What SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell told SPCX investors to track<\/h2>\n
Gwynne Shotwell did not dodge the valuation question when CNBC\u2019s Morgan Brennan asked her, on IPO day, what investors should actually measure.<\/p>\n
She named three things<\/strong>: Starship, Starlink, and AI.<\/p>\n Folks should be watching how we’re doing on Starship.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cFolks should watch consumer growth \u2014 consumer and enterprise growth on Starlink and Starlink mobile. And then, of course, we\u2019ve got the Grok, we\u2019ve got AI, we\u2019ve got coding. There\u2019s a lot. There\u2019s actually a lot going on,\u201d Shotwell told CNBC.<\/p>\n Her list is a useful filter because SPCX is really three companies under one ticker: a rocket business, a satellite internet business, and an AI division built around xAI. <\/p>\n Each sits at a different stage and moves the stock for different reasons.<\/p>\n Bloomberg / Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Start with the segment already making money.<\/p>\n Starlink brought in $11.39 billion in revenue last year and posted $4.4 billion in operating income, according to the S-1 filing. <\/p>\n It serves 10.3 million subscribers across more than 160 countries, with its user base roughly doubling in 12 months.<\/p>\n Shotwell flagged a detail that matters more than the subscriber count. SpaceX is short on capacity in some of its best markets.<\/strong><\/p>\n More Space Stocks:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWe are actually constrained by capacity in many markets, really important markets, so scaling is actually really quite important to the revenue story for us,\u201d she told CNBC.<\/p>\n In plain terms, demand is outrunning supply. <\/strong><\/p>\n That caps near-term revenue until the next satellites reach orbit, which is exactly why Shotwell put the rocket first. Watch subscriber adds, revenue per user, and whether new capacity arrives on time.<\/p>\n Starship is the engine behind almost everything SpaceX wants to do next.<\/p>\n The fully reusable rocket has cost about $15 billion so far, Shotwell told CNBC. The company is targeting commercial launches in the second half of 2026, and that timeline is the one to circle.<\/p>\n Starship delivers the high-capacity V3 Starlink satellites and underpins SpaceX\u2019s most speculative idea<\/strong>: data centers in orbit. <\/p>\n Related: Former Tesla board member issues candid message on SpaceX stock<\/strong><\/p>\n Musk unveiled an AI1 data satellite this week, with orbital compute testing possible as soon as next year, Brennan noted during her CNBC interview. <\/p>\n Independent experts doubt those arrive soon, Northeastern Global News reported.<\/p>\n That skepticism matters to the price of SpaceX stock. <\/p>\n The company raised money in March at an implied $450 billion value for the launch and Starlink units alone. <\/p>\n The $1.75 trillion IPO mark means investors are paying roughly $1.3 trillion for ideas that have not yet generated commercial revenue.<\/p>\n The AI leg draws the most heat from skeptics.<\/p>\n SpaceX absorbed xAI in February 2026, bringing in the Grok models, X, and an image generator. The unit made $3.2 billion in revenue last year but incurred a $6.4 billion loss.<\/p>\n Those losses pulled the company to a $4.9 billion net loss for the year and a $4.28 billion net loss in the first quarter of 2026, according to its SEC filing.<\/p>\n Goldman Sachs, the lead underwriter, projects the AI unit will grow revenue roughly 100 times by 2030. <\/p>\n Morningstar is far less convinced, with a fair value near $780 billion. When Shotwell pointed to Grok and AI, she pointed at the part of the story with the highest ceiling and the least proof.<\/p>\n A first-day surge is exciting, but it is not enough reason to buy into a stock.<\/p>\n Shotwell signaled patience, telling CNBC the company wants long-term investors and that \u201cnot everything has to get done the first day,\u201d according to Benzinga. <\/p>\n There is also a control issue, since Musk keeps more than 82% of voting power through super-voting shares, even after the raise.<\/p>\n The first public earnings report, expected in November 2026, will be the real test. <\/p>\n Until then, Shotwell\u2019s scorecard is the cleanest gauge: Starlink has to keep printing cash, Starship has to fly on time, and Grok has to stop bleeding. <\/p>\n Hit all three and SpaceX\u2019s valuation becomes defensible. Miss them, and doubt starts to creep in.<\/p>\n Related: Elon Musk’s SpaceX is coming for your 401(k)<\/strong><\/p>\n #SpaceX #president #reveals #investors #watching<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The biggest stock market debut in history is two days old, and the woman who has run SpaceX\u2019s operations for more than two decades wants you to know where to… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[246],"tags":[92,2149,764,1843,5045],"class_list":["post-7346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-popular","tag-investors","tag-president","tag-reveals","tag-spacex","tag-watching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.thestreet.com\/.image\/NDA6MDAwMDAwMDAzMDc4MjYx\/spacex_pl_140626.jpg?profile=rss\")
Why Starlink is a critical watch for investors<\/h2>\n
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How Starship and orbital AI tie SpaceX\u2019s three bets together<\/h2>\n
What the Grok and xAI unit still has to prove<\/h2>\n
Three things to track before the first earnings report<\/h3>\n
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What new SPCX investors should weigh before buying the pop<\/h2>\n