☕️ Betting against SpaceX today is like betting against Jobs back in the day
Aug 18, 2026Howdy! 👋
I’ve got a full day on deck for reasons that’ll be self-evident in a few hours, but I don’t want to leave ya hangin’. There’s a lot of money on the move today.
Don’t let the headlines about rates throw you.
The markets are not falling because of a debt-induced spiral, inflation or even the prospect of more shenanigans in the Strait of Hormuz.
The markets are re-pricing the risk associated with sovereign supply/demand imbalance and what’s called duration risk – meaning the longer it takes to get your money back, the harder the price gets hit when rates move.
In plain English, this is a term premium and credit risk story with the market demanding more compensation to hold on to risk longer in both the stock and bond markets.
It’s also a gift for smart investors who have a tightly focused buy list.
You have one… right???!!! 😀
If not, you may find One Bar Ahead® helpful just like other investors around the world who tell me that it’s changed their lives, given them newfound confidence in the markets and – yep – calm.
Common sense counts for a lot.
Case in point, the super smart David Asman asked me about SpaceX this morning before moving quickly on to both Home Depot and Lowe’s. (Watch)
But it's SpaceX I want to focus on for a moment.
There’s another lockup release on the horizon – this time around 319 million shares that can start trading come Thursday the 20th. And right on cue, the naysayers are making hay while the sun shines.
For instance, Professor Scott Galloway – who, btw, is undoubtedly a super sharp thinker – is of the opinion that it’s a $10-$30 stock and wildly overvalued according to an article in Business Insider. (Read)
Then there’s Whitney Tilson – former hedge funder who says that SpaceX is the most overvalued large cap stock of all time. (Read)
Or even George Noble – the former Fidelity fund manager – who called SpaceX one of "the best shorts in the market," and thinks fair value is closer to $30 a share. (Read)
See the pattern here?
Every one of these opinions leans on comps and multiples built for a world where rockets, satellites and AI didn’t share the balance sheet nor the income statement.
Could they be right?
Sure, but there’s a big difference between possibilities and probabilities.
Bears, critics and negative nellies build their careers on being right about what’s broken because it’s a job with a payoff. Being early and loud is often the model for critics because it sells books, funds endowments and sells newsletters.
The world’s most successful investors ask “what does this look like if it works” and invest accordingly. Buffett, Baron, Orman…
That’s what actually matters.
If you’re early in the right business, you get paid for decades.
Think about this for a moment if you’re giving in to the bearish bunch.
The critics are running multiple math on a company running 92% revenue growth, $14B in new AI sales, with 12 million subscribers, $100B in cash and fully capable of funding its own AI buildout. You may as well value Amazon today based on its 1999 bookseller margins. 🤦
I'd rather toss my hat in with the largest shareholders who, according to a report published on August 17, include Alphabet (551.2 million shares, $77.2 billion), Fidelity (302.6 million shares, $42.4 billion) and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (154.1 million shares, $21.6 billion). (Read)
Why?
More money has been made throughout history from championing champions than betting against ‘em.
My own case for SpaceX is very simple.
Here’s what I couldn’t say on TV in the interest of time.
1 – Starlink is already throwing off 10 digits a quarter
When people think of SpaceX they think of space, Mars, starships but what they’re missing is considerably more pedestrian… communications.
Starlink connectivity revenue hit $4.29 billion in Q2, up 66% year-over-year, with Starlink subscribers doubling to 12 million, adding 1.7 million users in a single quarter. That segment, btw, turned in an operating profit of $1.66 billion for the quarter.
Critics say that it’s the “only” one of SpaceX's three segments to do so and they’re right… it is.
Once upon a time that was true with Nvidia, Apple and dozens of other businesses that went on to become household millionaire makers.
Musk's not selling a story but plenty of other people are trying to. Instead, he's selling a subscription business that already throws off ten-figure quarterly profit. (Read)
2 – AI/data is the option nobody's pricing in
SpaceX poured $15.83 billion into AI infrastructure in the quarter – more than six times the year-ago capex figure, and backed it with $14.1 billion in contracted Cloud Services Agreements and 1.4 GW of nameplate compute, up from just 400 megawatts a year ago.
Once again, the critics can’t be bothered to see the forest for the trees.
The AI segment just posted its first-ever adjusted EBITDA profit – $1.1 billion – in the same quarter it grew revenue 247%. Layer in over $6 billion in multi-year Starshield government contracts and a $47.5 billion backlog, and you've got a second growth engine bears are still modeling as a rounding error. (Read)
The market is still pricing SpaceX like a one-trick pony (Starlink) with a side hustle that burns cash– which if you recall your history was exactly the setup I told you was poppycock when I broke the story regarding Apple’s services more than a decade ago… which, btw, are now a $105B+ proposition.
3 – Lockup fear is a big ol’ nothingburger — the data already proved it
The August 6 unlock freed 911.5 million shares – roughly 7% of the company's ~13 billion total shares, exceeding the entire original public float in one shot.
Instead of the crash the bears wanted, SPCX rose 6%, and days later surged 15.8% to $133 as heavy insider lockup expirations failed to trigger the expected sell-offs.
In other words, the bears just got that one shoved in their face. (Read)
Think about this logically.
Do you really think Nvidia or Harvard are going to suddenly unload shares like a minor league ball club unloads players who can’t make the show?
No way.
The investing public doesn’t understand that big institutions rarely, if ever, sell large positions once they’re assembled because they play a big role in pensions, endowments and other large institutions that must manage their portfolios accordingly.
I’m not surprised and you shouldn’t be either.
Many of the largest critics don’t understand market mechanics because they’ve – gasp – never actually managed real money or been responsible for it at scale. Imagine that. 🙄
But and nonetheless, it’s a popular line of thinking so let’s talk about it for a moment.
4 – Float mechanics favor patient buyers, not sellers
Musk's ~6.4 billion shares – worth more than 40% of the company's value – stay locked until June 2027. Meanwhile the company's sitting on $100 billion in cash and marketable securities and guiding toward $100 billion in annualized recurring revenue by year-end.
What this tells me is that SpaceX can fund its own AI buildout out of pocket while the "supply flood" bears and CapEx Crusaders keep waiting for a dump that hasn't come. (Read)
5 – Launch dominance isn’t priced in
I’ve saved the best for last.
Critics are whispering in chatrooms all over the planet and clickbait artists are carpet-bombing your email inbox trying to convince you that Musk “can’t do orbital.”
Ummm, yeah.
These are the same guys whose company just ran two successful Starship V3 flight tests in the past 90 days and is landing multi-billion-dollar government orbital contracts – over $6 billion in Starshield deals alone.
Falcon 9 didn't just reach orbit but has redefined what routine access to orbit even means. Every time SpaceX launches, revenue potential goes up and margins expand as costs go down.
At this point "Musk can't do orbital" isn't skepticism; it’s just wrong.
So, will I buy more SpaceX shares?
I sure as heck hope I’m smart enough to do that.
Bottom Line
The old saying that you can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink is very true with regard to investing. Which is why I’m reminded of something I learned decades ago from my mentors that many investors would be wise to learn today.
Profit potential is directly correlated to the ability to change your mind when presented with accurate information that contradicts your perception and your beliefs.
You got this — I promise.
As always, let’s MAKE it a great day.
Keith 😀
