Der Super-IPO ist da, und SpaceX setzt alles auf eine Karte.

SpaceX has officially filed for an IPO and plans to list on the NASDAQ under the symbol "SPCX". The target valuation is $1.75 trillion. This could break the record for the world's largest IPO.

$1.75 trillion. What does this number mean? It took Apple over forty years to reach this value. In contrast, SpaceX achieved it in just 24 years.

The target for capital raising in its IPO is $75 billion, far exceeding the record set by Saudi Aramco in 2019.

The list of lead underwriters includes Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup. Such a strong lineup has become rare in recent years.

However, the entire pricing is based on the assumption that the Starship will be successful.

This is absurd, but also true.

The smartest minds on Wall Street have estimated a trillion - dollar value using complex financial models. The world's best investment banks are ready to sell this story to the market. The verification of the credibility of this story depends on whether 33 Raptor engines can function properly simultaneously at temperatures of thousands of degrees Celsius, whether the first stage of the rocket can safely return to the launch pad after separation, and whether the heat - shield tiles will not burn through during re - entry into the atmosphere.

The capital market has never experienced anything like this: an IPO of unprecedented size, whose pricing logic will ultimately be tested on the launch pad.

At this moment, the laws of physics become the biggest short - seller on this planet.

01 When Valuation Models Self - Confirm

Why is SpaceX's $1.75 - trillion valuation so closely linked to the Starship?

Here, a very sophisticated circle is constructed, making the valuation appear both as a cause and an effect.

George Soros introduced the concept of "reflexivity". This means that market prices themselves can change the fundamental data of the object being valued. When the stock price rises, the company can raise capital at lower costs. The raised capital is used for business expansion, and business expansion in turn confirms the increase in the stock price.

Soros used this theory to explain many extreme market movements in financial history. From the bank stock bubble to the rise of internet companies, this self - reinforcing effect can be found everywhere.

SpaceX's IPO has brought this cycle to an unprecedented scale.

The business model is as follows: The company goes public with an extremely high valuation - currently, a target value of $1.75 trillion is mentioned. This valuation enables it to raise $75 billion from the public market, far more than any other IPO in history.

After the money is received, it is invested in three areas: research and manufacturing of the Starship, expansion of AI computing infrastructure, and deployment of the next - generation Starlink satellites.

These investments are described in the prospectus as "strategic investments on the way to a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion".

The market sees these investments and the great story around the TAM (Total Addressable Market) and believes in the company's great future potential. The stock price rises further.

When the stock price rises, the company has the opportunity to make larger investments or raise capital at lower costs in the future.

Have you recognized this structure? The capital raised through the high valuation is used for things that make the high valuation plausible. It's like a circular argument: We do something great because we are so valuable; we are so valuable because we do something great.

As long as the cycle is uninterrupted, all elements inside confirm each other. It's difficult to find "flaws" in financial reports or traditional valuation models.

Because traditional valuation models target historical data and existing assets, while this cycle constantly creates new "historical data" and "assets".

The data center that only existed on paper last year was completed this year and now appears in the balance sheet as a fixed asset.

The Starlink business, which was still in the red last year, is now generating positive cash flows.

Each step in this process provides new evidence for this cycle.

But this structure also has a natural weakness.

Almost all the verification pressure is transferred to a specific physical assumption: The costs for entering orbit must fundamentally and significantly decrease.

Why is this assumption inevitable? The cost structure of the entire business story is based on this premise. Without a cost - effective way to access orbit, the deployment of the next - generation V3 satellites is an illusion.

If the Starship cannot achieve repeatable and high - frequency launch rhythms, SpaceX will still have to use the Falcon 9 to send individual satellites into orbit. Then the costs cannot be controlled. Although Starlink is currently a cash cow, the ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) is constantly decreasing, from $99 in 2023 to $66 in the first quarter of 2026.

The number of users is increasing, but the income per user is decreasing.

If the costs for satellite deployment cannot be reduced, the profit margin will quickly shrink.

Similarly, the so - called "orbital AI computing power" praised in the prospectus is just a concept if there is no cost - effective way to access orbit.

Currently, there is no means of transportation on Earth that can perform this task at commercially reasonable costs.

The Starship is designed to do this, but it has not yet been proven.

The AI sector accounts for the largest part of the $28.5 - trillion TAM, at $26.5 trillion. This means that most of the valuation story is about something that has not been proven in the real world.

And whether this something can be proven depends on a rocket that has not yet had a completely successful flight.

Now let's look at some other weaknesses in this cycle.

The transactions listed in the prospectus as the pillars of AI revenues are not as stable as they seem at first glance when reading the clauses carefully.

The contract for leasing cloud computing power with Anthropic costs $1.25 billion per month until May 2029. But the clauses also mention that either party can terminate the contract with a 90 - day notice.

90 days, a buffer period of a quarter.

If Anthropic finds a more cost - effective computing power solution or its technology no longer requires as much mass training, it can legally stop this payment after 90 days.

Treating a 90 - day - terminable agreement as a five - year discounted cash - flow calculation in a DCF model is financial engineering, not fundamental analysis.

In addition, a consideration of $60 billion in the form of SpaceX Class A shares was paid for the acquisition of Cursor.

Cursor is an AI programming tool company that has not yet achieved large - scale revenues.

SpaceX is using its "currency" in the form of a $1.75 - trillion valuation to buy a company that still needs money to validate its business model. This transaction may potentially capture a large market, but in essence, it is a valuation arbitrage, i.e., the exchange of expensive shares for a future possibility with high uncertainty.

If Cursor is not successful in the end, these $60 billion will be an expensive lesson.

As you can see, every part of this cycle is pushing in the same direction.

The profit margin of Starlink depends on the reduction of the costs for entering orbit.

The physical basis of AI depends on the reduction of the costs for entering orbit.

The largest number in the TAM depends on the reduction of the costs for entering orbit.

And only the Starship can achieve the reduction of the costs for entering orbit.

Therefore, the Starship in SpaceX's entire trillion - dollar story is not just one of many growth engines.

It is the factory that decides whether all other engines can be built.

It is the prerequisite for the entire valuation model.

02 Why Do Almost All Predictions in Space History Fail?

When it comes to technological breakthroughs, the capital market has a recurring problem: It always pays as if it were a sudden leap, rather than a gradual progress.

In 1970, NASA promised Congress and the public when selling the Space Shuttle program that it would reduce the cost of entering orbit per pound to about $100.

At that time, the background was that the Apollo program had caused astronomical costs and the public was less interested in the space race. NASA needed a new story to maintain its budget.

The Space Shuttle was presented as a revolutionary means of transportation because it was supposed to be reusable and operated like a commercial airliner, making access to space as normal as a flight in a passenger plane.

What was the result? Over the entire operating cycle of the Space Shuttle, the average cost per launch was more than a billion dollars, which amounts to costs of over $10,000 per pound for entering orbit.

The difference between the promise and the reality was a full two orders of magnitude.

The Space Shuttle did achieve technological achievements, such as the repair of the Hubble Telescope and the construction of the International Space Station. But as a commercial concept for reducing the cost of entering orbit, it was a total failure.

After its decommissioning, the United States had to rely on Russian Soyuz spacecraft for a time to send astronauts to the International Space Station.

This is not an isolated case. In the late 1990s, the Iridium company proposed an exciting project at the time: the deployment of a global communication network with 66 satellites in low - Earth orbit. This would have meant that one could make phone calls even in the Sahara Desert, in Antarctica, or in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Motorola was the technical support for this project, and Wall Street rewarded it with a very high valuation.

In 1998, the Iridium system was officially put into operation, and the company's market value once reached almost $47 billion.

Unfortunately, Iridium filed for bankruptcy protection in 1999 and was finally sold for $25 million, less than one - thousandth of its peak value.

The reason for the failure was not the lack of technology - the 66 satellites were actually launched into orbit, and the system could actually make phone calls.

The problem was that the construction of terrestrial fiber - optic networks and mobile - phone base stations advanced much faster than anyone expected.

Why would one buy a satellite phone for thousands of dollars and pay per - minute charges when one can make a much cheaper call with a mobile phone in New York? The cost structure of the space system was completely destroyed by the development of the terrestrial system.

These two historical examples teach the same lesson: The technological breakthroughs announced in the space industry, which are supposed to "completely change everything", almost all underestimate the complexity of engineering and the time span for commercialization.

The people making these promises may not intentionally exaggerate. They are simply impressed by the fascination of technology and forget how far it is from "laboratory feasibility" to "commercial readiness".

Now it's SpaceX's turn.

It seems to be different from both NASA and Iridium.

It is not a traditional space organization driven by government subsidies, nor a company that only exists on paper and has no satellites.

It has already proven with the Falcon 9 that reusable rockets are commercially viable. The recovery of the first stage of the Falcon 9 has reduced the cost of entering orbit to about $2700 per kilogram.

Compared to the over $50,000 per kilogram for the Space Shuttle, this is a reduction of an order of magnitude.

These are real data, not forecasts.

But the Starship is supposed to reduce the costs by one or two more orders of magnitude.

That is, the cost of entering orbit is supposed to drop from $2700 per kilogram to $200 or less. If this goal is achieved, the cost structure for accessing space would actually be similar to that of container shipping - expensive, but no longer an astronomical sum.

In this case, the mass deployment of Starlink V3 satellites, the construction of orbital AI data centers, and even the infrastructure for Mars colonization envisioned by Elon Musk would become economically viable.

This is the so - called "singularity point". Once a certain cost threshold is crossed, previously impossible business models suddenly become possible. The capital market is setting the stage...