SpaceX is now a public company valued for its AI capabilities, so what’s next?

Space Exploration Technologies, better known as SpaceX, became a publicly traded company on Friday nearly a quarter of a century after its founding.

The company began trading on the Nasdaq exchange in New York City at $135 a share, valuing SpaceX at about $1.8 trillion. At the end of the trading day the company’s shares were trading at $160.95, a respectable increase of more than 19 percent.

On paper, SpaceX founder Elon Musk became the world’s first billionaire, and his stake in the company was worth more than $700 billion. As a result of the company’s decision-making process, thousands of current and former employees stayed night millionaires. The crew at SpaceX has worked hard over the past 24 years, and now they’re getting a big reward for doing so.

SpaceX is now one of the most important companies in the world. Should it? There is a lot of disagreement as to whether SpaceX is fool’s gold with its high cost, or whether it represents an important opportunity to finally have a large space company that will one day control the data business in orbit.

SpaceX is now an AI company

One thing is clear: SpaceX is now publicly traded, and will conduct much of its business in the public eye. While Musk remains independent in terms of ownership and voting rights, he will now be exposed to shareholders in a very important way: the value of his company.

Many shareholders bought SpaceX shares today so they won’t be part of the company’s long-term plans to land on Mars, or help NASA put people on the Moon. Of course, some space enthusiasts did. However, many people invest in stocks to make money.

Like SpaceX is clearly stated in its S-1 filing presented in May, however, the value of the company is not in the “solutions to support the space” or its integration of the Starlink network. As part of the “total marketable market,” the company considers this to be less than 7 percent of its value.

Instead, Musk and SpaceX see much of the value in providing AI services, especially from space, and especially for businesses. If investors agree that that’s where the company’s biggest profits lie, that’s where they’ll want to see SpaceX invest its time and resources.