Elon Musk says SpaceX could one day be worth vastly more than Earth's economy. Here's what that would take.

Elon Musk is known for making outlandish predictions. Elon Musk says SpaceX could be worth "orders of magnitude" more than the entire global economy. That implies a $12 quadrillion-plus valuation, or roughly 5,500 times SpaceX's current market cap. One analyst called the post "classic Musk hype and theatre," and others flagged the costs involved. Elon Musk is known for having planet-sized ambitions, and his latest pronouncement lives up to that billing. "This will sound super crazy, but I see a path to SpaceX being worth orders of magnitude more than the current Earth economy," the Tesla and SpaceX CEO wrote in a Thursday post on X. The International Monetary Fund projected in April that the total value of world output, measured at market exchange rates, would hit $126 trillion this year. SpaceX had a $2.2 trillion market capitalization at Thursday's close, meaning the global economy is worth roughly 57 times more. Musk's vision of SpaceX becoming at least two orders of magnitude — 100 times — more valuable suggests it will one day have a market cap in excess of $12 quadrillion. All else being equal, SpaceX's stock price would have to rise 5,500-fold to achieve that valuation, meaning $1,000 invested today would skyrocket in value to $5.5 million. This will sound super crazy, but I see a path to SpaceX being worth orders of magnitude more than the current Earth economy — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 8, 2026 Musk elaborated on his statement in a Friday post. "'Seeing a path' is not a statement of extreme confidence that we will achieve that outcome," he wrote. "Just means that I believe there is such a path and the probability of achieving it is not zero." SpaceX's revenue amounted to $7.8 billion in the second quarter, up 92% from the same period last year. The maker of rockets, spacecraft, and satellites recorded a $541 million net loss, down from $1 billion 12 months earlier. Musk told Wall Street analysts in August that SpaceX was internally projecting $1 trillion of revenue in 2030, and there was a "non-zero chance" it could reach that milestone in 2029. But even if the company hits that mark, then grows revenue 100-fold from there to $100 trillion, that would still be less than 1% of the minimum company valuation Musk envisions. "I guess his idea is that SpaceX will open up new colonies or human civilizations beyond the Earth, and thus tap into minerals, energy, and growth beyond what we are capable of with the finite resources we have available to us here," Russ Mould, AJ Bell's investment director, told Business Insider by email. Yet there are likely to be "considerable risks and obstacles" when it comes to operating in space or on other planets, he continued, "not to mention considerable expense." Those challenges mean that an investor using a discounted cash flow to value SpaceX today should apply an "extremely high" discount rate to those potential cash flows, Mould said, so the "theoretical value of SpaceX equity may not be as high as some might think." Ipek Ozkardeskaya, a senior analyst at Swissquote Bank, echoed Mould's point about SpaceX likely having to spend huge sums to travel to other planets and capitalize on their resources. "What he doesn't say is how much it will cost to get there!" she told Business Insider by email. Other analysts took a more measured view. "Musk is a believer and a stargazer!" Neil Wilson, investor strategist at Saxo UK, told Business Insider by email, adding that SpaceX stock could be seen as a "bet on the future of mankind." He's "obviously overegging it," Wilson continued, before noting that "even a tiny fraction of that amount makes SpaceX incredibly valuable." However, Wilson added that SpaceX is "massively exposed to AI bubble risk and relies on the debt financing bandwagon to keep rolling." He recommended investors treat the X post as a "bit of classic Musk hype and theatre," and instead "focus on what's going on under the hood." Read the original article on Business Insider

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