$1 trillion, Elon Musk said he would be surprised if SpaceX’s annual revenue was not greater than that in 2031. He made the projection in posts on X, repeating an earlier remark that SpaceX "might be able to reach approximately $1T revenue by 2030," comments that arrived two days after the company’s Nasdaq debut and its market value topped $2 trillion on closing. The projection matters to public shareholders, underwriters and corporate customers because SpaceX reported $18.67 billion in revenue for 2025 while still posting a net loss, and Wall Street forecasts used in the IPO put 2030 revenue far lower. The next concrete market test is the company’s second-quarter results due June 30, 2026, a filing date that will also allow some early holders limited sales under lock-up rules.

$1 trillion is far above the revenue paths modelled by the banks that led SpaceX’s flotation. Goldman Sachs used a scenario that put SpaceX near $474 billion in 2030, and Morgan Stanley’s projection was about $330 billion for the same year. Those estimates underpinned the underwriting case during the IPO, and they assume large scale-up of SpaceX’s early AI and cloud compute business rather than sole reliance on launches or consumer satellite services.

Deals and growth that feed Musk’s math

$1 trillion is also the number Musk emphasised when he cited recent commercial contracts and the company’s fast revenue growth. In its IPO filing SpaceX reported $18.67 billion of revenue for 2025, up from roughly $14 billion the prior year, and noted the business still ran a net loss for 2025. Starlink accounted for the bulk of consumer revenue, with more than 10 million subscribers by March 2026 and roughly $11.4 billion of revenue in the recent period, according to reporting summarising company figures.

The company’s push into cloud and AI infrastructure is central to the bullish scenarios. The firm’s AI unit earned roughly $3.2 billion in 2025 while losing money, which underwriters assumed could scale if SpaceX captures material share of the cloud compute market. SpaceX has signed multi-month compute and cloud agreements that could lift revenue in coming quarters, including a deal with Google valued at $920 million per month for 32 months and a separate contract with Anthropic to rent compute capacity at the Colossus data center for $1.2 billion per month over three years. Taken together, those arrangements are the sorts of recurring revenue streams Musk points to when projecting very large long-term totals.

But scale is the central question. The banks’ scenarios, used to price the IPO, build in aggressive growth for AI infrastructure yet still stop hundreds of billions short of Musk’s 2030 targets. That gap matters because public shareholders bought into the company at a valuation that now embeds both the IPO underwriting case and Musk’s far loftier public statements.

Mastheads

$1 trillion is also the flashpoint for compliance questions around the IPO process.

Musk posted his $1 trillion line on X, writing, "I would be surprised if revenue isn't greater than $1T in 2031," and he had earlier said SpaceX "might be able to reach approximately $1T revenue by 2030." Coverage has pointed out that the company’s prospectus mentions the word "trillion" extensively yet doesn't include Musk’s specific forecast, a difference that could draw scrutiny if regulators view the comments as inconsistent with the post-IPO quiet-period framework that typically constrains communications by insiders and underwriters.

The more immediate market event is mechanical. Under the flotation’s lock-up terms, some early investors will be allowed to sell up to 20 percent of their stakes after SpaceX issues second-quarter earnings on June 30, 2026.

That disclosure could be the first chance for broader market pricing against both the underwriting scenarios and Musk’s public rhetoric. If trading activity spikes when those sales become permitted, the market will reveal whether investors accept Musk’s long-term case or favour the more conservative bank models.

For corporate counterparties and customers, the practical question is capacity and delivery. Several of the multimonth deals already signed should lift near-term revenue, but turning cloud compute arrangements into a business that can credibly scale to hundreds of billions requires both capital spending and sustained customer wins. The IPO filing and accompanying commentary make clear SpaceX is betting that its satellite constellation and new data centre capacity can be bridged into a major AI infrastructure franchise. How fast that bridge gets built is the essential uncertainty between Musk’s figure and the underwriters’ numbers.

Investors who bought shares in the IPO now own stakes valued against two competing narratives: bankers’ modelling and the chief executive’s public expectations. That split will shape trading when lock-ups loosen and as quarterly results either begin to substantiate or undercut the large numbers Musk has floated.

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SpaceX’s second-quarter results on June 30, 2026 are the first concrete milestone: quarterly revenue, disclosures about large compute and cloud contracts, and the limited unlocking of early-holder sales will show whether markets side with Musk’s $1 trillion outlook or the banks’ more conservative forecasts.

This article was created with AI assistance.