SpaceX (SPCX), the company behind the largest initial public offering in history, has seen its shares tumble nearly 25% from their recent peak in just three trading days, wiping more than $600 billion off its market value and driving a wave of investor exits. Yet Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest is taking the opposite tack, adding to its position and framing the selloff as a long-term entry point.
The contrarian move has amplified debate over whether the space-and-AI giant’s premium valuation has further to fall, or if the correction has already overshot.
SpaceX debuted on the Nasdaq on June 12 in a record $85.7 billion offering, cementing its status as the biggest public listing of all time. Frenzied investor demand pushed its market capitalization above $2.8 trillion at its peak, as buyers piled into one of the most anticipated market debuts in decades.
That euphoria has cooled rapidly. The stock posted its steepest one-day drop on Monday, sliding 16.4%, and has now retreated roughly 30% from its 52-week high. As of Tuesday’s close, shares changed hands around $156, leaving the company with a market value of $2.02 trillion.
As risk-off sentiment spread and investors trimmed exposure, ARK Invest stepped in to buy the dip. According to the firm’s daily trade disclosures, its four exchange-traded funds combined to acquire 210,121 additional SpaceX shares on June 22. The flagship ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) led the purchases with 131,837 new shares, followed by the ARK Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF (ARKQ), ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) and ARK Space Exploration & Innovation ETF (ARKX).
The latest purchase builds on a sizable stake ARK has accumulated since the IPO. Across its fund lineup, the firm has now bought roughly 3.29 million SpaceX shares since the listing, making the company one of the most high-profile new growth positions in its portfolios and signaling Wood’s bullish conviction remains intact despite the volatility.
Wood has built her career backing disruptive, market-creating technologies with multi-year growth runways, and SpaceX’s hybrid aerospace and artificial intelligence profile aligns closely with her investment framework. Her willingness to buy through the downturn rests on two core pillars: hardening revenue visibility and leading market share in massive addressable industries.
First, a string of large, long-term AI compute contracts has added tangible, contracted support to the company’s growth trajectory. Through its xAI division, SpaceX has signed three major multi-year agreements to supply capacity from its Colossus data center complex:
Taken together, the three contracts generate $2.32 billion in monthly revenue, or roughly $27.84 billion on an annualized basis. For context, SpaceX recorded total revenue of $18.67 billion in 2025. The new agreements alone are on track to push the company’s 2026 top line above $46 billion, turning a once-speculative growth narrative into measurable, contracted earnings.
Beyond AI compute, SpaceX holds dominant global positions in its legacy core businesses: Starlink satellite internet, commercial launch services and national security space programs. The company estimates its total addressable market at $28.5 trillion. In Wood’s view, the convergence of space commercialization, global connectivity and AI infrastructure has the potential to reshape the global technology landscape — and near-term price fluctuations do little to alter that long-term value thesis.
For all the company’s growth potential, deep disagreements over valuation remain the primary catalyst behind the recent selloff.
Even after the sharp pullback, SpaceX trades at 129.54 times trailing sales and roughly 44 times forward sales — a premium to even Palantir Technologies, a software firm widely regarded as richly valued, which trades at 36 times forward sales. SpaceX is also currently unprofitable, with a net profit margin of -26.4%, rendering traditional valuation metrics such as the price-to-earnings ratio inapplicable for now.
Bears contend that the market has already priced in years of future expansion, and that shares remain expensive even after the correction.
Wood’s track record shows she is comfortable looking past near-term volatility to place concentrated bets on high-growth sectors. Her latest SpaceX purchase is ultimately a wager that the company’s leadership in aerospace and AI will eventually translate into sustained profitability and free cash flow.
For ordinary investors, however, the risks are threefold: stretched valuation, lack of current profitability and extreme share price volatility. Even for those who subscribe to the long-term growth story, prudent position sizing is recommended — SpaceX is best suited as a high-conviction, high-volatility satellite holding rather than a core portfolio building block.
