Key Points
SpaceX, the aerospace and artificial intelligence (AI) company founded by Elon Musk, recently filed its S-1 prospectus ahead of its eagerly anticipated IPO. Let’s review seven of the most important facts and figures from that filing — and if they make SpaceX and IPO to embrace or avoid.
1. SpaceX’s growth is cooling, and it’s racking up steep losses
In 2025, SpaceX’s revenue rose 33% to $18.67 billion. But in the first quarter of 2026, its revenue only grew 15% year over year to $4.69 billion.
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SpaceX generated a net profit of $791 million in 2025. Still, it posted a net loss of $4.94 billion in 2026 after it recast its financial results to reflect its acquisition of xAI — which owns X (formerly known as Twitter) and the Grok AI platform — this February.
Image source: Getty Images.
2. SpaceX is still mostly Starlink
SpaceX’s connectivity business, which houses its Starlink satellite business, accounted for 61% of its 2025 revenue and 69% of its revenue in the first quarter of 2026. The segment’s revenue rose 50% in 2025 and 57% year over year in the first quarter of 2026, but its average monthly revenue per user (ARPU) dropped from $81 at the end of 2025 to $66 in the first quarter.
On the bright side, Starlink’s growing subscriber base, which reached 10.3 million in the first quarter — along with a 59% reduction in the manufacturing costs of its terminals in 2025 — kept the connectivity segment firmly profitable.
But that segment is still SpaceX’s only profitable business: it generated an operating profit of $4.42 billion in 2025, but that was more than offset by the space segment’s operating loss of $657 million and the AI segment’s operating loss of $6.36 billion.
In the first quarter of 2026, the connectivity segment generated an operating profit of $1.19 billion — but that was erased again by the space segment’s operating loss of $619 million and the AI segment’s operating loss of $2.47 billion. Therefore, investors should expect its satellite business to continue to subsidize its Falcon rocket launches and AI expansion for the foreseeable future.
3. The AI business will remain a money pit
SpaceX plans to keep ramping up its AI infrastructure spending. Meanwhile, X’s higher-margin advertising revenue declined by $100 million year over year — which puts more pressure on the social media subsidiary to expand its paid subscriptions. In other words, the AI business will likely remain a money pit and the company’s weakest link.
4. SpaceX is paying Tesla a lot of money
In 2025, SpaceX spent $131 million on Tesla‘s (NASDAQ: TSLA) Cybertrucks. It also spent $697 million on Tesla’s battery energy storage systems throughout 2024 and 2025.
Those deals raise a few eyebrows, since Musk controls both companies. The Cybertruck purchases also occurred right after a series of safety-related recalls hit the popular pickup.
5. It plans to put data centers in space
SpaceX plans to put data centers in space as early as 2028. Those orbital data centers would initially be more expensive to build than terrestrial data centers, but they would be cheaper to operate because they use solar power. Those efforts will further squeeze its near-term margins, but they might eventually pay off as more companies start using orbital data centers.
6. A $28.5 trillion addressable market
SpaceX claims it has a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion — including a $22.7 trillion enterprise applications market, a $2.4 trillion AI infrastructure market, an $870 billion market for Starlink’s broadband business, a $740 billion market for Starlink’s mobile business, a $600 billion digital advertising business, and other nascent markets.
7. Its IPO could be too hot to handle
SpaceX reportedly wants to raise about $75 billion and seek a valuation of up to $2 trillion, making it the largest IPO in history. But at that market cap, it would trade at 107 times its trailing sales. That’s a meme stock valuation for a company with slowing sales growth, steep losses, and aggressive AI spending plans.
I expect Musk’s involvement and the market hype to initially drive SpaceX’s stock higher. Still, it will inevitably pull back when investors take a closer look at its wobbly business model. It’s less of a space exploration company and more of a satellite communications company that is propping up a deeply unprofitable AI and social networking company. So while SpaceX’s IPO will make Musk much richer, it could burn retail investors who chase its initial gains.
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Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
