{"slug": "brutal-hype-test-for-ai-ipos-arrives-with-spacex", "title": "Brutal hype test for AI IPOs arrives with SpaceX", "summary": "SpaceX's IPO closed up 19% at $161 per share, delivering the largest market debut in history with a valuation exceeding $2 trillion, driven partly by its AI arm through the xAI acquisition. The success raises questions about whether it sets a precedent for upcoming AI IPOs from OpenAI and Anthropic, but analysts note significant differences in profitability and business models.", "body_md": "The summer of AI IPOs has arrived, and it's off to a strong start. SpaceX closed up 19% at roughly $161 per share on Friday, priced at $135 at IPO, delivering the largest market debut in history at a $1.77 trillion offering valuation, which climbed above $2 trillion by close.\n\nWhile best known for its low-orbit satellite network via Starlink, SpaceX also has a foothold in the AI world through its $250 billion acquisition of another one of founder Elon Musk's startups, xAI, which includes the Grok chatbot and the Colossus gigawatt-scale AI factory. With OpenAI and Anthropic filing confidentially for their own IPOs earlier this month, the question is: Does SpaceX's IPO success set the tone for how public markets will value Anthropic and OpenAI?\n\nHere's why those scenarios are significantly different and difficult to compare: SpaceX has a highly profitable Starlink business with a 39% operating margin, which can offset any losses from the AI arm. Those losses are largely unavoidable due to data center supply constraints that drive up training and inference costs. When factoring in the scale of OpenAI and Anthropic's free services, which are needed to secure users, they are bleeding money. So much so that, ahead of each company's IPO, they are considering substantial token price cuts to capture more customers within their respective customer segments amid consistently rising costs. Another major difference is SpaceX's promise to solve the aforementioned data center crisis. The $250 billion xAI acquisition was in part justified because of plans to build space-based data centers, which aim to overcome the limitations of terrestrial AI infrastructure — plans that are now moving markets.\n\nAs noted by Morningstar in a research note, SpaceX's valuation would be considerably lower than its IPO valuation (the firm set it at $63 per share) if not for some of its more ambitious future projects, including orbital data centers. Yet markets are clearly excited about the AI arm.\n\n\"The [higher IPO] valuation hinges on two unproven technologies: a rapidly reusable Starship upper stage and commercially scalable and competitive orbital AI data centers. We expect neither of these technological questions to be answered before 2028, even in the most optimistic scenario,\" said MorningStar in the note.\n\nFurthermore, the firm adds that in the most ambitious moonshot scenario, SpaceX could rapidly scale orbital data centers to capture 20% of the firm's forecasted AI computing capacity by 2040, implying a share price of $154 per share, but it assigns that scenario only a 7% probability.\n\n## Our Deeper *View*\n\nSpaceX's success may not be a perfect blueprint for Anthropic or OpenAI, but that doesn't preclude both companies from eventually going public at similarly eye-watering valuations. Demand for AI products remains as strong as ever, and the capital flowing into the sector shows no sign of slowing. Anthropic and OpenAI are currently valued at $965 billion and $852 billion, respectively. Those figures, combined with SpaceX's valuation, put the total ask on public markets well above what the entire US IPO market raised in 2025. That scale alone will inevitably reignite debate about whether we're watching a bubble form in real time.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/brutal-hype-test-for-ai-ipos-arrives-with-spacex", "canonical_source": "https://www.thedeepview.com/articles/brutal-hype-test-for-ai-ipos-arrives-with-spacex", "published_at": "2026-06-14 19:33:08+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-14 20:14:37.346753+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-startups", "ai-infrastructure", "ai-policy", "ai-research"], "entities": ["SpaceX", "Starlink", "xAI", "Grok", "Colossus", "OpenAI", "Anthropic", "Morningstar"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/brutal-hype-test-for-ai-ipos-arrives-with-spacex", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/brutal-hype-test-for-ai-ipos-arrives-with-spacex.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/brutal-hype-test-for-ai-ipos-arrives-with-spacex.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/brutal-hype-test-for-ai-ipos-arrives-with-spacex.jsonld"}}