SpaceX briefly surpassed Amazon to become the fifth most valuable company in the world before shares pared gains. The newly public company's stock rallied 20% on its first full day of trading. Tuesday's news of acquiring AI coding company Cursor, combined with the start of options trading, sent the valuation spiking to $2.9 trillion before settling at $2.6 trillion.
A trillion-dollar leap in days. Since going public on Friday, SpaceX added roughly $1 trillion to its market cap. This remarkable feat comes despite a net loss of $4.9 billion on $18.7 billion in revenue last year. In contrast, Amazon posted $78 billion in profit on $717 billion in sales in 2025. Investors are betting on Elon Musk's AI ambitions and future revenue streams.
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New revenue sources and the Cursor deal
SpaceX has non-binding compute leasing agreements with Anthropic and Google, and the acquisition of Cursor will absorb its revenue starting in Q3. The deal is financed with $60 billion in SpaceX stock. Generative AI is central to many companies' strategies, and SpaceX is no exception, despite having dismantled its AI division months ago. Musk stated he wants to rebuild it from the ground up.
The historic IPO raised nearly $86 billion, but only 4% of total shares were made available, making the stock prone to extreme swings. On Tuesday, over 300 million shares changed hands, more than half of the 555 million publicly available post-IPO. Volatility continued into after-hours trading, with SpaceX briefly overtaking Amazon a second time before falling back.
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According to market sources, the rally is fueled by AI enthusiasm. SpaceX is a pioneer in the space industry, but the AI valuation bet is huge. While the company continues launching rockets and expanding Starlink, the market focuses on its tech promises. Compared to Amazon, an e-commerce and cloud giant, SpaceX stock appears highly speculative. Meanwhile, other innovators like Snap with its AR glasses are carving their niches in the innovation landscape.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/16/spacex-valuation-balloons-to-2-6t-briefly-passes-amazon
