Investor Jim Chanos challenged the prevailing narrative comparing SpaceX‘s initial public offering (IPO) valuation to early tech giants like Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG), and Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META).
Chanos took to X on Saturday to respond to a user, The_Real_Fly, stating SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs would be like buying big tech in the early days.
The user posted a clip of Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang and Altimeter Capital‘s Brad Gerstner from a February interview with CNBC. While Huang and Gerstner discussed OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs, they did not mention SpaceX.
“This isn’t even remotely true,” wrote Chanos and pointed out that Amazon went public in 1997 at a $450 million valuation, or 3x revenues. Google went public in 2004 at a $23 billion valuation and at 7x revenues. Meta had a $104 billion valuation in 2012 at 20x revenues. He argued that SpaceX’s valuation far exceeds these multiples, but did not comment on OpenAI and Anthropic.
“SpaceX dwarfs these numbers,” Chanos said.
Valuation Concerns Shadow SpaceX
This post comes in the wake of recent conversations around that SpaceX IPO valuation. CEO Elon Musk praised investor Ron Baron after he predicted that SpaceX could become the world’s most profitable and valuable company with valuation of $30 trillion following its expected IPO.
In the clip shared on X, Baron described SpaceX as a potential future leader in both profitability and market value, prompting Musk’s endorsement of the investor’s remarks.
Experts have voiced concerns about potential trading volatility amid the influence of SpaceX founder Elon Musk. University of Florida finance professor Jay Ritter cautioned that a SpaceX IPO at a valuation of $1.5 trillion or higher could carry significant downside risk for investors, particularly because Musk would receive shares with enhanced voting rights.
Ritter also warned that even if Starlink generates tens of billions of dollars in annual profits, those earnings could be diverted toward Musk’s Mars ambitions rather than returned to shareholders.
Meanwhile, Chanos’s comments follow news of a $920 million monthly AI deal between SpaceX and Google, days before the former’s blockbuster IPO. Despite this deal, SpaceX’s AI division recorded an operating loss of $2.5 billion in the last quarter, while generating $818 million in revenue.
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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