Shares of SpaceX climbed in premarket trading on Monday, extending gains from its record-breaking Nasdaq debut last week, as investors continued to digest the implications of the biggest initial public offering in history.

The stock rose around 6% before the opening bell, trading near $170 per share after surging 19% on Friday to close at $161. Having been priced at $135 per share in the IPO, the rally pushed the Elon Musk-led company’s market capitalisation above $2 trillion.

SpaceX, which operates the Starlink satellite internet network and a fleet of reusable rockets, merged with Musk’s artificial intelligence venture xAI in February. Despite its soaring valuation, the company reported losses of nearly $5 billion in 2025, fuelling debate among analysts over whether its market worth can be justified.

Research firm CFRA initiated coverage of SpaceX on Friday with a “sell” rating and a 12-month price target of $115, implying a potential decline of nearly 29% from Friday’s closing price.

CFRA said its cautious stance was driven by the company’s aggressive expansion plans and spending requirements.

The firm said its view was based on “the company’s extremely ambitious growth strategy, elevated valuation expectations, and significant capital intensity.”

SpaceX’s capital expenditure reached $10.1 billion in the three months ended March, compared with $4.1 billion during the same period a year earlier, with most of the spending directed toward artificial intelligence projects.

Morningstar analyst Nicolas Owens also questioned the valuation in a note published on June 8, saying the firm values SpaceX at $63 per share and describing the stock as “overvalued.”

Paulina Roszkowska, a finance lecturer at Bayes Business School, argued that investors would eventually demand stronger evidence that the company’s ambitious plans can generate meaningful returns.

Roszkowska said SpaceX had made “a lot of promises,” but warned that those commitments would ultimately need to translate into cash flow.

“Aside [from] those phrases about data centres in the orbit, which are high promises, if you are asking for 70, 80 billion contribution, I think that you owe investors a little bit more than poetry,” she said.

Roszkowska also criticised the level of disclosure provided to investors.

“The IPO prospectus lacks details on governance or execution risks,” she said, adding: “So I am wondering what are these promises based on.”

Not all analysts share the bearish view. NewStreet Research initiated coverage of SpaceX with a $165 price target, arguing that investors need to assess the company over a much longer timeframe than typical listed firms.

James Ratzer, partner and senior analyst at NewStreet Research, told CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe on Monday that the current valuation could be justified if investors adopted a multi-decade perspective.

“Can you look [at] this business, let’s say, over a longer time frame than you would over most equities to justify to get to the current valuation? We think you can,” Ratzer said.

“But we think you have to be looking out over a kind of 20 to 25-year time frame. I think a lot of the building blocks are in place to succeed, but it is definitely a much longer-dated equity story than most.”

Ratzer pointed to the company’s dominance in space launches as a key competitive advantage.

He said SpaceX has “at least a 10-year lead” over rivals in rocket-launch capabilities.

“When you look at SpaceX and driving what’s needed to succeed on Starlink on direct-to-cell … orbital data centres, everything has to hinge back to success on launch, and you look at what they’re building with Starship, the advantage they will have with that, the mass they can put into orbit is a huge advantage,” Ratzer said.

Starship is SpaceX’s next-generation launch vehicle, while orbital data centres form part of the company’s plans to build space-based infrastructure to support artificial intelligence applications.

Ratzer also predicted SpaceX would maintain overwhelming dominance in launch capacity for years to come.

“We think, for example, in just over the next four to five years, he [Musk] will still have about 90 to 95% of all launch capacity that’s going on in space,” he said.

The contrasting assessments underscore the central debate surrounding SpaceX’s blockbuster market debut: whether investors should focus on current financial performance and execution risks, or on Musk’s long-term vision for transforming the space and AI industries. (Arise News)

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