SpaceX is set to become part of the Nasdaq 100 index on Tuesday, a milestone that analysts expect will generate billions of dollars in new demand for the company’s shares as investment funds scramble to realign their portfolios.
The rocket and satellite company made its stock market debut on June 12, and its entry into the Nasdaq 100 just 15 days later ranks among the quickest index inclusions on record. The fast-track addition was made possible by updated Nasdaq rules that allow newly listed companies to qualify for widely followed benchmarks more quickly than before.
When a company enters an index like the Nasdaq 100, funds designed to mirror that index must purchase its shares to stay in sync. With more than $587 billion currently invested in funds that track the Nasdaq 100 — including Invesco’s QQQ and QQQM — the demand for SpaceX shares is expected to be substantial. J.P. Morgan estimated last month that the index inclusion could bring in approximately $4.3 billion in passive investment flows.
Tuesday also marks the end of the mandatory quiet period for analysts at the banks that led SpaceX’s blockbuster initial public offering — Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities, Citigroup, and J.P. Morgan. That means Wall Street is now free to publish its first formal valuations of the company.
Both Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley launched coverage of SpaceX on Tuesday with their highest ratings. Morgan Stanley gave the company the notable label of “AI’s final frontier.”
Goldman Sachs analysts expressed confidence in the company’s direction, saying, “We see the company as well-positioned to scale its differentiated advantages across space, connectivity, and AI,” and projected that each of those markets could grow into multi-trillion-dollar opportunities over a five-year-plus timeframe.
Brokerages RBC, Bernstein, and Stifel also initiated coverage with top ratings, focusing heavily on Starship — SpaceX’s next-generation rocket engineered to be fully reusable. RBC analysts described the vehicle as the engine behind the company’s broader ambitions, saying, “The Starship is the flywheel that powers SpaceX’s ambitions.”
Earlier this month, Oppenheimer became the first brokerage to start coverage of SpaceX, assigning it an “outperform” rating.
Much of the investor enthusiasm is tied to SpaceX’s potential as an artificial intelligence infrastructure company. Analysts believe the firm could use revenue generated from its existing operations to fund the development of Grok, an AI product competing against OpenAI’s GPT models and Anthropic’s Claude. Investors also see room for Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, to further cement its position in the global communications market.
Not all analysts share the optimism, however. Morningstar placed SpaceX’s value at roughly $780 billion — far below its current market capitalization of $2.1 trillion — citing uncertainty surrounding its AI ventures, including xAI and social media platform X.
At $2.1 trillion, SpaceX currently ranks as the sixth-largest company in the United States, and its CEO is recognized as the world’s first trillionaire.
SpaceX’s stock has climbed more than 6% since its debut, though the ride has included typical post-IPO swings in share price.
FTSE Russell added SpaceX to its U.S. indexes last month, with funds such as the iShares Russell 1000 ETF already offering investors exposure to what has been called the largest IPO in U.S. history. However, S&P Global chose not to create a similar fast-track process for the S&P 500 in June, meaning it could be at least a year before SpaceX appears in the world’s most closely watched stock index.
