Yoyo Zhang breaks down SpaceX's $1.7 trillion IPO valuation, the highest ever. The company lost $5 billion on $19 billion revenue in 2025, trading at 100× price-to-revenue versus the aerospace average of 14×. To justify the valuation, SpaceX would need $1 trillion annual revenue by 2035, requiring 50% growth every year for a decade.
If you didn't get in on the SpaceX IPO, you're not really missing out. Let me explain. My name is Yoyo Zhang. I'm a startup founder and a computer science and economics double major at UChicago, and I break down tech news in simple videos for you. So we all know that on June 12, 2022, SpaceX raised $75 billion through its IPO. 555 million shares were sold at $135 each, valuing the company at $1.7 trillion. For context, this IPO was more than double the previous largest IPO in human history, which is by the oil producer Saudi Aramco in 2019. Now here's why the valuation valuation is fishy. SpaceX is not a profitable company right now. In 2025, it had a net loss of about $5 billion with total revenues of around $19 billion. Prices SpaceX at over 100 times its revenue, while the average aerospace company is priced at about 14 times its earnings— net earnings, which SpaceX doesn't even have right now. Now, of course, SpaceX isn't just any aerospace company. Every tech investor wants a piece of what Elon's offering. He knows that. But to justify this valuation, SpaceX will have to be making over $1 trillion of annual revenue by 2035, which means a 50% year-over-year growth for the next 10 years straight. Is that really possible, or is it just science fiction? Either way, this is a very expensive bet to be making, even if you believe that this is the most visionary company in the galaxy.
