SpaceX Surges 19% in Debut; Analysts Call It Overvalued
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- SpaceX closed at $161 on its Nasdaq debut, jumping 19% from its $135 offer price, and the IPO's $1.75 trillion valuation made Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire
- Steve Westly, former Tesla board member and The Westly Group founder, warned that retail investors bought $100 billion in shares and could 'get panicky' if SpaceX misses growth projections in its S1
- Elon Musk said in a now-deleted X post that SpaceX 'might be able' to reach approximately $1 trillion in revenue by 2030 and would be 'surprised' if revenue didn't exceed that by 2031
- Matthew Maley of Miller Tabak called the IPO 'much too overvalued,' noting SpaceX's implied P/E ratio of nearly 100x dwarfs Nvidia's ~31x and Apple's ~35x
- Morningstar's Nicolas Owens called the stock 'significantly overvalued,' setting a fair value estimate of $63 per share and assigning only a 7% chance of hitting the $154 'moonshot' scenario
- Westly expressed long-term optimism, praising president and COO Gwynne Shotwell as 'extraordinary' and saying that 'if anybody can do it, it may be the combination of Gwynne and Elon'
Why it matters: SpaceX's ~100x implied P/E is more than triple Nvidia's, and Morningstar's $63 fair value sits 61% below the $161 close — meaning the $100 billion in retail share purchases faces significant downside if SpaceX misses even a few quarters of its trillion-dollar revenue targets, as Westly warned.
