3 Genius Stocks I'm Buying Instead of the SpaceX IPO

Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX), known as SpaceX, is attracting a lot of attention, as it should. It's the largest IPO the world has ever seen, led by the visionary Elon Musk. Although Musk may be a polarizing figure, there's no denying the success he's delivered to investors so far through Tesla.

While investors may want Tesla-like returns, achieving them with SpaceX will be nearly impossible given its sheer size. Instead, I think investors should focus on other stocks that look like great values or are growing at lightspeed. These all appear to be better investments than SpaceX and will make investors far more money over the next few years.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Microsoft

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) may sound like a boring old investment, which may be partially true. However, it has a few things going for it.

First, it's well off its all-time highs. The market has turned sour on Microsoft's stock despite the company's excellence in many areas, specifically in artificial intelligence (AI). Its AI product lineup grew annual recurring revenue by 123% to $37 billion during its most recent quarter.

Additionally, its cloud computing division, Azure, increased revenue by 40%. Overall, Microsoft's quarterly revenue rose at an 18% pace to $82.9 billion. For reference, SpaceX's 2025 revenue totaled $18.7 billion, up 33%.

Microsoft is also attractively valued, trading at one of the lowest price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios the market has seen in a while.

MSFT PE Ratio data by YCharts

While SpaceX may be the flashy stock, Microsoft is the workhorse that will deliver for investors over the long term. As a result, I think it's an excellent buy right now.

2. Nebius Group

If Microsoft is growing too slowly for your liking, Nebius (NASDAQ: NBIS) might be a better pick. In one aspect, Nebius and SpaceX may be head-to-head competitors.

Nebius is a neocloud company specializing in AI-ready cloud computing. Part of SpaceX's business plan is to launch AI data centers into space, and whether it's a success remains to be seen.

One thing that isn't up for debate is Nebius's success right now. In the first quarter, it grew revenue by 684% year over year. That's not the end of it, either. Wall Street analysts expect 550% revenue growth for 2026 and 225% in 2027. SpaceX can only dream of growth like that, and it doesn't have any divisions remotely close to Nebius's growth rate.

I think Nebius is primed to continue growing rapidly and will easily outpace SpaceX over the next few years, making it a better stock pick.

3. Nvidia

If you're looking for a combination of growth and value, then Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) is your ticket.

The world's largest company makes GPUs that power AI workloads in data centers. It's growing at a remarkable pace right now and is expected to keep that up for some time. For fiscal year (FY) 2027 (ending January 2027), Wall Street analysts expect 81% growth and 41% in FY 2028. Those are both faster growth rates than SpaceX is currently growing, and Nvidia can also be purchased at a pretty attractive valuation.

NVDA PE Ratio data by YCharts

At 31 times earnings, it's not particularly expensive, especially compared to other tech stocks like Apple and Amazon, which trade at 36 and 29 times earnings, respectively. Neither of these (or any other big tech stock, including SpaceX) has growth remotely close to Nvidia.

Nvidia is a rare combination of growth and value and will likely result in huge returns. I think it will easily outperform SpaceX moving forward, and I'm putting my money there instead of the latest hot IPO.

Keithen Drury has positions in Amazon, Microsoft, Nebius Group, Nvidia, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.