SpaceX: Elon Musk's real crown jewel? From reusable rockets to artificial intelligence, why is it worth so much?

When people talk about Elon Musk, the first name that comes to mind is almost always Tesla. Yet the entrepreneur's potentially most important industrial venture may be SpaceX, a company that does more than build rockets: it controls a growing share of the infrastructure needed to communicate, transport data and develop advanced technologies. Its 2026 stock market listing turned this prospect into a concrete question for investors: how much is SpaceX really worth, and what risks lie behind its ambitions?

From a space company to global technological infrastructure

SpaceX was founded in 2002 with an objective that initially seemed almost impossible: reducing the cost of space travel by producing reusable rockets.

The underlying economic principle is relatively simple.

An airliner is not destroyed after each flight, because doing so would make air transport extremely expensive. For decades, however, a significant part of the systems used in space launches was lost after each mission.

SpaceX has gradually changed this model by developing launch vehicles such as Falcon 9, whose first stage can be recovered and reused.

In 2025, according to figures reported by the company itself in its prospectus filed with the SEC, 165 Falcon 9 launches took place, including 157 using previously flown boosters.

This represents a significant industrial advantage, although reusability does not eliminate maintenance, recovery, production or infrastructure costs.

The real economic consequence, however, concerns more than just the commercial launch market. It involves the ability to build services that depend directly on access to space.

Starlink: when the customer also owns the infrastructure

One of SpaceX's main competitive advantages is Starlink, its satellite connectivity service, which uses a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit.

In a traditional model, a telecommunications operator purchases capacity from external suppliers or makes substantial investments to build its own infrastructure.

SpaceX, by contrast, develops the satellites, has the launch vehicles needed to place them in orbit and sells the connectivity service directly.

This vertical integration can reduce certain dependencies on outside suppliers and make it easier to coordinate investment.

It does not, however, mean that launches are free: even when a rocket is used internally, SpaceX incurs real economic costs.

What is interesting is that Starlink generates a different revenue model from space launches.

While launches depend on contracts and missions, connectivity can generate recurring revenue through subscriptions and services offered to consumers, businesses and public authorities.

The difference is fundamental from a financial valuation perspective.

A business that can generate recurring revenue, retain customers and develop economies of scale can have very different economic prospects from a company that depends exclusively on large industrial contracts.

The 2026 figures: SpaceX is much more than a rocket manufacturer

The year 2026 marked a turning point for SpaceX, both through its listing and the expansion of the group.

In the first nine months of the year, the company reported consolidated revenue of approximately 27.08 billion dollars, compared with 13.71 billion in the same period of 2025.

That corresponds to an increase of approximately 97.5%.

In the third quarter of 2026 alone, revenue reached 14.58 billion dollars, compared with 5.58 billion in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

These figures, however, need to be read carefully.

Growth cannot be attributed entirely to the organic expansion of launches and connectivity, because the group expanded through corporate transactions during 2026.

Revenue is also distributed across three main segments: space activities, connectivity and Super Intelligence, which includes artificial intelligence activities.

Consequently, comparing consolidated revenue with the previous year without considering acquisitions could lead to an overestimate of organic growth.

Profitability also presents a mixed picture: the third quarter was profitable, but the first nine months of the year recorded an overall net loss.

An increase in the size of a business should therefore not automatically be confused with growth in its underlying profitability.

Artificial intelligence: why SpaceX is looking beyond space

One of the most interesting developments concerns the integration of artificial intelligence activities into the group.

The business is no longer limited to satellites or launches: it also includes computing infrastructure, language models and software platforms.

The economic relationship between these activities is not immediately obvious, but it can be understood by considering the volume of data and the infrastructure needed to process information.

The most advanced artificial intelligence systems require major investments in servers, semiconductors, electricity networks, cooling systems and connectivity.

Access to a company's own communications infrastructure can provide a strategic advantage in certain contexts.

However, it is necessary to distinguish what is industrially possible from what is economically worthwhile.

The idea of using space infrastructure for advanced computing applications is technologically interesting, but involves complex problems: heat dissipation, maintenance, launch costs, component upgrades and communications latency.

It is therefore not enough to argue that space will offer extraordinary opportunities to conclude that every related investment will be profitable.

The right question is whether these technologies will be able to produce sufficient cash flows to reward the capital invested.

The stock market listing: how much did SpaceX raise?

On 11 June 2026, SpaceX announced the pricing of its initial public offering, or IPO (Initial Public Offering), at 135 dollars per share.

Trading began on 12 June on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX.

The initial offering comprised approximately 555.56 million Class A shares, for a total value of approximately 75 billion dollars.

The intermediaries managing the offering subsequently exercised their overallotment option, commonly known as a greenshoe, in full, covering an additional 83.33 million shares.

Total gross IPO proceeds therefore reached approximately 86.25 billion dollars. The financial documentation filed with the SEC reports net proceeds of 85.675 billion, equivalent to approximately 85.7 billion, after 575 million in commissions and offering costs.

It is important to clarify that these 85.7 billion represent the net capital raised by issuing shares, rather than the total value of the business.

Market capitalisation, by contrast, depends on the total number of shares outstanding multiplied by the price per share.

Furthermore, raising a large amount of capital is not automatically good news for investors buying shares in the offering: the price paid must be assessed against expected earnings and cash flows.

The valuation problem: a good business can be a bad investment

There is a distinction that I consider fundamental when analysing particularly ambitious technology companies.

A company can develop revolutionary technologies, control infrastructure that is difficult to replicate and have very attractive growth prospects.

None of this, however, means that its shares offer good value at any price.

Suppose a business is valued at 1,000 billion dollars and produces normalised annual earnings of 10 billion.

Its price-to-earnings ratio would be 100.

Such a valuation presupposes high growth expectations or other characteristics capable of justifying a multiple above the average.

If future earnings did not grow as much as expected, the share price could fall even while industrial activity expanded.

This is one of the main problems with companies that attract significant media attention.

Technological success and shareholder returns are related questions, but they are not equivalent.

Starship and the risk of multibillion-dollar investments

Another central element of SpaceX's strategy is Starship, the launch system designed to develop space transport capacity on a much larger scale than traditional launch vehicles.

If the project achieved its planned technical and economic objectives, it could profoundly change the cost of access to space.

This would have consequences not only for scientific missions, but also for satellite transport and the construction of orbital infrastructure.

The problem is that developing technologies of this complexity requires substantial investment before the economic benefits can be fully realised.

The group must therefore bear research, production, testing and infrastructure costs without being able to know future returns with certainty.

In 2026, SpaceX's financial documentation shows an increase in research and development expenses in the space segment, also associated with the Starship programme.

This is precisely where the main economic risk emerges: the more ambitious a project is, the greater the capital required to turn it into a profitable activity may be.

Corporate control: owning shares does not mean having the same voting power

The listing also raises an issue of corporate governance.

SpaceX uses a share structure with different classes of stock, a feature that can allow voting rights to be distributed differently from economic ownership.

In such structures, a shareholder can hold a relatively limited percentage of the capital while retaining particularly significant influence over corporate decisions.

This matters because investors need to distinguish the right to participate in economic results from the power to influence governance.

A high concentration of control can support strategic continuity, but reduce the influence of minority shareholders and increase the risks associated with the decisions of a single individual.

Assessing an investment therefore requires more than knowing the share price: it also requires understanding which rights are actually being acquired.

Is SpaceX really Elon Musk's most important crown jewel?

The answer depends on what we mean by importance.

Tesla is an industrial business with an established presence in the automotive and energy sectors, but also substantial exposure to competition and the transformation of the mobility market.

SpaceX, by contrast, has developed expertise in the production and launch of space vehicles that is particularly difficult to replicate, gradually integrating it with connectivity services and technology activities.

This model can create significant barriers to entry.

However, we must not confuse a technological barrier with an economically guaranteed monopoly.

The space sector is characterised by technical risks, substantial investment, dependence on authorisations and important relationships with public-sector customers.

Government customers can represent a commercial opportunity, but also a source of revenue concentration and exposure to political decisions.

Similarly, artificial intelligence activities offer considerable growth prospects, but require financial resources and compete with operators that already have substantial capital.

Conclusion: SpaceX can transform an industry, but what is it worth to an investor?

SpaceX is a particularly interesting case because it combines three characteristics rarely found in the same company: advanced industrial capabilities, global communications infrastructure and investment in digital technologies.

The ability to produce a substantial share of the infrastructure it uses internally can be a competitive advantage, especially when it enables economies of scale and services that are difficult to replicate.

But technological strength does not eliminate financial risk.

Understanding whether SpaceX represents an attractive investment requires examining the evolution of organic revenue, profitability across its segments, capital requirements, cash generation and the relationship between these measures and its market valuation.

The point is not to establish whether Elon Musk will fulfil all his ambitions. It is to understand how much of those ambitions is already reflected in the share price and how much additional economic value can actually be generated.

Because in financial markets, identifying the company that might build the future is not enough: investors must also avoid paying a price today that assumes that future has already become reality.