Former Fidelity manager labels SpaceX stock ‘grossly overvalued’ with 80% downside risk

George Noble, the former manager of Fidelity’s first international fund, has identified Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) as the most grossly overvalued stock he has encountered in his career. Noble estimates the fair value of the company’s shares at approximately $30, implying an 80 per cent downside from current trading levels. He attributes the recent surge in share price to a “manufactured squeeze” facilitated by the initial public offering structure, which saw the company sell less than five per cent of its shares before being included in the Nasdaq-100 index without meeting standard requirements.

SpaceX opened trading on the Nasdaq on 11 June 2026 at $150 per share, following a record-breaking initial public offering priced at $135. The company raised $75 billion, valuing it at approximately $1.77 trillion and making CEO Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire on paper. The stock rose 27 per cent to $172 in early trading. Noble argues that the impending release of shares held by early investors, once lock-up periods expire, will serve as a catalyst to drive the price down, describing the offering as one of the largest wealth transfers ever packaged into a narrative.

While acknowledging that Starlink is a profitable business, Noble contends it is worth significantly less than the company’s current $2 trillion market capitalisation. He notes that while the satellite internet service can offer connectivity to airlines and provide coverage in remote areas, it faces substantial technical and regulatory hurdles. These include difficulties with signal penetration in modern office buildings and the likelihood that the network would be overwhelmed in large cities and suburban areas, preventing it from becoming a full-fledged mobile operator without acquiring a traditional carrier.

Noble also expresses strong scepticism regarding SpaceX’s ambition to build data centres in space, dismissing the feasibility of such projects in the near term. He points out that the necessary technology, including chips resistant to cosmic radiation and systems for cooling artificial intelligence infrastructure in a vacuum, does not yet exist. Other proposed ventures, such as asteroid mining and terrestrial cargo transportation, also face significant obstacles, including undeveloped extraction tools and uncertain economics that could crash raw material markets if successful.

The analysis concludes that SpaceX shares should be avoided, citing Elon Musk’s track record of missing project deadlines. A New York Times analysis of over 600 of Musk’s public predictions found that fewer than 20 per cent were delivered on schedule. Noble argues that for a growth stock priced entirely on future potential, this history of underpromising and overdelivering on initiatives such as Mars colonisation and autonomous driving is a significant risk factor.