SpaceX has overtaken Amazon to become the world’s fifth-most-valuable publicly listed company, extending a remarkable rally that began with its record-breaking stock market debut earlier this week.
Shares in Elon Musk’s aerospace and technology group surged by as much as 13% during Tuesday’s trading session, briefly lifting the company’s market capitalisation to approximately $2.97 trillion before settling back to around $2.66 trillion by the close.
Even after the late-session pullback, SpaceX remained marginally ahead of Amazon, whose market value stood at approximately $2.65 trillion.
The latest gains mean SpaceX has added almost $900 billion in market value since its historic IPO, reinforcing investor enthusiasm for Musk’s growing technology empire.
The rally was further fuelled by the announcement that SpaceX has agreed to acquire the company behind Cursor, the rapidly growing artificial intelligence coding platform, in a deal valued at $60 billion.
Cursor has emerged as one of the most successful AI-powered software development tools, allowing programmers to generate, edit and review code using natural language prompts. The acquisition gives Musk’s artificial intelligence business, xAI, greater exposure to one of the fastest-growing segments of the AI industry.
The move is widely viewed as an attempt to strengthen SpaceX’s competitive position against AI rivals such as Anthropic, whose Claude platform has gained significant traction among software developers.
Today’s SpaceX group encompasses a broad collection of technology businesses including the SpaceX launch operation, artificial intelligence company xAI, social media platform X and satellite communications provider Starlink.
Among these businesses, Starlink remains the primary profit generator, benefiting from rapidly growing global demand for satellite-based broadband services.
The acquisition of Cursor highlights the group’s strategy of combining artificial intelligence, software development and communications technologies under a single corporate structure while leveraging Musk’s growing influence across multiple technology sectors.
For investors, the speed of SpaceX’s ascent has been extraordinary. Having already become one of the largest IPOs in history, the company has rapidly climbed the global valuation rankings and now sits behind only a handful of the world’s largest technology giants.
The focus now shifts to whether SpaceX can justify its multi-trillion-dollar valuation through continued growth in Starlink, advances in artificial intelligence through xAI, and the commercialisation of future space and satellite technologies.
