How SpaceX Inspired Investors
At first glance, the market’s enthusiasm for the upcoming SpaceX IPO may seem puzzling. Yes, the company has secured U.S. leadership in space, but in 2025 its revenue was $18.7 billion, and it remains very far from sustainable net profitability. The heightened interest comes from its flagship products – the Starlink satellite network, Falcon launch vehicles, and the fully reusable Starship spacecraft currently in development, which is designed to carry bold volunteers to Mars – as well as the reputation of its founder, Elon Musk. Yet the market has never valued any other aerospace company at such levels.
This optimism did not appear out of nowhere. In February, SpaceX acquired another Musk project, xAI. Musk also owns X (formerly Twitter) and the Grok AI chatbot, which he has integrated among other things. Even Telegram has also integrated Grok. After the acquisition, SpaceX unexpectedly became a vertically integrated business that controls both AI model development and hardware. While SpaceX was a monopolist in its narrow market, the combined entity with xAI will immediately challenge several companies from the “Magnificent Seven” – specifically Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon.
Today, these are the only companies that own the entire AI business chain, from producing their own chips to training models. In addition, they closely cooperate with OpenAI and Anthropic, and thanks to large investments, they have effectively become divisions of Microsoft and Amazon, respectively. If SpaceX successfully integrates xAI, it will join this list. This explains investors’ excitement about the upcoming IPO and the potential $2 trillion valuation. The key to the doors of this elite club could be the company’s new strategy.
How SpaceX’s Strategy Differs
SpaceX wants to change the very logic of how artificial intelligence operates by moving data centers into Earth’s orbit. If it succeeds, it will be able to significantly outpace its competitors.
The reason according to analysts, the main constraint on scaling AI today is the shortage of energy for servers. Due to the electricity deficit, building new data centers is becoming increasingly difficult, and already this year half of all centers under construction will be delivered with delays.
Musk, however, has proposed completely eliminating these earthly limitations. He wants to create orbital AI infrastructure and launch dozens or even hundreds of data centers into space, connected to each other and to Earth via the Starlink network.
Naturally, such a project will require enormous investments. The area of the largest terrestrial data centers reaches several square kilometers. One can only guess how many satellites will need to be sent into orbit to achieve comparable computing power. And here SpaceX has a major advantage. The company’s innovations and established business processes have reduced the cost of launching cargo into orbit several times over, and Starship can cut it by another ...
