Cathie Wood Bought SpaceX Stock as Michael Burry Piled Into Palantir Puts. Here's What Each Bet Is Actually Pricing In.

There are a small number of money managers whom investors avidly follow. Cathie Wood heads Ark Invest, which markets a number of exchange-traded funds and other instruments, and she gained fame for her early interest in Tesla and her embrace of tech companies with the potential to disrupt industries. Michael Burry became a household name after the publication of Michael Lewis' book The Big Short and the subsequent film of the same name, both of which featured his foresightful decision to short the subprime mortgage bond market ahead of the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009.

Those two money managers take very different approaches to investing. Wood often looks past companies' astronomical valuations, scooping up shares at high prices because she believes in the long-term story of the business. Burry continues to use a strategy of betting against assets he views as overvalued by purchasing puts. Here's what they're saying about two high-profile stocks right now.

Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood. Image source: Getty Images.

Cathie Wood and SpaceX

Wood has been investing in Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX) since 2023, when it was still privately held. Buying one of her funds was one of the earliest ways that retail investors had to get exposure to SpaceX stock.

She is a big believer in Elon Musk's companies, as indicated by her original bet on Tesla. She got media attention when she put a $4,000 price target on Tesla stock, but she explained that what she saw there wasn't a car company.

"Tesla's not an auto company," she said in 2021. "It's a tech company, battery company, robot company, artificial intelligence (AI) company, software as a service (SaaS) company. So traditional ways of looking at it were just not the right way to look at it and get the right answer." Note that she said all this before AI became the disruptive force it has become since ChatGPT exploded onto the scene in late 2022.

She's using the same playbook with SpaceX, which she sees as much more than a rocket-launching venture.

"We believe it is at the forefront of one of the most significant technological transformations in history, building critical infrastructure for the future of connectivity, intelligence, and economic activity," she said.

She says that Ark looks to invest in opportunities before they're "broadly understood," and it's "willing to look beyond benchmarks [and] challenge consensus views." As for valuation, she has called Tesla "a deep value stock" because of the ways she expects that it will advance technology.

Image source: Getty Images.

Michael Burry and Palantir

Burry takes a completely different approach to investing. He generally uses a discounted cash flow analysis to see how much he can expect a stock to gain annually based on the company's expected long-term cash flows, and then decides what the stock's current value is based on that.

He's betting against data analytics giant Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ: PLTR) stock right now. He doesn't see Palantir's systems as revolutionary, and he thinks investors are overpaying for it. He is part of a group of investors who are worried that the offerings of many software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies are going to become obsolete because of AI agents. Burry called Palantir "wildly overvalued," and his calculations expect it to trade at $50 per share. As of this writing, it's trading at around $180 per share.

Burry originally bought puts against Palantir stock in late 2025, and he's holding on to them.

Jennifer Saibil has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Palantir Technologies and Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.