On 12 June, SpaceX listed on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX. It is the first of what is expected to be three high-profile listings this year. Anthropic has already filed confidentially, and OpenAI is expected to follow. After a quieter spell, the Initial Public Offering (IPO) market is reopening at scale.
These companies are of a grander scale than anything we have seen before. There is, therefore, a lot of hype, buzz, ‘vibes’.
It is understandable. SpaceX is a remarkable business built by a remarkable man. Anthropic is growing revenues at an extraordinary clip, particularly in the enterprise space. OpenAI’s ChatGPT brought artificial intelligence (AI) to the forefront of our minds only three years ago, and growing to 100 million users in just two months, faster than any other technological application before it.
This article is for information only and not personal financial advice. Investing can help your money grow, but the value of investments can rise and fall, so you could get back less than you put in. Investing is for the long term, typically 5 years or more.
If you’re not sure that investing is right for you, a financial adviser can help.
To infinity and beyond!
SpaceX has changed the economics of space travel, made rocket reusability viable, and built Starlink into a global communications network. Its ambitions for orbital infrastructure, next-generation satellite and the colonisation of Mars, are, well, phenomenal. For the first time, public market investors have a chance to buy into that story.
SpaceX is composed of three main businesses. The rockets that go into space. The ‘connectivity’ business which already provides satellite communication through the Starlink network. Finally, their AI arm, which incorporates Grok, the Large Language Model (LLM), X (formerly known as Twitter) into xAI. There are considerable levels of investment in all areas of the business. Operating losses are rising: for the first quarter of 2026, they have already reached 75% of last year’s total.
The headline story is only part of the picture. The prospectus of an IPO is essential reading. It’s about the most information you are going to get at any point about a company, audited in great detail and picked over by lawyers. Part of the document is devoted, as with all IPOs, to the risks as well as the opportunities. Our Senior Equity Analyst Matt Britzman has written more about this in more detail.
Related article: Inside SpaceX’s IPO filing – revenue, Starlink, AI and key financials
The development of SpaceX’s new rocket, Starship, is central to delivering on many of the company’s stated plans, including next-generation satellites, satellite-to-mobile services and orbital AI compute. Delays or technical issues could, therefore, affect more than just the launch business.
Related article: AI data centres in space – the next infrastructure race for power and compute
Regulation is another key area of risk. SpaceX needs approvals for launches, satellite services, and spectrum use, and the AI business, which also includes social media platform X introduces new risks around regulation, data, litigation and access to high-demand chips.
Funding also matters. SpaceX has heavy investment plans, particularly in xAI, and has already set out in the document the potential requirement to raise more external capital, either through selling more shares or by borrowing.
Public investors should also be aware of the dual class share structure. That means voting control remains primarily with Elon Musk, even after the IPO.
FOMO is not a strategy
Legendary investor Benjamin Graham put it like this – “in the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine.”
What did he mean by this? Short term, share prices are moved by popularity. Long term, fundamentals win.
IPOs sit firmly in that first phase, where sentiment, momentum and narrative do much of the work. Over time, that gives way to earnings, execution and cash flow.
Related article: What can 4 high-profile IPOs teach investors?
The question isn’t whether a company is exciting. There’s no doubt SpaceX has high ambitions. The question is how one thinks about it as part of an investment strategy.
Now for the boring bit
Well, it’s not really boring. There are two free lunches in investing: time and diversification.
Time allows for the compounding of profits, dividends and interest, which is sometimes called the ‘eighth wonder of the world’. If you think about an investment generating a return of 5% each year, simplistically many people would say that after five years that would be a return of 25%. No. If the return is reinvested, over five years that return is actually 28%. Over ten years, you haven’t increased your money by just 50% (10 times 5%), you’ve increased it by nearly 63%. And after 20 years, it balloons to 165%.
Investments, particularly shares in companies, vary in their returns. Some companies are in a ‘growth phase’ and won’t distribute much to investors and will instead plough back any earnings into further expansion.
Some are more ‘cyclical’, which means that they will do better at some points of the economic cycle. Others tend to be more ‘defensive’ and grow less quickly but with more predictability.
By investing in a range of companies and asset classes, you can smooth out volatility and reduce the damage, should some of your investment decisions go wrong, as they invariably do for even the most experienced investors.
The biggest risks of IPOs
One of the biggest risks for investors is in allowing one idea to dominate a portfolio. IPO investing can encourage exactly that: a high-profile name, a compelling story, and a sense that this is the opportunity.
Patience is a strategy
The SpaceX IPO will be one of the most talked-about market events of the year. Those with strong conviction and a long-term horizon may be tempted.
However, building wealth rarely comes down to a single decision. It is the result of consistent choices over time – staying invested, diversifying risk, and avoiding the urge to react to short-term noise.
The IPO is the next stage in SpaceX’s journey. It should be just one, or possibly none, in an investor’s.