SpaceX's $1.75 trillion IPO is repricing RKLB, ASTS and LUNR

SpaceX is public at $1.75 trillion. Here's where the money flows next.

The SpaceX IPO closed in June as the largest in history, and the number that keeps coming back to me is $1.75 trillion. That valuation is not a typo. It puts SpaceX ahead of every European stock market by market cap, ahead of Berkshire Hathaway, ahead of Saudi Aramco on most days. And it creates a problem for every institutional fund manager who now has to explain to their investment committee why they have zero space exposure.

They can't buy SpaceX at IPO prices anymore. The float is thin, the lockups are real, and the price has only moved in one direction since June. So where do they go?

There are exactly three meaningful publicly traded space companies worth talking about, and all three are repricing in real time as institutions with fresh mandates go shopping.

Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB) is the obvious first stop. It's the only other company currently flying an operational orbital rocket on a commercial basis. Electron has over 50 flights. Neutron is in development. If you're a fund manager who needs launch exposure and can't get enough SpaceX, RKLB is the closest substitute the market offers. The valuation gap between SpaceX at $1.75 trillion and RKLB at whatever it trades today is so vast that even a modest institutional reallocation moves the stock materially.

AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ:ASTS) is the second-order play. Starlink proved that satellite connectivity at scale is a real business, not a science project. ASTS is building the next version of that thesis, direct-to-phone broadband from orbit, without requiring a special terminal. Every dollar that Starlink generates in revenue makes ASTS's pitch easier to a skeptical enterprise customer. A public SpaceX with a disclosed revenue line is essentially free advertising for the entire satellite connectivity sector.

Intuitive Machines (NASDAQ:LUNR) is the strangest of the three, and possibly the most interesting. It lands on the moon using SpaceX rockets, holds multi-billion dollar NASA contracts, and sits at the intersection of two spending programs that Washington hasn't shown any appetite to cut: commercial space and lunar infrastructure. It's a SpaceX customer, a NASA contractor, and one of the very few companies on earth that has actually landed hardware on another world.

The mechanism here is straightforward. When a sector gets a landmark public comparable at a landmark valuation, portfolio construction changes. Benchmarks get written. Index funds get created. The comparables get pulled. Every analyst covering RKLB, ASTS, and LUNR now has a $1.75 trillion anchor to argue from, and that changes the math on price targets in ways that have nothing to do with the underlying fundamentals of each company.

None of this means the fundamentals don't matter. LUNR burns cash. ASTS is pre-revenue at scale. RKLB is building Neutron on a timeline that keeps sliding. These are speculative positions, not bond substitutes. But the capital that needs space exposure will find these three names because there is nowhere else to go, and that demand is just getting started.

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Quick Takes

Three more stories worth knowing about

AAOI's 17-point score surge is worth a closer look

Applied Optoelectronics (NASDAQ:AAOI) picked up 17 points on our scoring model over the last four days, which is a meaningful move. The company makes optical transceivers, the physical hardware that carries data inside hyperscale data centers. With AI training clusters expanding faster than anyone projected a year ago, the demand for high-speed optical interconnects is growing alongside them. AAOI had a rough few years, but the revenue trajectory has shifted. If hyperscaler capex holds at current levels through 2027, the transceiver market is one of the more reliable beneficiaries.

Golden Dome is a spending program, not a slogan

Washington's missile defense push is moving from budget line to procurement reality. Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT), RTX (NYSE:RTX), and Kratos Defense (NASDAQ:KTOS) are all positioned inside that spending lane, but the most asymmetric angle is Kratos. LMT and RTX are already priced as defense primes. KTOS is smaller, cheaper, and its autonomous systems and drone platforms match exactly what the Pentagon says it wants more of: lower-cost, distributed, high-volume. If Golden Dome broadens into a full-spectrum air defense program, the relative repricing in KTOS could outrun both larger peers.

Anthropic's IPO sets the clock for AI-native software

Anthropic filed confidentially in June and is targeting a fall listing. When it lands, every AI-native software company gets a fresh valuation anchor, just as SpaceX did for the space sector. The names to watch ahead of that are SoundHound AI (NASDAQ:SOUN), UiPath (NYSE:PATH), and Serve Robotics (NASDAQ:SERV). SOUN is the purest application-layer proxy. PATH is how Fortune 500 companies actually deploy AI into workflows. SERV is the physical-world proof point that AI is leaving the chat window and operating on city streets. An Anthropic listing at a trillion-dollar valuation makes each of these easier to argue for.

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Overlooked Stock

KSPI

Kaspi.kz

Kaspi.kz (NASDAQ:KSPI) scores 96 on our model, which puts it in the top tier of everything we track, and most US investors have never heard of it. It operates out of Kazakhstan, which is reason enough for most people to stop reading. That's the opportunity. Kaspi is effectively a super-app, payments, e-commerce, marketplace, and fintech collapsed into a single platform, running in a market where it has no serious domestic competition. It has real revenue, real margins, and a BNPL and merchant finance business that would be a standalone unicorn anywhere in Western Europe. The knock is geopolitical and liquidity risk, both real. But the score doesn't lie about the business quality. If you're willing to do the work on the Kazakhstan macro, this is worth at least a serious look.

The Contrarian Take

The SpaceX IPO doesn't validate the space sector. It exposes how thin it actually is.

The consensus view is that a $1.75 trillion SpaceX listing is a rising tide for all space stocks. I think it's the opposite argument hiding inside a bullish frame. SpaceX at that valuation is so dominant, so operationally far ahead, and so vertically integrated that it doesn't just lead the sector, it is the sector. Rocket Lab is still building its medium-lift rocket. LUNR is surviving on NASA contracts. ASTS hasn't launched its commercial constellation at scale. When institutions go looking for the next SpaceX, what they actually find is how far behind everyone else is. The IPO creates demand for space exposure, yes, but it also sets a comparables bar that none of the public names can clear on fundamentals alone. The repricing is real. So is the risk that it overshoots badly before the underlying businesses can grow into the new multiples.