SpaceX surpasses Amazon at $2.97 trillion in 1st week of trading

SpaceX surged past Amazon to become the world's fifth most valuable company on June 16, reaching a $2.97 trillion intraday market cap just days after its Nasdaq debut.

"The market is pricing in the convergence of rockets, satellites, and AI under one roof — something we have never seen before," said Tom Forte, senior equity analyst at D.A. Davidson.

Shares of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. opened 13% higher on its second day of trading, pushing the company's valuation past Amazon's $2.65 trillion before cooling to a 5% gain by the close. The stock, which priced at $135 in its June 12 initial public offering, has climbed roughly 50% since listing. At its peak, SpaceX commanded a price-to-sales ratio of 125 times trailing revenue of $19.3 billion — roughly six times the multiple of Nvidia Corp., the next most expensive megacap stock at 20 times sales.

The milestone shows how investors are betting that Elon Musk's corporate cluster — spanning rocket launches, Starlink satellite internet, the xAI artificial intelligence venture, and social platform X — can generate profits that justify a valuation rivaling the world's largest companies. SpaceX reported a net loss of $8.69 billion on $19.3 billion in revenue over the trailing 12 months, while Amazon generated $723 billion in revenue and $90.8 billion in net income over the same period.

The surge came as markets reacted to news that SpaceX agreed to acquire Cursor, an AI-powered coding tools startup, for $60 billion. The deal is expected to feed real-world developer data into Grok, the AI model developed by xAI, which merged into SpaceX at the end of February. The X social media platform, which merged with xAI earlier that month, also became part of the publicly traded entity.

By June 18, the rally had partially reversed. SpaceX's market cap fell to $2.36 trillion as Amazon regained its lead at $2.62 trillion. Options trading in SpaceX was unusually active: more than 500,000 contracts changed hands in the first hour of June 16, surpassing 1 million by midday, according to market data. The small float and extreme valuation multiples suggest continued volatility ahead.

The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield held near 4.15% during the week, while the dollar index edged lower, providing a supportive backdrop for growth stocks. Among the Magnificent Seven, only Tesla — another Musk-controlled company — trades at a comparable narrative premium, with a trailing P/S ratio of roughly 10 times.

Starlink remains the only consistently profitable segment within Musk's business group, according to IPO filings. The satellite internet unit's cash flow helps offset losses from capital-intensive rocket development and AI data center construction, which the company said added significant expenses in the first quarter.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.