Many people don’t understand the underlying logic of capital markets: what truly brings down an overvalued company is never growth stagnation, but rather the unmeasurable costs hidden behind the growth.

After SpaceX’s recent IPO, its first complete quarterly report is out, delivering an almost perfect growth performance: in Q2, revenue was $7.814 billion, up 92% year over year, far surpassing the market’s expectation of $6.9 billion; adjusted EBITDA surged nearly twofold year over year, and net losses narrowed by 46% year over year.

Just looking at the paper data, the growth rate, profitability, and the extent of losses narrowing all exceeded expectations—this is definitely a top-tier growth stock.

But capital markets never look at the surface. After this impressive earnings report came out, SpaceX’s stock price weakened in after-hours trading. There is only one core truth: the market is no longer willing to pay for pure high growth—it has started to疯狂 price in the “implicit costs of growth.”

For this trillion-dollar valuation giant, its three core businesses have already shown a stark split—cool on one side, warm on the other. From here, the future valuation tipping point is fully set to open up.

I. Starlink: the only dependable cash cow, completely escaping the cash-burning trap

Among all of SpaceX’s businesses, Starlink is currently the only core asset that has worked through a profitable closed loop and can hold up the company’s valuation fundamentals.

In Q2, Starlink’s single-quarter revenue was $4.29 billion, with operating profit of $1.66 billion. The profit margin was close to 40%, far exceeding that of most technology companies. User scale more than doubled: from 6 million users in the same period last year to 12 million, and penetration in the consumer market is accelerating steadily.

More importantly, the high-margin government and enterprise orders are set to explode. Under the Starshield unit, its contract value for a single quarter has surpassed $6 billion. Aviation, maritime, and customized government-and-enterprise orders continue to land.

At this point, Starlink has completely said goodbye to the “burn cash to buy scale” playbook typical of internet companies. It has officially entered a mature stage characterized by high growth, high profit, and stable cash flow—becoming the absolute anchor supporting SpaceX’s valuation and offsetting losses from other businesses.

II. AI business: explosive growth, but also the biggest bottomless pit

If Starlink is a profit-making machine, then the AI business is SpaceX’s most aggressive—and most dangerous—cash-guzzling beast.

The data is compelling: in a single quarter, the AI business generated revenue of $2.56 billion, up 250% year over year; the total value of newly signed cloud service agreements reached $14.1 billion. It is the fastest-growing business segment at the company.

But beneath the brilliance, the hidden risks have been magnified entirely.

This high-growth business has continued to post large losses to date, with an operating loss of $1.26 billion in a single quarter. Even more staggering: in Q2, SpaceX’s total capital expenditures were $18.4 billion, and AI-related investment alone reached $15.8 billion—accounting for more than 80%.

According to Musk’s publicly stated plan, the company’s computing power target is to exceed 2 GW by the end of this year, and to push toward 10 GW by the end of next year.

Capital markets’ anxiety has never stopped: the speed at which AI becomes monetized is far slower than the speed at which cash is burned. The market doesn’t doubt that SpaceX AI can be done—it only doubts whether massive, ongoing investments on the order of billions can ultimately be converted into return rates that match expectations. The long investment cycle will continue to dilute the company’s overall profits.

III. Spaceflight business: long-term upside imagination, short-term pure strategic losses

The traditional space launch business is still in a phase of pure investment and low returns—a strategic layout period.

In Q2, Space spaceflight business revenue was only $962 million, and the segment continued to incur losses.

At present, Falcon 9 is still the company’s main source of revenue, but the focus of resources and R&D has fully shifted to the next-generation Starship V3. At this stage, Starship’s test-flight progress is moving steadily, but there is still a long implementation cycle ahead before it reaches commercial operations with high launch frequency and low costs.

This business is the ceiling of the imagination for SpaceX’s long-term valuation. It represents the future of interstellar exploration and low-cost commercialization of space, but in the short term it can’t contribute profits—it will continue to consume R&D and capital resources.

IV. The truly major “landmine”: a flood of trillion-scale unlocks is coming, and short-term selling pressure is maxed out

Compared with business losses, the most direct and most deadly risk facing SpaceX is the large-scale share unlock that is about to arrive.

The first batch’s unlock size this round totals 912 million shares, corresponding to a market value of over one trillion dollars. Unlike typical small unlocks for regular employees, this unlock will directly and significantly expand the market’s float.

Before this, SpaceX’s tradable shares were scarce, and the stock price had a clear premium. But this unlock is not a one-time release—it is being delivered in phases and continuously. That means selling pressure will not clear in the near term; the coming months will keep weighing on the stock, and price volatility will be amplified significantly.

Looking back at capital-market history, there are almost no cases where large-scale unlocks in the hundreds-of-billions range are digested painlessly. In the short term, the pressure for valuation pullbacks has essentially become a foregone conclusion.

V. Valuation re-rating: the market is squeezing out all the bubbles

SpaceX’s peak valuation of $175 billion at listing had already prepaid all future expectations in advance: the certainty of Starlink’s profitability, the explosive potential of the AI business, and Starship’s long-term space narrative—all had been priced in.

But now, the market is starting to validate the assumptions one by one and reprice:

1. Starlink’s profits are solid, but after user numbers double, subsequent growth is inevitably set to slow gradually, and the high-growth dividend will have topped out;

2. AI is a bottomless cash-burning pit: the investment cycle and the payback cycle are completely unknown, and the profit model can’t prove itself;

3. Starship’s commercialization is still a long way off, and the long-term narrative can’t support a short-term trillion-level valuation.

Even if the stock price has continued to retrace from its IPO peak, compared with today’s profitability, the overall valuation is still on the high side.

The capital market’s stance is crystal clear: it no longer believes in distant stories—only in realized profits, controllable costs, and a clearly defined return timeline.

SpaceX’s growth has already been proven beyond doubt, but the price paid for that growth—the astronomical cost—has only just started to be priced in.

Disclaimer: This article is only an interpretation of industry-finance phenomena and the logic behind financial reports, and does not constitute any investment advice regarding any individual stock or asset. There are risks of uncertainty in the market. All investment decisions are your own independent judgment.