ARK Invest's Cathie Wood has publicly argued that SpaceX's $1.75 trillion initial public offering valuation amounts to a “deep value opportunity,” contending that the market is assigning little credit to the launch revenue she believes the company's Starship vehicle could eventually generate. Wood set out the thesis in a recent post on X. The exchange matters because it puts a number on how much of SpaceX's public-market story now rests on Starship, a vehicle that has flown only two suborbital test missions since the company went public in June.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPCX)

The Math Behind the Thesis

Wood's projection draws on calculations by ARK Invest analyst Sam Korus. His research indicates that Starlink, SpaceX's satellite internet constellation, generates approximately $19 million in annual revenue for every terabit per second of network capacity. A single Starship mission could theoretically carry up to 60 next-generation V3 satellites, adding roughly 61 terabits per second of capacity — the equivalent of about $1 billion in steady annual revenue per flight.

Scaling that figure to Elon Musk's publicly stated ambition of 10,000 Starship missions per year, Wood calculated $10 trillion in prospective annual revenue by the end of the decade — a scale no public company currently approaches. Musk responded to her analysis personally with a brief comment: “It's not impossible.”

Stock Performance Since the IPO

SPCX shares priced at $135 for their June debut and opened public trading at $150 before surging to a peak of $225.64. The stock subsequently slipped below its offering price to approximately $104.83 before rebounding, and has recently traded between $142 and $152. In after-hours trading on Tuesday, SPCX declined 0.58% to $142.66 — leaving the shares close to where they began life as a public company even as views on their long-term value diverge.

Critical Assumptions Behind the Forecast

The $10 trillion estimate carries significant qualifications. Korus acknowledged that revenue per terabit per second will likely fall as network capacity grows, and ARK's own research supports that trend: Starlink's revenue per terabit per second has already declined from $23 million in 2024 to $19 million in 2025.

Wood's calculation further presumes that all 10,000 annual missions would carry Starlink infrastructure. Musk has separately promoted the same launch frequency for point-to-point journeys around Earth, meaning not every flight would automatically expand the network's capacity.

Sustaining 10,000 missions annually would require more than 27 successful launches per day. Since SpaceX became a public company in June, Starship has flown only two missions, both suborbital tests. The forecast therefore depends on maximum launch cadence and an all-Starlink payload mix holding at the same time — neither of which has been demonstrated at the required scale.

Upcoming Milestones

SpaceX is planning Starship Flight 14 for September 22, subject to regulatory clearance. According to CFO Bret Johnsen, the mission would mark Starship's first orbital flight and its first “revenue-generating flight,” carrying production V3 satellites. Musk confirmed this week that the V3 constellation rollout begins this month, and he projects that V3 will ultimately deliver more than 100 times the transmission capacity of the existing Starlink network, which comprises roughly 11,000 satellites.

For readers tracking the thesis, the near-term checkpoints are regulatory clearance for Flight 14, whether the mission delivers the first orbital and revenue-generating Starship flight, and the pace at which V3 satellites begin adding capacity to the constellation.

For perspective, SpaceX recorded $18.67 billion in revenue in 2025. Musk said in June that the company “might be able to reach approximately $1T revenue in 2030” — a figure far below Wood's $10 trillion forecast.

Analysts currently assign SPCX a Moderate Buy consensus rating, with 26 Buy recommendations, 6 Hold ratings, and 2 Sell ratings. The consensus price target stands at $232.07, implying approximately 62% potential upside from current trading levels.

Source: Blockonomi — SpaceX (SPCX) Stock: Cathie Wood Declares Current Valuation a Bargain Opportunity