{"id":527882,"date":"2026-07-15T20:59:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T20:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/527882\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T20:59:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T20:59:22","slug":"share-crash-wipes-1-7-trillion-from-the-value-of-elon-musks-spacex-crimps-thousands-of-kiwi-investors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/527882\/","title":{"rendered":"Share crash wipes $1.7 trillion from the value of Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX, crimps thousands of Kiwi investors"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SatelliteSatellite antennas at a ground station in central Auckland that 2degrees is building for SpaceX subsidiary Starlink. Photo \/ Cameron Pitney<\/p>\n

At today\u2019s trading price, SpaceX is worth $1.77t and Musk\u2019s 42% stake US$760b (from a peak US$1.2t)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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

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\u2019s prospectus raised the prospect of asteroid mining and colonising the moon and Mars.<\/p>\n

\"Starlink'sStarlink’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.<\/p>\n

In the immediate term, there are some more down-to-Earth challenges.<\/p>\n

Starlink – SpaceX\u2019s cash cow, with 10 million users worldwide, including 85,000 in New Z<\/a>ealand – seems set to lose its monopoly on low-Earth orbit satellite broadband within months.<\/p>\n

Amazon\u2019s Amazon Leo says it will have enough satellites in orbit – around 400 – for commercial launch by year\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Jeff Bezos\u2019 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\u2019s also jump-started its effort by spending US$11.6b to acquire established satellite network operator Globalstar.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

AST has a different model, relying on a handful of satellites, each with a tennis court-sized array for a giant coverage footprint.<\/p>\n

\"ASTAST 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<\/p>\n

AST\u2019s local partner 2degrees has been building a ground station for the US firm in Marton in the Manawat\u016b (as well as one in central Auckland for SpaceX<\/a>).<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Sir Peter Beck\u2019s Rocket Lab, which has won a lot of US military and Nasa rocket launch business – with Musk\u2019s feuding with US President Donald Trump and the US space agency not hurting the Kiwi-American company\u2019s cause.<\/p>\n

On June 30, Rocket Lab said it had entered into an agreement to buy satellite network operator Iridium for US$8b<\/a>, with plans to upgrade. Beck had long hinted at an ambition to take on Starlink. Now, he\u2019s part of scrum of contenders taking on the SpaceX subsidiary. <\/p>\n

The new competition was now highlighted in Space X\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald\u2019s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Satellite antennas at a ground station in central Auckland that 2degrees is building for SpaceX subsidiary Starlink. Photo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[22256,15140,260800,13990,138,36173,3549,260798,11774,6097,17448,38403,1138,23540,71,321,194,4507,130,17449,17444,10992,111,139,69,1118,3333,55917,2122,180,1503,89271,131,1361,223,2742,780,77447,86361,260799,32561,3608,39042,218750],"class_list":["post-527882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-22256","tag-15140","tag-17t","tag-below","tag-business","tag-continuing","tag-crash","tag-crimps","tag-dive","tag-down","tag-elon","tag-falling","tag-firm","tag-founded","tag-from","tag-investors","tag-kiwi","tag-late","tag-more","tag-musk","tag-musks","tag-nasdaq","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-price","tag-session","tag-share","tag-shares","tag-spacex","tag-sustained","tag-than","tag-that","tag-the","tag-thousands","tag-trading","tag-trillion","tag-us1","tag-us13419","tag-value","tag-were","tag-wiped","tag-wipes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}