University of Florida finance professor Jay Ritter, who runs the school’s IPO Initiative and is widely regarded as the dean of IPO research, told CNBC on June 11, 2026, that SpaceX’s pending offering will set a first-day underpricing record that dwarfs prior benchmarks held by Visa and Alibaba. “SpaceX is almost certainly going to blow them away,” Ritter said, referring to the pop between the IPO price and opening trade.
The Elon Musk-led rocket and satellite company is priced at a $1.75 trillion valuation, which works out to roughly 40 times estimated 2026 sales and 170 times EBITDA. The company expects to raise about $75 billion in fresh capital from the IPO. According to the SPCX ticker scheduled to begin trading on NASDAQ on June 12, 2026, the deal carries an unprecedented retail allocation that Ritter argues changes the math for individual investors.
The Records Ritter Says Will Fall
Visa (NYSE:V | V Price Prediction) priced its March 2008 IPO at what was then the largest U.S. offering in history, raising roughly $17.9 billion. Since its debut, the payments network has returned 2,505.64% on a split-adjusted basis, with the stock at $318.78 as of June 10, 2026. SpaceX expects to raise about $75 billion from its upcoming IPO.
Visa’s most recent quarter showed why the post-IPO compounder narrative persists: Q1 FY2026 net revenue of $10.90 billion (up 14.6% year over year) and non-GAAP EPS of $3.17, with CEO Ryan McInerney highlighting “our Visa as a Service stack” positioning the company as a “payments hyperscaler.” The shares trade at a forward P/E of 21 with a price-to-sales ratio of 14.
Alibaba’s $25 Billion Bar
Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) seized the global IPO record from Visa in September 2014 by raising roughly $25 billion. The retail tranche Ritter cites for SpaceX would match the entire size of Alibaba’s deal on its own.
Alibaba’s recent Q4 FY2026 revenue of $35.28 billion grew just 3% year over year, with adjusted EBITA falling 84% to $740 million as the company invested in AI. Cloud Intelligence Group external revenue accelerated to 40%, with CEO Eddie Wu telling investors that “AI-related products account for 30% of this revenue.” The stock trades at a price-to-sales ratio of 0.3.
Valuing SpaceX On Future Growth
Ritter’s valuation lens aligns with how the market treats unprofitable AI leaders. “My main metric is price to sales. Given that this company, as well as the AI giants, currently aren’t profitable, they’re growing rapidly. But SpaceX is being valued not on the past, but what could be,” he said.
SpaceX’s S-1 backs the growth case. SpaceX reported 2025 consolidated revenue of $18,674 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $6,584 million, with Q1 2026 revenue of $4,694 million. The Connectivity segment (Starlink) generated Q1 2026 income from operations of $1,188 million, and Segment Adjusted EBITDA of $2,087 million, profitable enough to fund the loss-making Space and AI segments.
On unit economics, Ritter focused on the flywheel between cheaper launch and cheaper bandwidth: “They’ve already got an 80% market share with Starship. That’s likely to go to 100% due to the very low launch costs relative to the competition. But that’s not an enormous market. But the lower launch costs are going to allow Starlink satellites to be put up at lower cost, allowing Starlink internet access to be available at lower cost. They’re getting very good gross margins on that, and that could explode to be a much bigger business.”
That thesis is reinforced by the filing’s disclosure that 2025 Connectivity revenue grew $3,788 million, or 49.8%, with 99.9% growth in Starlink subscribers. The xAI segment acquired in February 2026 and orbital AI compute ambitions sit atop as speculative long-term optionality.
The Retail Warning
The unprecedented allocation flips the usual IPO dynamic. “With the retail tranche, that’s going to be something like $25 billion of shares that retail investors are able to buy, which is bigger than the largest IPO in U.S. history by itself,” Ritter said. That access cuts both ways, given the multiples involved.
Even exceptional businesses can deliver disappointing returns if investors pay too much up front. Ritter’s reminder is worth keeping in mind as excitement builds: “A great company doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a great stock.”
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