As SpaceX officially launches its IPO roadshow, its valuation expectations have become the focus of the capital market. According to multiple media reports, the main underwriter of this IPO, Goldman Sachs, presented a calculation model to potential investor institutions showing that SpaceX could achieve a valuation of up to $1.78 trillion at its initial public offering. However, the core factor supporting this astonishing valuation is not traditional aerospace business, but rather its rapidly expanding artificial intelligence segment.

SpaceX Starship (2)

According to Goldman Sachs' forecast, revenue from SpaceX's AI business is expected to grow from $3.2 billion in 2025 to $322 billion in 2030, an increase of more than 100 times within five years. During the same period, the company's overall revenue is expected to rise from $18.7 billion in 2024 to $474 billion. Goldman Sachs further calculated that SpaceX's adjusted EBITDA will grow from $6.6 billion in 2025 to $352 billion in 2030, and free cash flow is expected to turn positive to $72 billion in 2031, while the company's free cash flow was still negative $13.8 billion last year.

From the information disclosed in the prospectus, SpaceX's long-term growth logic highly depends on the development of its artificial intelligence business. Its AI subsidiary xAI is given a potential market space of up to $26.5 trillion, far exceeding the combined market size of Starlink satellite internet and aerospace launch services, which is about $2 trillion. Goldman Sachs expects that AI business revenue will grow by 388% year-on-year to $15.6 billion in 2026 and further increase to $34.5 billion in 2027. In comparison, Starlink business revenue is expected to reach $144 billion by 2030, and rocket launch business revenue is expected to grow from $4.1 billion last year to $8.3 billion, both significantly lower than the contribution of the AI segment.

However, this grand expectation also faces practical challenges. To achieve revenue goals, the Grok series large models under xAI need to compete and gain a leading advantage with top companies such as Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI in key areas such as code development, cybersecurity, AI agents, and general dialogue models. However, xAI has experienced frequent management changes since its establishment, and Musk removed all ten of its co-founders within two years. The commercialization progress of its products has also not met market expectations. The "Colossus1" super computing data center located in Memphis, Tennessee, with a power capacity of 300 megawatts, once had low utilization due to insufficient demand for Grok commercialization, even being used to rent computing power to competitors like Anthropic.

The final underwriting rights for this IPO were obtained by Goldman Sachs, beating competitors such as Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and UBS. Based on the maximum fundraising scale of $86 billion, this project is expected to bring the underwriting group millions of dollars in commission income. The market generally believes that this super IPO betting on the future growth potential of AI will become an important indicator for testing the capital market's long-term value judgment of artificial intelligence.