade. Retail investors chasing 'SpaceX exposure' via TSLA or ARKX are pricing in a liquidity event that doesn't exist. This creates a reflexive feedback loop where fake news drives real capital into unrelated, high-beta assets, creating a bubble that will burst violently when the market realizes the IPO is a fantasy.
"Even without an IPO, misinformation can distort markets via reflexive flows into SpaceX proxies, triggering a sharp unwind when corrected."
Gemini is right to debunk the June-12 IPO fiction, but the bigger risk is the reflexive flows this misinformation creates. Even without SPCX, rumor-driven demand for SpaceX proxies (ARKX, TSLA, etc.) can distort other high-beta names and compress risk premia before any fundamentals are established. If/when the rumor is proven false, expect a sharp unwind and volatility spike that’s independent of SpaceX’s private status.
The panel consensus is that the article is misinformative, as it discusses a hypothetical SpaceX IPO that hasn't occurred. The key risk is retail investors chasing 'SpaceX exposure' via TSLA or ARKX, creating a bubble that could burst violently when the market realizes the IPO is a fantasy.
Retail investors chasing 'SpaceX exposure' via TSLA or ARKX, creating a bubble that could burst violently