Share crash wipes $1.7 trillion from the value of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, crimps thousands of Kiwi investors

Satellite antennas at a ground station in central Auckland that 2degrees is building for SpaceX subsidiary Starlink. Photo / Cameron Pitney

At today’s trading price, SpaceX is worth $1.77t and Musk’s 42% stake US$760b (from a peak US$1.2t)

SpaceX lost US$4.9b last year on US$18.7b revenue, according to its pre-IPO filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

That means SpaceX is trading at close to 100x its revenue, compared to Nvidia (regarded by some as trading in a bubble) at 22x.

SpaceX bulls – who include its IPO underwriter Goldman Sachs with a US$205 12-month target and Morgan Stanley, which sees the stock hitting US$300 in a year – see huge growth ahead, including data centres in space. Longer term, SpaceX’s prospectus raised the prospect of asteroid mining and colonising the moon and Mars.

Starlink’s share of New Zealand’s rural broadband market increased from 19% in the year to June 30, 2024 to a market-leading 27% in the year to June 30, 2025 as its local customers jumped from 58,000 to 85,000. But competition is just months away. Source / Commerce Commission 2025 Telecommunications Monitoring report.

In the immediate term, there are some more down-to-Earth challenges.

Starlink – SpaceX’s cash cow, with 10 million users worldwide, including 85,000 in New Zealand – seems set to lose its monopoly on low-Earth orbit satellite broadband within months.

Amazon’s Amazon Leo says it will have enough satellites in orbit – around 400 – for commercial launch by year’s end. SpaceX has around 10,000 in orbit but only around 650 of its next-gen model capable of satellite-to-mobile voice and data.

Jeff Bezos’ firm has earmarked at least US$10b toward Amazon Leo, which has included buying land for a ground station in New Zealand and hiring local staff. It’s also jump-started its effort by spending US$11.6b to acquire established satellite network operator Globalstar.

A second rival, AST SpaceMobile – backed by Google, Vodafone, Samsung and other tech and telco giants – is also just months away from its satellite broadband launch.

AST has a different model, relying on a handful of satellites, each with a tennis court-sized array for a giant coverage footprint.

AST SpaceMobile has five satellites in orbit. Each has a large transmission footprint, in contrast to the thousands in Starlink’s thousands of low-Earth orbit swarm. Render / AST

AST’s local partner 2degrees has been building a ground station for the US firm in Marton in the Manawatū (as well as one in central Auckland for SpaceX).

Earlier this week, 2degrees chief executive Mark Callander revealed that his company has gained a radio licence to operate the Marton ground station, which could be an indication its commercial launch is close.

Then there’s Sir Peter Beck’s Rocket Lab, which has won a lot of US military and Nasa rocket launch business – with Musk’s feuding with US President Donald Trump and the US space agency not hurting the Kiwi-American company’s cause.

On June 30, Rocket Lab said it had entered into an agreement to buy satellite network operator Iridium for US$8b, with plans to upgrade. Beck had long hinted at an ambition to take on Starlink. Now, he’s part of scrum of contenders taking on the SpaceX subsidiary.

The new competition was now highlighted in Space X’s pre-IPO SEC filing, which had 63 mentions of future Martian operations but only a single mention each for Amazon Leo and AST SpaceMobile, each on page 219.

Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.