SpaceX Gets Another Valuation Bump, Expects to Double Revenue in 2023
How much is SpaceX worth? It’s a persistently intriguing question among tech investors. No one knows for sure due to the company’s private status. But every now and then, such as when it raises or sells equity, outsiders get a glimpse of the financial reality inside the Elon Musk-led space company.
SpaceX’s latest price tag is a whopping $150 billion, according to an insider offer to sell some of the company’s shares. SpaceX is offering up to $750 million in stock to new and existing investors at $81 per share, CNBC reported last week, citing a copy of the purchase offer sent by SpaceX chief financial officer Bret Johnsen.
SpaceX conducts these secondary equity sales about twice a year to give employees and other company shareholders a chance to cash out, wrote CNBC’s space reporter Michael Sheetz.
It’s unclear whether SpaceX has found a buyer. At $81 per share, the company would be worth $150 billion, making it the most valuable company in global aerospace and defense industries, surpassing Boeing ($127 billion), Airbus ($116 billion) and Lockheed Martin ($115 billion).
SpaceX didn’t respond to a request to comment on the secondary sale.
SpaceX makes money by providing launch services to government and commercial clients and monthly internet service through its Starlink satellite constellations. It’s estimated SpaceX drew in $2.3 billion from its launch business and $1 billion from Starlink, according to Payload Space, a space industry newsletter founded by former JPMorgan analyst Mo Islam.
The company recently told some investors its revenue is expected to double to approximately $8 billion this year, $3 billion of which would be operating profits, The Information reported on July 17.
If true, that would give SpaceX a similar price-to-sales ratio (market value divided by annual revenue), a common valuation metric, to Musk’s Tesla. (Tesla generated $81 billion in revenue last year and boasts a market cap of $900 billion.) SpaceX didn’t respond to an inquiry to confirm its revenue forecast, either.
It’s unclear whether SpaceX is profitable yet. Its Starlink business is not. The company recently projected Starlink will turn a profit this year. The satellite-based internet service has more than 1.5 million subscribers globally.
SpaceX is the most valuable private company in the U.S. and the second in the world (behind TikTok parent ByteDance.) Musk owns about half of the company. The rest is backed by a group of private equity and venture capital firms, including Founders Fund and Sequoia Capital.