"Not worth a trillion, let alone two trillion," two "big short sellers" slam SpaceX

Two "Big Short" figures have recently publicly poured cold water on SpaceX's IPO.

Steve Eisman clearly stated in an interview with CNBC on Monday that he "is definitely not a fan of this IPO." Michael Burry, on the other hand, said a week ago that SpaceX's IPO documents do not support a valuation of one trillion dollars, let alone two trillion dollars.

During the global financial crisis in 2008, both Steve Eisman and Michael Burry became famous overnight for successfully short - selling the US subprime mortgage market and served as the prototypes of the soul figures who toppled Wall Street in the movie "The Big Short."

Nearly two decades have passed, and these two guys are once again "in sync" and sitting at the same table. This time, their common target is SpaceX under Elon Musk.

SpaceX will be listed on the NASDAQ in the United States on June 12th local time. This feast, known as the "IPO of the century" by Wall Street, is pushing the frenzy in the US market to its peak.

Betting Entirely on AI Is Unreliable

Public information shows that SpaceX has set an issue price of $135 per share and plans to raise up to $75 billion. Its initial market value is approaching $1.77 trillion. These figures mean that SpaceX may break the fundraising record set by oil giant Saudi Aramco and join the global trillion - dollar market - value club. According to statistics from China New Jingwei, as of the 9th, only 14 companies globally have a market value of over one trillion dollars.

Eisman said in an interview that he has no intention of short - selling SpaceX and simply chooses not to participate. "The valuation is silly," he said.

He pointed out that the most crucial point in the prospectus is that SpaceX has now become a capital - intensive enterprise. Looking back at the fiscal year 2023 data, its capital expenditure accounted for only 42% of its revenue. However, in the first quarter of 2026, the proportion of capital expenditure to revenue reached 215%. This situation occurred because in fiscal year 2023, SpaceX had not yet entered the artificial intelligence field, and its business at that time was only in the Starlink and aerospace sectors.

"It is the artificial intelligence business that has brought extremely high capital consumption. To be honest, Grok is not a top - tier artificial intelligence company globally, and no one in the industry regards it as at the forefront of the industry," Eisman said.

When the proportion of capital expenditure to revenue reaches 215%, it means that for every $1 earned, $2.15 has to be invested.

Eisman pointed out that the entire technology industry is undergoing a transformation, shifting from the past asset - light model to an asset - heavy model. Although various companies have invested huge amounts of money in researching and developing large language models and artificial intelligence, and the results are good, there are almost no differences between the products. All kinds of large models are very similar and have become completely homogeneous. Users keep switching between different products, and enterprises cannot build competitive barriers at all. In his view, after investing so much money, only homogeneous products are created in the end.

He pointed out that the overall potential market size stated in SpaceX's prospectus reaches $28.5 trillion, and 85% of the market space is directed towards artificial intelligence.

"That is to say, even if all the advantages of SpaceX's aerospace and Starlink businesses are valid, the company's core bet in the future is on artificial intelligence - this is a direct quote from the prospectus, not my personal judgment," Eisman said.

He also said that the potential market size of $28.5 trillion is almost equivalent to the annual GDP of the United States. "Reading this prospectus is like reading a science - fiction novel."

"Not Worth One Trillion, Let Alone Two Trillion"

Another "Big Short" prototype, Michael Burry, also believes that SpaceX is overvalued.

"Any increase will be the result of a combination of hype and technical factors," Burry claimed in a chat group for his subscribers on the Substack platform recently. "There is nothing in the S - 1 document (SpaceX's prospectus) that indicates its value reaches one trillion dollars, let alone two trillion dollars."

In addition to successfully predicting the US real - estate bubble, Burry also identified and short - sold overvalued technology stocks during the peak of the Internet bubble from 1999 to 2000.

Burry also posted on a social platform previously, saying that the artificial intelligence industry is currently over - hyped, just like the technology industry before the Internet bubble burst in 2002.

In the aforementioned chat group, he also pointed out that the artificial intelligence company Anthropic is not worth one trillion dollars. He wrote on social media: There is no basis to guarantee, or even a high probability, that the long - term value of Anthropic can reach one trillion dollars.

Burry also said that Anthropic's business of delving into cutting - edge artificial intelligence models has extremely high costs and is completely supported by piling up resources. He believes that in the long run, computing power will eventually become commoditized like Internet services.

He reiterated his previous view, saying that the current market demand is a false signal, and the trend of blindly piling up computing power parameters is doomed to be short - lived. Currently, all parties are frantically competing for computing power to run AI models, and the resulting infrastructure expansion and equipment orders far exceed the actual demand in the next few years.

Burry joked that if he were asked to spend one trillion dollars to acquire Anthropic, he would rather count to one trillion first. "I might reconsider in 240,000 years," he said.

On June 8th, analysts from Morningstar released a view stating that the institution values SpaceX at $63 per share, a discount of about 53% compared to the upcoming IPO issue price.

The institution envisioned three scenarios. In the most optimistic "Moon - landing plan" scenario, SpaceX's market value will reach $1.97 trillion, that is, $154 per share. This is 14% higher than the issue price. Considering investors' enthusiasm for SpaceX, artificial intelligence infrastructure, and the IPO, the stock price of SpaceX may even reach this level in the short term after its listing. However, Morningstar believes that the probability of this scenario (i.e., the Starship is reusable and the large - scale orbital data center achieves great success) is only 7%, which is one of the reasons why its final fair - value valuation of $63 per share is much lower than $154 per share.

Before the subprime mortgage crisis broke out, many authoritative institutions and even high - ranking financial officials in the United States believed that "housing prices will never fall." Eisman, Burry, and others went against the trend and finally became famous. Will history repeat itself this time? When this record - breaking dollar fundraising is officially injected, can SpaceX use this huge amount of money to create a real AI and space closed - loop in the 215% capital - expenditure black hole? Or will it prove the fateful prediction of the "Big Short" figures and leave a mess after the frenzy fades? The market needs to wait and see.

The views in this article are for reference only and do not constitute investment advice. Investment is risky, and you should be cautious when entering the market.

This article is from the WeChat official account "China New Jingwei" (ID: jwview), written by Luo Kun and published by 36Kr with authorization.