A SpaceX held this Friday (12) the biggest IPO (public offering of shares) of history on the United States stock market. Elon Musk’s company and his team rang the Nasdaq bell at 10:30 am (Brasília time) and began trading the rocket manufacturer’s shares.
The actions of SpaceX recorded strong gains in their debut, raising the company’s market value to more than US$2 trillion and consolidating its status as a .
On the first day of trading, the shares reduced their gains a little at the close of the market, but still ended with an increase of 19.34% in relation to the IPO target price of US$ 135.
Despite the enthusiasm of investors and the strong appreciation of the shares at their debut, experts interviewed by CNN Money assess that the company represents a bet with high potential, but also surrounded by significant risks.
The predominant assessment among analysts is that SpaceX differentiates itself by operating on three strategic fronts — space exploration, connectivity via Starlink and artificial intelligence —, but that it is much more linked to expectations of future growth than to current financial results.
For Marcelo Cabral, investment manager at Stratton Capital, the company’s main strength lies in the integration between these segments. According to him, Starlink is currently the only division capable of consistently generating cash, while businesses linked to space exploration and artificial intelligence still operate at losses and require billion-dollar investments.
“The market is betting that investments made today will be able to generate significant returns in the future, but the company still depends heavily on external financing to support its expansion”, he assesses.
In the same vein, Alan Frydman, stock analyst at Genial Investimentos, states that SpaceX should be seen as a bet on artificial intelligence and . For him, the company’s pricing is not supported by current results, but by expectations that the AI vertical will become one of the largest markets in the global economy.
“Whoever buys the share today is not investing in the company’s results, but in a vision of the future”, he summarizes.
Or Elon Musk’s weight
The company’s CEO, Elon Musk, appears as a central factor in the experts’ analysis.
Frydman highlights that the entrepreneur’s leadership is, at the same time, one of the company’s greatest attractions and one of the company’s main risks, as a large part of investor confidence is directly associated with its ability to execute.
Virgílio Lage, a specialist at Valor Investimentos, considers that the valuation current situation makes the risk-return relationship unattractive in the short term. According to him, the appreciation of the shares reflects more the enthusiasm surrounding artificial intelligence and Musk’s figure than the company’s actual cash generation.
For investors with a longer horizon, however, Lage assesses that the company could represent an interesting opportunity, as long as the bet is accompanied by caution given the operational and financial challenges that still exist.
The long-term vision is also shared by Pablo Alencar, partner at Valor Capital. He highlights that SpaceX is no longer just a space launch company to position itself in markets considered strategic for the next decade, such as global connectivity, artificial intelligence and space infrastructure.
According to Alencar, the combination of Starlink’s satellite network, AI solutions and possible advances in communication devices could pave the way for the creation of its own technology ecosystem, similar to the model built by Apple by integrating hardware, software and services.
Despite this, the expert warns that the risks remain high. The company continues to register and trade at multiples considered aggressive when compared to traditional market standards.
Given this scenario, the consensus among experts is that SpaceX represents an opportunity aimed mainly at investors with a bold profile and a long-term focus. Although the company brings together characteristics that could transform it into one of the technological leaders of the coming decades, the success of the thesis depends on the ability to convert expectations into concrete results and justify a valuation which already embodies much of the market’s optimism.
Is SpaceX worth investing in?
In the experts’ assessment, the company brings together attributes that justify the market’s enthusiasm, such as leadership in satellite connectivity, investment in artificial intelligence, projects linked to the space economy and Elon Musk’s history of innovation.
On the other hand, the company still operates with high losses, demands billion-dollar investments and has a valuation considered far above current fundamentals.
Therefore, the consensus is that SpaceX may make sense for investors with high risk tolerance, a long-term horizon and a willingness to face periods of strong volatility in exchange for the possibility of significant returns in the future.
For more conservative profiles or for those looking for companies with consolidated cash generation and traditional valuation metrics, the recommendation is to be cautious.
In other words, SpaceX is seen less as an investment based on current results and more as a bet on the company’s ability to transform the future of artificial intelligence, telecommunications and space exploration.
