The bond market’s assessment also jibes with SpaceX’s stock. It’s a profitless, non-dividend-paying, one-person-controlled, empire-building project trading at more than 100 times sales, about 30 times the valuation of the S&P 500 Index. That’s the very definition of a junk stock.
Original link: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-07-02/spacex-is-junk-that-s-what-the-bond-market-says
Prior to the IPO, I was absolutely interested in SpaceX stock. Regardless of Musk’s antics, they are far and away the most advanced and most successful space launch company in the world.
Where traditional space launch companies like Boeing and ULA are floundering and failing, SpaceX was getting it done, to the point where NASA and the US Military had to move flights originally booked with ULA and hand them to SpaceX because they were the only ones able to get things done on schedule AND is more profitable than any other rocket company thanks to landing and reuse technology.
Then, of course Musk merged Twitter into xAI, merged xAI into SpaceX, then basically called SpaceX an AI company to attract more AI investment hype, and 99% of the stock value is AI hype.
And I have zero interest in SpaceX stock any more.
I’m in the same boat. For years I’d been excited to potentially own some SpaceX shares if they went public. No interest at all now due to xAI merger. I did gamble a bit of money on day 1 just because the odds of a pop were real, but i just got in and out and I was done.
It does seem to be a one pump chump
GrokAI is a poison pill that has been fed into a healthy rocket-satellite company. Sucks for the folks who value practical infrastructure that contributes to society.
It’s all pump and dump bullshit… You can’t have a 2T value when the most the company has made in a year is 19B.
Once again, the IPO ($135/share or $2.1 Trillion) was based on the success of some long term goals like space-based data centers and a Mars colony of one million permanent residents.
This is from the same guy who promised a fleet of Tesla robotaxis by 2025.
Space experts have since pointed out that the vacuum of space does not sink heat.
Some of the assets thrown into the SpaceX valuation include xAI (which is falling behind OpenAI and Anthropic) and Starlink (which is suffering from congestion problems already and cannot be scaled up).
So this is not unexpected.
I still want to know how having anyone on mars was supposed to be profitable.
Unless a government is paying you to run a private prison there.
The point of manned missions and colonies now is proof of concept for the expansion of human civilization to other worlds, but yes, that’s not a private for profit endeavor but a public interest one.
That said, the research and development done for the Apollo moon shots returned to the economy $14 for every one dollar spent, so it was absolutely a sound investment. Also, those patents were sold to the US government for a dollar each (at most), and so the technology gained like microcircuitry and memory foam, are public domain.
( RANT: The public domain, the creation of a robust one is – according to the Constitution of the United States – the very purpose of the whole temporary monopoly system that is the foundation of intellectual property law.)
The market demands EVERYTHING be for profit.
I completely agree, and don’t think sending trillions of investment dollars to a private company is going to get us anything like the Apollo program did. Maybe we’ll be wrong and some great inventions will arise from the challenge.
Mining asteroids or the moon seem like the next thing, but the cynic in me thinks it will likely just increase wealth inequality.
Taking a page from the Fourth International–Posadists, I suspect we’re going to have to develop a working socialist / communist society before we will be able to develop a space program robust enough for asteroid mining and offworld colonization.
With the climate-crisis fast approaching critical, we may not make it at all, or may have to wait tens of thousands of years (homo-erectus went through a long stint where there was less than ten-thousand of them), but I don’t think there is a capitalist path.
And yet they were given the IPO, so now it’s the public’s problem…
Well the public can just not buy the shares. The whole point of the gift was to sell the shares at inflated values right at the beginning. It doesn’t really matter what happens after that.
I suppose a competent government would launch an investigation into misrepresentation, as I’m pretty sure offering an IPO that’s completely odd to the actual value is a crime, but obviously with a kind administration it’s virtually impossible to commit a crime if you’re rich enough.
LOL @ “competent government”. We haven’t had one of those in quite a while…
By the time that arrives if ever, the statute statute of limitation would’ve long run.
Most members of the public don’t have any control over what the managers of their retirement accounts choose to invest in.
Beyond that, I’m pretty sure an IPO comes with an obligation for some index funds to invest in it.
It really wasn’t that hard to see the SpaceX ipo was mostly a scam. And yet there are post after post of people losing their entire fortune, house, future after investing in this sow. Just blinding stupidity to invest in any company run by a ketamine addict who should be in prison over that DOGE bullshit.
The worst part is they managed to convince a few indexes to add it within weeks rather than the way things work for everyone else. That means all us IRA/401k holders will be forced to own this stock indirectly if we have funds/ETFs that track them, and suffer the losses directly.
S&P didn’t take the bait and won’t put it in until next year, but I think it’s going on NASDAQ in a few weeks, as well as a few others.
I think it’s in the NASDAQ 100 now, but not every retirement fund will have that. Thank god the S&P500 held out. Also, the S&P didn’t change their rules and being big isn’t enough to get in, they also gotta be profitable for a period of time, so 1 year isn’t a guarantee.
Edit: My bad, Nasdaq is July 6th, so tomorrow. So it’ll probably pump a little temporarily until insiders can sell.
I read somewhere that, if reusable rockets were all ok today, spacex needs some 450 launched just to get back to zero compared to Ariane 6 because of the massive costs.
So yeah “reusable” (I would like to know how reusable they actually are/how much they cost to reuse) is great and all but not yet economically viable it seems.
I feel like I’m way ahead of the market.
(If only I knew how to turn that wisdom into money)
I’m convinced that to win in today’s market, you really can’t think deeply about anything.
Hm. Maybe you can’t. How does that help me?
See, you’re still thinking when you ask questions
Why? I am always thinking. All the time, no matter what. So?
Alas, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
The one you hear a lot is buying physical precious metals. But keeping that stuff at home is kinda risky and renting a vault isn’t free either.
There are certificates that are fully backed by physical metals, so it is easy to trade them. I even have some (but going to sell soon).
You want it at home. The real value in your of gold is when society collapses it still is a nice metal and so has value. Iron would work to but your house isn’t big enough for your life savings in iron.
I don’t think society will collapse and lacking that scenario gold isn’t a better investment.
I bought 31 bucks worth so I really have zero skin in the game. But he’s shooting for mars and will have to settle for LEO…
