SpaceX overtakes Amazon as world’s fifth most valuable company

Days after its stock market debut, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has overtaken e-commerce giant Amazon to become the world’s fifth most valuable company. 

A post-IPO surge has pushed the rocket manufacturer’s market capitalisation to approximately $2.78 trillion (£2.1 trillion), eclipsing Jeff Bezos’s retail and media empire, which sits at $2.66 trillion.

Since listing on the Nasdaq at an initial price of $135 per share on Friday, SpaceX stock has soared by more than 50%, closing at $209. The rapid valuation spike was further accelerated by the announcement that SpaceX is acquiring AI coding startup Cursor, and its parent company Anysphere, in a $60 billion all-share deal.

Cursor, an artificial intelligence tool used to automate software engineering, counts Nvidia and Stripe among its clients. SpaceX plans to pair Cursor’s technology with its “Colossus” training supercomputer to scale up its broader artificial intelligence operations, including Musk’s xAI venture.

Market hype vs. financial reality

Despite SpaceX overtaking Amazon in market value, a massive disparity remains between the financials of the two companies. Amazon recorded $716.9 billion in sales in 2025 and posted a $30.3 billion profit in the first quarter of 2026 alone. Conversely, SpaceX generated $18.67 billion in revenue across 2025 and recorded a $4.3 billion loss in the first quarter of 2026.

Analysts suggest that investors are trading on future sentiment rather than current balance sheets. Venture capitalist Eileen Burbidge believes that many traders are buying into a “well-marketed opportunity” and backing Musk’s long-term vision of satellite internet expansion and Mars colonisation, rather than basing decisions on underlying financial metrics.

Industry experts also warn that the current share price may be artificially inflated by low market liquidity. Only about 4% of SpaceX shares are currently available for public trading. Dan Sheehan, an analyst at Telos Wealth Advisors, cautioned that regular investors could be paying an initial premium that risks being diluted later if institutional backers begin unloading their private holdings onto the open market.