The IPO prospectus showed 2025 revenue growth of 33% to $18.7bn and first-quarter 2026 revenue up 15%, to $4.7bn.
The business swung from a $0.5bn operating profit in 2024 to a loss of $2.6bn in 2025. Losses continued to widen in the first quarter of 2026, to $1.9bn.
There was a free cash outflow of $14.0bn in 2025, and $9.1bn in the first quarter of 2026. The group had net debt of $6.6bn as at the end of the first quarter (before IPO proceeds). A total of $85.7bn was raised from the IPO.
Since the IPO, SpaceX has confirmed plans to push ahead with a $60bn all-stock acquisition of Anysphere, the maker of AI coding agent Cursor.
Our view
SpaceX spans three main areas: Space, covering rockets, spacecraft and launches; Connectivity, led by Starlink; and AI, including Grok/Cursor, X (formerly Twitter), and data centres. Together, they make SpaceX far broader than a traditional aerospace company, with real strategic advantages.
Starlink is the standout today. It’s growing fast, already profitable, and benefits from SpaceX designing, building and launching its own satellites. Rivals need to buy launch capacity; SpaceX controls its own reusable rockets and launch network. That creates a powerful flywheel: more launches help drive scale, while Starlink revenue and profit help fund other ventures.
AI adds another layer, following the xAI merger earlier this year. Earth-based data centres are already a major capital focus, and Musk has shown he can bring compute online, at scale, faster than anyone else. Its own language models offer one revenue route, while the $60bn Cursor deal boosts coding capabilities. But lucrative deals to rent compute capacity, like those with Anthropic and Alphabet, could give SpaceX a faster path to near-term revenue.
But those businesses, no matter how good, cannot justify the valuation on their own. Investors are not just paying for rockets, Starlink and today’s AI buildout. They are being asked to underwrite an expansion into completely new, space-based, addressable markets.
The Starship system (booster + upper stage) is key to that. Falcon rockets have already cut the cost of moving mass to orbit by around 85%; a fully and rapidly reusable Starship could do the same again. That would speed up Starlink deployment, support next-generation satellite services, and eventually open the door to orbital compute. In theory, that could become a major new market.
If anyone can solve these problems, SpaceX is at the front of the queue. But the engineering challenge is huge. Starship is still in development, orbital compute remains unproven commercially, and delays or cost overruns could ripple through several parts of the investment case.
The financials are playing second fiddle to the story for now, and the 15% first-quarter revenue increase should see a meaningful acceleration as the compute deals start to contribute. But at current investment rates, the c.$85bn raised in the IPO gives SpaceX around nine quarters to build more consistent cash flows.
All in, SpaceX is an exceptional business with a huge opportunity ahead, and we can just about build a case that justifies the valuation if everything goes to plan. But this is unproven technology in an inherently high-risk industry. We think more realistic outcomes include delays, cost overruns and technical setbacks, and the current valuation doesn’t leave room for any of those.
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) risk
The aerospace and defence sector is high risk in terms of ESG. Carbon emissions from products and services and product governance are key risk drivers. Data privacy, business ethics, and security and labour relations are also contributors to ESG risk.
Governance is probably SpaceX's biggest risk factor, given its dual-class share structure that gives Elon Musk around 85% of all voting rights, limiting other shareholders' ability to effect change.
Environmental risks are elevated by its launch and satellite businesses, with limited public disclosure on environmental management, emissions-reduction targets, or a broader sustainability strategy. Activities relating to its AI language models and X (formerly Twitter) add data privacy, cybersecurity and content moderation risks.
SpaceX key facts
All ratios are sourced from LSEG Datastream, based on previous day’s closing values. Please remember yields are variable and not a reliable indicator of future income. Keep in mind key figures shouldn’t be looked at on their own – it’s important to understand the big picture.
This article is original Hargreaves Lansdown content, published by Hargreaves Lansdown. It was correct as at the date of publication, and our views may have changed since then. Unless otherwise stated estimates, including prospective yields, are a consensus of analyst forecasts provided by LSEG. These estimates are not a reliable indicator of future performance. Yields are variable and not guaranteed. Investments rise and fall in value so investors could make a loss.
This article is not advice or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any investment. No view is given on the present or future value or price of any investment, and investors should form their own view on any proposed investment.