Elon Musk says SpaceX will probably top $100 trillion within 10 years. His only caveat, posted on X on October 15, was a major world war. That is about 48 times the company’s $2.07 trillion market value at its October 14 close.
Musk made the prediction in reply to a clip of Baron Capital founder Ron Baron forecasting up to $50 trillion. Late last year, Musk had described a $100 trillion SpaceX only as “possible.”
Ron Baron’s $50 Trillion Case Rests on Starlink and Orbital Data Centers
Baron made the forecast in a Columbia Business School interview.
“I think it’s going to be thousands of dollars a share. I think it’ll be worth $20 trillion, $30 trillion, $50 trillion. Elon thinks I’m way low. And it’s now $2 trillion,” he said.
Baron expects Starlink to reach a valuation of $14 trillion to $15 trillion within the next decade, adding that it is still at the very early stages of that growth.
He also sees space-based data centers as an even larger business, potentially worth several times more than Starlink.
Can SpaceX’s Volatile Stock Carry a $100 Trillion Ambition?
SpaceX shares have swung hard in the four months since the company went public in the largest IPO on record. The debut briefly made Musk the world’s first trillionaire.
Shares peaked at $225.64 within days, but a slide soon pushed him back below $1 trillion. His fortune has hovered around that line since, slipping under it again on October 13, per Forbes.
Meanwhile, the company’s financials show only Starlink turning an operating profit last quarter. The AI division spent $15.8 billion on infrastructure over the same period. To fund the buildout, SpaceX is reportedly seeking $40 billion more in debt for Nvidia chips.
SpaceX’s credit default swaps, which work like insurance against a borrower failing to repay, surged after the report. The FT said the five-year contracts reached 194 basis points, up from about 110 in June.
At that level, insuring $1 million of SpaceX debt costs about $19,400 a year. The company still holds an investment-grade BBB rating.
Moreover, SpaceX’s own IPO filing was warier about Baron’s orbital data center thesis.
“Our initiatives to develop orbital AI compute and in-orbit, lunar, and interplanetary industrialization are in early stages, involve significant technical complexity and unproven technologies, and may not achieve commercial viability,” the filing read.
Whether SpaceX can justify a $100 trillion valuation depends on turning those plans into lasting revenue. It also has to manage rising infrastructure costs. Its upcoming Starship flight and third-quarter results could provide the next clues.
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