Valuing SpaceX: Cash Flows versus the Cost of Capital

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Abstract
SpaceX came to market in June 2026 at $1.77 trillion, the largest initial public offering on record. I value it with a multi-segment cash-flow model calibrated to disclosed financials, forecasts, and comparables, and price the real options that other valuations leave unmodeled. Inverting the model, I find an asymmetry: every operating input must sit at or beyond the top of its supported range to justify the price, whereas a discount-rate cut well inside estimation error suffices. The price is therefore a statement about the price of risk, not the business: paying it means accepting a low expected return, hard to reconcile with the high option-implied uncertainty, since systematic risk would warrant a higher one. Index flows and portfolio motives are temporary or capped; beliefs are not, and surveys suggest buyers expect the cash-flow story plus an above-market return, not the low one the arithmetic implies.

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