I have to admit that I’ve become a SpaceX fanboy over the last years. I am impressed by the number of industries Elon Musk has forced to subsidize his learning curve simply by entering them. Looking back, it’s hard to find another founder who has consistently dragged entire sectors years forward against their better judgment and basic financial sanity.
To recap, here are some of Musk’s disruptions:
- PayPal, making online payments mainstream before getting ousted by his own board for trying to run a global financial network on Windows NT
- SpaceX, reducing launch costs to levels legacy aerospace companies said were impossible, provided you don’t count the billions in government lifelines keeping it afloat
- Falcon 9 reusability, fundamentally changing the economics of orbital access by turning rocket science into an expensive demolition derby until the landing math finally checked out
- Starlink, building a globally accessible low-latency internet network from orbit, effectively giving a single billionaire personal veto power over international military operations based on his mood swings
- Starship, potentially becoming the first commercially scalable interplanetary transport system, assuming we solve the minor issue of the latest versions still occasionally vaporizing on camera
- NASA partnerships, turning a private company into the backbone of U.S. human spaceflight because Uncle Sam literally had no other ride to the space station
- Tesla electric vehicles, forcing the entire auto industry into EV transition mode by pioneering cars with cutting-edge software and panel gaps wide enough to swallow a smartphone
- Tesla batteries and energy storage, pressuring traditional utility models with solar roofs that cost more than the house itself and historically had a slight tendency to catch fire
- Tesla direct sales, bypassing dealership networks so consumers can experience the unique privilege of navigating customer service exclusively through a broken smartphone app
- The Boring Company, attempting to reduce infrastructure costs by digging a single-lane neon ditch in Las Vegas to create a subterranean traffic jam for Teslas
- Neuralink, exploring high-bandwidth interfaces between humans and machines, which is progressing beautifully if you overlook the early casualty rate of laboratory monkeys
- OpenAI, originally launched to ensure AI would develop safely and openly — before he sued them for actually becoming successful without him
- xAI, because apparently the AI alignment debate needed a Grok chatbot trained specifically to scrape memes and data from his own social media platform
- Mars colonization, still sounding insane, except now we’ve accepted that a radioactive, oxygen-free desert is apparently our primary backup plan for a bad news cycle
I watched countless interviews, launch streams, engineering breakdowns, and factory tours on SpaceX over the years, and what impresses me most is the execution culture. Unlike most public companies, they seem optimized around breaking things quickly instead of boring things like worker safety or quarterly profits.
I am convinced the traditional aerospace industry is structurally unprepared for what SpaceX has already become. Most incumbents still operate on cost-plus assumptions while SpaceX behaves more like a vertically integrated software company that forces its users to beta-test hardware while traveling at Mach 25.
I am seriously considering whether I should not put 10–20% of my portfolio into SpaceX if the IPO actually happens. I know the valuation will probably look absurd on day one. People will say it’s overpriced, overhyped, impossible to justify with fundamentals.
But we heard the exact same thing about Tesla before the Cybertruck met reality.
And if SpaceX delivers on even a fraction of what they are attempting — Starlink scale, Starship reusability, lunar infrastructure, defense contracts, Mars logistics — I honestly don’t see why it could not become one of the most important black holes for venture capital of this century.
Yes, it’s risky to put serious money into a single company. Especially one trying to industrialize space travel while simultaneously picking fights with regulatory bodies and international governments on social media.
But then again, who else is even trying to lose billions at this scale?
If you believe humanity becomes multiplanetary because Earth is getting too exhausting, if you believe launch costs continue collapsing under the weight of sheer willpower, if you believe orbital infrastructure becomes as strategically important as a billionaire’s internet feed, then it’s difficult to argue there is a better positioned company than SpaceX.
