One of the largest IPOs in history closed in June, drawing more than $300 billion in orders for $75 billion of shares sold, an oversubscription of roughly 4x. Wall Street called it a moonshot. The bond market, quietly, called it something else. As Bloomberg Opinion columnist Nir Kaissar argued in “SpaceX Is Junk. That’s What the Bond Market Says” (July 7, 2026), credit investors are pricing SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX | SPCX Price Prediction) debt as if the rating label were fiction.
The Rating Says Investment Grade. The Spread Says Otherwise.
All three major agencies placed SpaceX in investment grade in ratings actions announced June 18, 2026: S&P at BBB (stable), Moody’s at Baa1 (stable), and Fitch at BBB+ (stable). Average that trio and you land on BBB, the lowest rung of investment grade.
Yet as of early July, Kaissar noted, SpaceX bonds traded at an average credit spread of 1.62 percentage points over Treasuries, while average BBB corporates traded at 0.92 points and average BB (junk/high-yield) bonds at 1.55 points. SpaceX debt clears wider than the junk average. Buyers are demanding a risk premium the label does not require.
The Curve Tells the Real Story
Kaissar’s maturity breakdown sharpens the argument. The 5-year paper trades at a 1.18-point spread. The 30-year (2056) paper stretches to 1.99 points. The rating stays flat at BBB across every maturity. Near term, creditors accept the story. Push out to 2056 and they are pricing something closer to speculative.
That matters. Junk-rated bonds default meaningfully more often than investment-grade issues, and many pensions and insurers are mandated to avoid speculative debt. If the label ever catches down to the spread, forced selling could follow.
What the Raters Are Nervous About
The fundamentals explain the caution. S&P projects negative free cash flow through 2029. Moody’s expects strong revenue and earnings growth through 2028, powered by Starlink, which reported 12 million subscribers as of early June 2026, but flags governance risk tied to SpaceX’s controlled ownership structure and Elon Musk’s concentrated voting power, which limits independent board oversight. Starlink is carrying the company while the AI and X unit posted a large operating loss. SpaceX floated $25 billion in public debt around the IPO.
The Equity Market Is Telling a Different Story
Equity investors are looking past it. The stock trades at more than 100x sales, roughly 30x the S&P 500’s multiple, on a market cap of about $1.05 trillion. The pitch is the S-1’s mission language: “to make life multiplanetary,” “to extend the light of consciousness to the stars,” “to understand the true nature of the universe,” and “to build a base on the Moon and cities on other planets.”
Even the stock is cracking. Shares closed at $138.29 on July 14, 2026, down roughly 15.45% over the past month and about 8.96% over the past week, well off the post-IPO peak above $225.
A 2008 Echo Worth Remembering
Kaissar frames the analogy carefully. Ahead of the 2008 crisis, AAA-rated mortgage bonds saw spreads widen well before the downgrades arrived, with some AAA mortgage bonds trading up to 1 percentage point wider than similarly rated corporate debt. Bond markets have been right before when spreads and ratings diverged. That is historical context for how bond markets can front-run ratings.
What to Watch
For retail investors, the split screen is the point. The equity is a bet on Musk’s decades-long vision. The bond market is a real-time referendum on the balance sheet, and it is harder to hype. Keep an eye on the long-dated spreads. If the 30-year gap keeps widening while the BBB label holds, the credit desk will have said its piece long before the rating agencies do.
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