In central London, a giant electronic billboard outside a shopping centre advertising that shares were going on sale competed for attention with posters highlighting Musk's wealth and how many people lack access to safe drinking water. Few listings have reached the public in quite this way. The company's decision to set what it thought the share price should be well in advance only added to the sense that the offering itself had become part of the spectacle.
The spectacle matters because many buyers are expected to be making their first dabble in investing. Investment platforms have already offered services to help individuals participate. Yet the central question remains stubbornly unresolved. Determining what SpaceX is actually worth remains a difficult valuation exercise, even as enthusiasm races ahead of agreement.
Enthusiasm is racing ahead of agreement on what the company is worth
SpaceX has supplied investors with numbers large enough to dwarf most public companies. The company says $28.5 trillion of market opportunity lies ahead, a figure it describes as the largest in human history. Supporters point to operations responsible for more than four-fifths of the mass launched into orbit over the past three years and to Starlink revenues as evidence of a durable business. Some investors argue the company has a strong foundation upon which to build.
That foundation is carrying expectations far beyond rockets and satellites. John Belton of Gabelli Funds compared SpaceX to Tesla, arguing that each combines an established business with what he called a moonshot opportunity. For Tesla, he said, that future lies in robotics and other applications. For SpaceX, it is the AI business. The comparison is revealing because it shifts the valuation debate away from current earnings and toward future possibilities.
Not everyone is willing to make that leap. Some analysts have urged caution and raised concerns that the company is overvalued. Morningstar analysts said the company is more fairly valued at around $780 billion, less than half its opening market capitalization. One investor assessment was blunter: "This is not a name you're buying based on fundamentals." The disagreement is not over whether SpaceX is a significant company. It is over how much of tomorrow's success has already been pulled into today's price.
Future possibilities are becoming more important than current earnings
That question becomes more consequential because demand for the stock will not depend solely on investors making active choices. Nasdaq shortened the seasoning period for new stocks from one year to two weeks. The new rule allows top-40 companies by market capitalization to join in just 15 trading days, and the previous 10% minimum float requirement has been eliminated. A company can reach major indices far faster than before and with a much smaller public float.
SpaceX appears positioned to benefit directly from those changes. Its expected fast-track inclusion in the Nasdaq 100 will make it a major holding for passive funds and ETFs that track the index. The addition could occur in about a month rather than after a wait of as much as a year. Analysts expect a reshuffling of portfolios as funds rotate into the stock, creating selling pressure elsewhere. Demand that once had to be earned through time in the market can now arrive through index mechanics.
The tension hiding beneath the celebration is that index inclusion and valuation are becoming intertwined. Critics argue most passive investors will effectively be forced to buy shares at inflated prices. Others note that index funds buy shares proportional to public float, meaning a company with a very large valuation but a comparatively small float can exert influence beyond the amount of stock actually available for trading. The rules no longer require the market to spend much time discovering a price before index money arrives.
Index mechanics can now deliver demand before price discovery is complete
Meanwhile, the numbers used to justify that price carry their own complication. The $18.7 billion in 2025 revenue highlighted in the S-1 filing comes with what the filing itself describes as an important caveat: it is the product of common-control accounting, a GAAP convention that allows companies with a shared controlling shareholder to retroactively consolidate financials. The figure is real. So is the accounting framework behind it. Investors are being asked to decide how much weight each deserves.
The offering is expected to create approximately 4,000 new millionaires, from senior executives to engineers and support staff who received equity over years of employment. Yet the more consequential transfer may occur elsewhere. Fast-track inclusion in the Nasdaq 100, combined with rules that sharply reduce the waiting period for index eligibility, means the debate over what SpaceX is worth will not remain confined to voluntary buyers. The unresolved fact at the center of this listing is that a company widely acknowledged as a difficult valuation exercise is on a path to become a mandatory holding for passive capital before the market has had much time to decide what that valuation should be.
Cover photo Bruno Sanchez-Andrade Nuño CC-BY-2.0
