If the market were buying a launch company, the price would make no sense. What it is buying is a bet on what happens when reaching space stops being expensive.
Published on June 18, 2026 · by Alex · SpaceX · Starship · Investment thesis
The most repeated criticism of SpaceX is that it is overvalued, and the argument adds two businesses: space launches plus satellite internet. On that maths, the price genuinely does not add up.
The problem is that the maths leaves out the only thing that explains the valuation: Starship. This article is about what someone buying at these prices is actually buying, and about the single condition everything rests on.
Starship is a fully reusable rocket and spacecraft system. If it works as promised, it is not an incremental improvement: it is a massive reduction in the cost of putting a kilo into orbit.
And when the cost of something falls drastically, history shows that the existing market does not merely grow. Markets appear that previously made no economic sense.
| When the cost of… fell | What appeared |
|---|---|
| Computing | The internet |
| Connecting | The smartphone |
| Storing and processing | The cloud |
| Reaching orbit | ? |
Nobody knows for certain, which is exactly the point. But companies are already working on the obvious candidates: data centres in orbit, manufacturing in microgravity, space tourism, lunar infrastructure, point-to-point transport.
And here is what matters for the valuation: SpaceX does not need to win any of those businesses. It only needs to control the access — the infrastructure everyone has to pass through. It is the difference between building shops beside the motorway and collecting the toll.
That explains why some investors are not looking at current revenue but trying to estimate what an economy that does not yet exist might be worth. It is a legitimate exercise and it is also, by definition, a bet.
This entire thesis rests on one thing: Starship delivering. Not on Musk being right about Mars, nor on space tourism taking off. On the system working, being reliable and being cheap.
If it does, SpaceX can become one of the most important companies of the century. If it does not, all these valuations lose the only leg holding them up, and we return to the maths at the start: a launch company that loses money plus an internet business that works.
A thesis resting on a single condition is not a weak thesis, but it is a fragile one: there is no plan B. And a stock pricing a future possibility corrects violently every time that possibility is questioned.
Volatility is not an accident here — it is the direct consequence of putting a price on something that has not happened yet.
Because that math leaves out Starship. Adding launches and satellite internet alone, the price does not add up; anyone buying at these levels is buying a bet on what happens when the cost of putting a kilogram into orbit falls sharply.
A fully reusable rocket and ship system. If it delivers, it is not an incremental improvement but a massive cut in the cost of reaching space — and when the cost of something collapses, history shows the existing market does not just grow: markets that never made economic sense appear.
On one condition: that Starship works, is reliable and is cheap. Not on Musk being right about Mars, nor on space tourism taking off. A thesis resting on a single leg is not weak, but it is fragile: there is no plan B.
This article is the written version of the Saturday analysis.
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