SpaceX Is Finally Public. Here's How Much a $1,000 Investment Would Get You.

Where does the time go? In some ways, given the unavoidable hype behind its initial public offering (IPO) and subsequent stock market launch, it's hard to believe that Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX), or SpaceX, has been publicly traded for more than half a month.

Now that the heat and noise from takeoff have dissipated somewhat, let's take a look at where the stock and company stand now and whether it's an attractive portfolio addition within reach of the average investor.

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Holding a half-dozen

With $1,000, at SpaceX's closing price earlier this week, you could buy six shares of the famous space company and have a bit of change left over. The question is, of course, whether you would want to own SpaceX.

Those six shares would confer very minor ownership of a very massive company active in a cluster of pushing-the-envelope activities. In fact, its name is somewhat misleading, since, in addition to space exploration, it also builds data centers, operates a satellite broadband/telecom network, manages a high-profile social media network (X, formerly Twitter), and develops artificial intelligence (AI) models.

This makes SpaceX rather sprawling and not a little ungainly. In a way, it's a company that's a bit all over the place, reflecting the frequently mercurial personality of its founder, CEO, and north star, Elon Musk.

That said, all those activities are at the forefront of current consumer tastes and desires. Only one, though, makes a profit.

The company divides its business not all that cleanly into three reporting units. Connectivity (containing the Starlink satellite network) earned nearly $11.4 billion in revenue in 2025. It did so by providing its around-the-Earth telecom services and necessary hardware to a broad range of clients willing to pay up for constant connectivity. Operating profitability was also high, at $4.4 billion.

The other two company divisions were deep in the red, though. The capital-intensive space segment generated nearly $4.1 billion in revenue but, due to heavy investments, posted an operating loss of $657 million. The AI unit is spending buckets of capital to build next-generation data centers. Although it brought in $3.2 billion in revenue, its operating loss was chasm-deep at almost $6.4 billion.

All told, SpaceX as a whole earned just under $18.7 billion in 2025. Glancing below the operating profit/loss line on the income statement, the annual net loss was more than $4.9 billion.

Big spender

Investors should bear in mind, though, that relatively early-stage companies habitually post steep operating and/or net losses as they spend capital to build presence and scale.

So should you part with most of that $1,000 to own six shares of SpaceX? Despite the roaring success of Starlink and the AI unit's recent signing of a $1.25 billion-per-month contract to supply processing power from two of its data centers to AI developer Anthropic, the company's capital expenditures will likely remain immense for quite some time.

With that, impatient investors will likely start bailing in the coming years. That's reason enough for me to sit on the sidelines for now.

Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.