SpaceX has no public market. The stock trades on secondary platforms where employees dump shares to people who think Elon Musk tweets constitute a business plan. Price discovery happens when buyers and sellers meet in the open and agree on what something costs. SpaceX skips that part. The company exists in a valuation bubble maintained by venture firms who mark their positions based on whatever the last guy paid.
The headline warns of "key tests" ahead. Translation: at some point actual human beings will need to exit their positions at a number that makes sense. Right now the stock moves like a beanie baby in 1998. Someone sells a few shares at $110. The whole company gets valued at $200 billion. Nobody asks why. Nobody checks if there are buyers at $111.
Retail traders read these headlines and think they're missing out. They're not missing out. They're being protected from themselves by accreditation laws that prevent them from buying a stock with the liquidity of a timeshare in Branson. The "true value" will reveal itself the second SpaceX goes public and ten million Robinhood accounts try to sell on the same day.
The blistering start refers to launch cadence or revenue growth or some metric that sounds impressive until you remember the company burns cash like it's trying to reach orbit. Starship works great until it needs to work profitably. Starlink posts photos of terminals in remote villages. Margins remain theoretical.
Every private valuation is a negotiation between a founder who wants a higher number and a VC who needs to justify last round's number. The market is a third party who doesn't give a f*ck about either.
Photo by Sven Piper on Unsplash
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