SpaceX (SPCX) Heads Into Nasdaq-100 Inclusion as Wall Street Splits on Its AI Pivot

Three weeks ago, retail investors couldn't buy SpaceX at all. Now it's one of the most-watched — and most-argued-over — tickers on the Nasdaq.

Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX) completed the largest initial public offering on record on June 12, 2026, pricing at $135 a share and briefly rocketing above $225 within days. Since then the stock has done what a freshly public, loss-making mega-cap tends to do: swing hard in both directions. As of July 1 it trades near $170.86, having closed out June up roughly 4% on the day but still sitting about 24% below its mid-June high.

The near-term reason everyone's watching is mechanical. After the close on July 6, SPCX joins the Nasdaq-100 — effective at the July 7 open — after being granted a rare exemption from the usual "seasoning" period that normally keeps brand-new listings out of major indices. The longer-term reason is louder: SpaceX is no longer just a rocket-and-satellite company. It's trying to become an AI infrastructure company at the same time, and Wall Street can't agree on whether that's brilliant or reckless.

Why July matters: the index-inclusion catalyst

Getting added to the Nasdaq-100 isn't a value judgment — it's a rules-based event. Every index fund and ETF that tracks the Nasdaq-100 is obligated to buy the stock to match the benchmark, regardless of whether any individual manager likes it. That creates a wave of "passive" buying concentrated around the inclusion date.

How big a wave? Some analysts have estimated inclusion could drive close to $10 billion in passive inflows. Treat that as an estimate rather than a fact: the buying is real and mechanical, but the precise dollar figure is a projection, and a stock this large and this volatile can absorb or overwhelm those flows in either direction. Index inclusion is a catalyst, not a guarantee.

Adding to the bullish narrative, Wedbush recently initiated coverage on SPCX with an Outperform rating and a $190 price target.

The bull case: three businesses, one balance sheet

Supporters argue SPCX is really three companies stacked together, and you have to value the parts separately.

Starlink is the cash engine. The satellite-broadband business passed 10 million subscribers and generated roughly $11.39 billion in 2025 revenue at healthy margins. It's the profitable core that funds everything else.

Launch is the moat. Falcon 9 remains the most-flown, lowest-cost orbital rocket in history, with Starship aiming to slash launch costs dramatically further.

AI is the optionality bet — and the reason the stock is so wild. SpaceX absorbed Elon Musk's AI venture, xAI, in early 2026, folding in the Grok chatbot, the X platform, and the Memphis-based Colossus supercomputer. Since the IPO, it has moved aggressively:

• A $60 billion all-stock acquisition of Anysphere, maker of the AI coding tool Cursor — widely described as the largest acquisition of a venture-backed startup ever — intended to give Grok a foothold in the lucrative enterprise coding market. The deal is expected to close in Q3 2026, pending regulatory approval.
• A compute deal with Reflection AI worth up to $6.3 billion, renting out Colossus capacity at about $150 million a month from July 2026 through 2029.
• Even larger compute agreements reportedly in place with Anthropic (north of $40 billion) and Google (over $30 billion).

The bull thesis is that SpaceX is quietly turning scarce AI compute into a high-margin recurring-revenue business layered on top of Starlink's cash flow — a combination that, if it works, justifies a valuation now hovering around $2.2 trillion.

The bear case: the cash burn is real

Here's where the reframing matters, because the same headlines that excite bulls have repeatedly spooked the market.

The AI ambition is expensive. In the first quarter of 2026, SpaceX reported a consolidated net loss of about $4.28 billion, with the AI segment alone posting a roughly $2.5 billion operating loss. Capital expenditures more than doubled year over year to around $10.1 billion, and the company poured over $7.7 billion into AI infrastructure in that single quarter.

That spending has consequences for the share price. When reports surfaced in late June that SpaceX planned to raise roughly $20 billion in debt, the stock fell more than 16% in a day. Even the "good news" Reflection AI deal — which adds committed, recurring revenue — triggered a double-digit single-day drop, as some investors read it as yet more evidence of an infrastructure arms race with an uncertain payoff.

Then there's valuation itself. At around $2.2 trillion, SPCX trades at well over 100 times its 2025 revenue — a multiple that leaves essentially no room for execution missteps. And many of those marquee compute contracts include 90-day termination clauses, meaning the "committed" revenue is more cancellable than it first appears.

How divided are the analysts?

Very. Price targets are scattered across an unusually wide range — roughly $62 on the low end to $401 on the high end depending on the source — which is itself a signal. When a Wall Street target range spans more than 6x, it means the pros genuinely don't know how to value this yet. Consensus ratings cluster around a soft "Buy," but with a meaningful share of Hold and even Sell calls mixed in.

The bottom line

The central question SPCX forces every investor to answer is simple to state and hard to answer: Will the revenue potential from AI compute and Starlink outrun the enormous capital spending and cash burn in the space and AI divisions?

If you're weighing this one, a few things are worth watching rather than reacting to:

• The July 7 index inclusion and whether passive buying meaningfully moves the stock or gets swamped by sentiment.
• The $20 billion debt raise — terms, size, and how the market digests it.
• Whether Colossus compute tenants ride past their 90-day exit windows, which would turn cancellable contracts into demonstrated demand.
• Any update on the Cursor deal's regulatory approval ahead of its expected Q3 close.

SPCX is, for now, one of the highest-variance stories on the market — a genuine technology story wrapped around a genuinely unprofitable balance sheet. That's exactly why it deserves a clear head rather than a hot take.

This article is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or tax advice. RiskStock is not a licensed investment advisor. All figures reflect reporting available as of July 1, 2026 and may have changed since publication. Markets are volatile and you can lose money; do your own research and consider consulting a licensed professional before making any investment decision.