Data: YCharts. Note: SpaceX private-company valuation per news reports. Chart: Axios Visuals
SpaceX is the most valuable defense contractor in the world. Its valuation has reportedly increased by $140 billion — more than the total value of Lockheed Martin — just since June.
Why it matters: Investors aren’t necessarily clamoring for SpaceX shares because Starlink has suddenly become more profitable or rocket launches more numerous. Instead, they’re buying into Elon Musk’s proximity to President-elect Donald Trump.
By the numbers: SpaceX has revenues somewhere in the region of $15 billion per year. That’s a fraction of its competitors — RTX (parent of Raytheon) has $79 billion in annual sales, for instance, while Boeing has $73 billion and Lockheed Martin has $71 billion.
- As our colleague Colin Demarest reports, the world’s largest defense contractors generated $632 billion in revenue total last year — so SpaceX is an even smaller slice of the global pie.
Where it stands: Musk is famously hands-off when it comes to SpaceX, letting president Gwynne Shotwell more or less run it day-to-day.
- Where Musk can add real value, however, is in persuading Trump — the man who created the Space Force — to spend even more Pentagon money in space, rather than on terrestrial operations.
- It helps that Musk, wearing his DOGE hat, will probably attempt to sell Trump on the idea that the Space Force is much cheaper than the Army, Navy or Air Force, while also being a smarter strategic investment.
Between the lines: Investors looking to bet on Musk’s ability to steer Trump would do well to watch “Patriots,” the Peter Morgan play about the relationship between Vladimir Putin and Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky.
- Turning financial power into political power is something that often works until it doesn’t.
The bottom line: Musk’s $118 million investment in getting Trump elected, backed up with vocal advocacy on X, looks like it has paid off handsomely.
- His stake in SpaceX alone has increased by about $60 billion as a result of Trump’s election.
