Should one invest in SpaceX?

Should one invest in SpaceX?

Elon Musk announced the IPO price of SpaceX at USD 135 per share raising USD 75 bn and valuing the company at USD 1.77 trillion.
 
Many investors are asking me “What is the prospect of SpaceX and most importantly should one invest in the IPO and post stock market listing?

So I would like to put my views on the valuation and prospects of SpaceX.
 

  1. There is frenzy for AI and technology startups with mind blowing and gravity defying valuation. So I would put my emotions and frenzy aside and look at the valuation with discounted future growth.

  2. SpaceX is loss making company which does not mean that it would remain loss making forever but we have to look at the growth assumptions by various brokers and analysts for arriving at the conclusion of the future valuation of the company.

  3. Analysts of Goldman Sachs and Oppenheimer have assumed 100x jump in AI revenues of the company to USD 322 bn by 2030E from the current revenues and terming the company as the only vertically integrated AI company in the world. But my argument against this is if AI is really growing and adopted at such a pace then why AI Pioneers like ChatGPT and Anthropic are reducing the prices of their models as people are reluctant to pay for AI. So the growth projection does not seem to match with the ground realities.

  4. Some other analyst with bull case scenario based his investment case on SpaceX’s satellite internet business which accounts for the appx. 60% of company’s revenue of USD 18.67bn serving appx. 10.3mn users. The fault with this argument is that future revenue growth is based on the assumption that India with the biggest population would allow SpaceX to offer its satellite internet services which yesterday only India has rejected the license to SpaceX because of security threat and turmoil in the fast changing geopolitics of the world. China will also not allow SpaceX to operate there. So on what basis its satellite internet business would grow in future as biggest markets are out of its reach?

  5. Then there is governance and Key management risks as Elon Musk controls about 85% of the voting rights and if something bad happens then full structure can collapse as there are no other key management people.

  6. Another significant yet intangible risk is political risk as Donald Trump would only remain in power for another 2 years and after that definitely another government with different ideology and regulations may come which may be adversarial to the company’s prospects.
 
At the end of the day, one can make many fanciful future stories to justify valuation and growth assumptions but in reality many of these stories like colonies on mars, data centers in space, etc. are utopian ideas with no connection to reality. Also as all other AI companies are finding out that rolling out plans on paper about building massive data centers are constrained by limited capital, energy, water and other resources. So I am not investing my money in SpaceX.