Between the world’s largest capitalization and the future new stock market giant, there are common points but very different financial profiles.
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Two companies among the largest stock market capitalizations in the world, two groups with a significant technological lead over their competitors, two emblematic bosses symbolizing a sector of activity in their own right (Jensen Huang for chips dedicated to artificial intelligence, Elon Musk for space), two technological flagships Americans… There is no shortage of points in common between Nvidia and SpaceX, at first glance. Note also that Nvidia has been an essential supplier to SpaceX, since the group’s acquisition of xAI (now SpaceXAI), since its Colossus 1 (currently leased to Anthropic) and Colossus 2 data centers are filled with Nvidia GPUs.
SpaceX’s IPO should take place by mid-June and represent the largest operation in history ($75 to $80 billion in fundraising targeted, relegating Saudi Aramco’s $25.6 billion in 2019 far behind). This operation, historic in its scale, could launch an extraordinary season of IPOs, since the two leaders of the Artificial Intelligence models Anthropic and OpenAI could follow by the end of the year.
If AI was not part of the initial business plan of either Nvidia or SpaceX, it has become a common objective of the two groups.
But let’s come back to Nvidia and SpaceX. The history of the two groups has similarities and differences. First point in common, these companies have a relatively long history. The founding of Nvidia dates back to 1993, that of SpaceX to 2002. In both cases, these were bets on the evolution of hardware: the adoption of chips dedicated to graphics computing to run video games in 3D for Nvidia, the possibility of a strong deflation of launch costs of rockets via the simplification of launchers and their reuse for SpaceX.
If AI was not part of the initial business plan of either Nvidia or SpaceX, it has become a common objective of the two groups, although at different levels of the value chain (supply of chips for Nvidia, construction of data centers and edition of models for SpaceXAI). Note, however, that the roots of Nvidia’s positioning on AI are much older (launch of CUDA, which will serve as a platform for programming GPUs like general processors, from 2007, then positioning on deep learning from 2014). Indeed, Elon Musk invested in AI by being a founding member of OpenAI in 2015, with which he is notoriously in conflict and did not create xAI until 2023.
The financial profile of the two companies also appears radically different. Nvidia achieved in 2025 (financial year ending January 2026) $216 billion in revenue, $120 billion in net income and $96.6 billion in free cash flow. SpaceX, for its part, made just under $19 billion in revenue, a net loss of $4.9 billion and negative free cash flow of $14 billion. Of course, the valuation of the two groups must be judged above all in the light of their future prospects, however the difference in size and profitability appears very significant.
Last Wednesday, two events took place on the same day: 1) the release of the preliminary prospectus for SpaceX’s IPO and 2) Nvidia’s Q1 2026-27 results. Jensen Juang’s group published an increase in revenue of +85%, significantly higher than expectations, exceptional margins (66% EBIT margin) and announced $80 billion in share buybacks. Alas, the market turned its back on its pleasure and the stock fell by -4.4%, so that the AI chip giant is now valued on a P/E 2027 multiple of 17.2x (as of 05/27/2026). HAS
This extremely modest valuation contrasts sharply with the likely enthusiasm for SpaceX, whose valuation should in all likelihood exceed 50x in EV/CA 2026 and whose P/E should be well into the triple digits. Note also that while the capital of Nvidia is essentially floating, Jensen Huang holding 3.4% of the group, that of SpaceX will initially have at least a limited float, while Elon Musk has ensured total control of the group, in particular via B shares with super voting rights. The price of the dream?
