SpaceX climbed to more than $2.4 trillion on Thursday, and stock market news today centered on Elon Musk's claim that putting data centers in space “was always going to be” the solution. The valuation puts the company among the world's sixth-most-valuable even though it has lost $13 billion since the start of 2023.
SpaceX valuation tops $2.4 trillion
More than $2.4 trillion was enough to reprice SpaceX as a market heavyweight, even before the company has shown a working orbital data center. That gap between valuation and proof of concept is now the core question for investors weighing whether the plan is a bold technical roadmap or a premium attached to a concept still on paper.
$13 billion in losses since the start of 2023 have not stopped the market from assigning SpaceX a value that exceeds many established businesses. The number matters because it shows how much of the company’s worth rests on expectations tied to future systems, not on a mature operating footprint.
Elon Musk backs orbital computing
Thursday brought Musk’s clearest public push yet, with the founder saying putting data centers in space “was always going to be” the solution. He also said orbital computing could scale “a trillion times more than you could on Earth,” a claim that frames the pitch as a capacity problem, not just a novelty.
Greg Martin, managing director of private markets at Rainmaker Securities, said, “[If] anyone else said it, they would probably have him institutionalized,” before adding, “Orbital data centers obviously would be a complete game changer,” and, “It solves three problems: the real estate problem, the power problem and the cooling problem.” His comments point to the basic operating logic behind the idea: if computing can move off Earth, the company can side-step some of the most expensive constraints in terrestrial infrastructure.
Anthropic and Google deals
Anthropic and Google have already made deals with SpaceX to rent out its data center capacity on Earth, giving the company an existing commercial foothold before any space-based buildout. Those arrangements show that the business case is not limited to a future orbital system; SpaceX already has customers paying for ground capacity while it markets a much more ambitious next step.
Last week’s public-market debut widened the gap between the company’s present business and its valuation. Ahead of its record-breaking initial public offering, SpaceX laid out its case for putting data centers in space in documents, turning the concept into a formal part of the investment story rather than a side remark from Musk.
Ben Wild sees technical feasibility
Ben Wild, chief technology officer of Hubble Network, said, “From a technical standpoint, the fundamentals of orbital data centers are sound,” and added, “In the right orbit, you can generate continuous solar power and reject heat directly into space, removing two major constraints on terrestrial AI infrastructure.” He also said the idea could help “as permitting delays, power constraints, and AI demand make new terrestrial capacity harder to build.”
SpaceX still lacks even a proof of concept for a space-based data center, so the market is rewarding a thesis that has not yet been demonstrated in orbit. How soon, if ever, SpaceX expects to launch one is the unresolved issue left hanging over a valuation that now sits above $2.4 trillion.
