Michael Burry looked at the numbers. He studied the options chain. Then he passed.
The investor who rose to fame predicting the housing crisis now questions one of the largest market capitalizations in history. SpaceX, freshly public, trades with a valuation near $3 trillion. Burry calls that price tag detached from the company’s actual scale. Yahoo Finance reported his remarks after he posted them on Substack.
“I am not involved with SpaceX now. Neither short nor, ahem, long,” Burry wrote. Short. Long. He wants no part of either side. Yet the temptation flickered. Put options that would profit from a steep drop looked interesting. Expensive. But interesting.
A contract giving the right to sell SpaceX shares at $100 by December 2028 cost about $25. Similar protection expiring in June 2027 ran near $13. The December 2026 version sat at roughly $6.75. “Tempted by that one. But no thank you,” he said of the nearer-term bet. With any luck, he added, the stock settles in the mid-$200s.
SpaceX began trading June 12 at $135. It quickly climbed. Within days it reached the $190 to $200 range. The surge minted Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire. It also pushed the enterprise past Berkshire Hathaway in market value. Burry noted the speed of that overtake. Berkshire, built over lifetimes by two of the greatest investors ever, eclipsed two and a half times in just three days of trading.
He described the business in blunt terms. “Fundamentally a small space company, a niche telecom, a bedeviled social media company, and a Coreweave-light.” All that with less than $20 billion in annual revenue. The CNBC coverage captured the full quote and the revenue context. SpaceX’s S-1 filing, released in May, showed $18.67 billion in 2025 revenue. Net loss reached $4.93 billion. Those figures come directly from regulatory disclosures examined by Morningstar analysts.
Starlink drove much of the top line. The connectivity unit generated $11.4 billion in 2025, up nearly 50 percent from the prior year. It posted positive operating income and strong EBITDA. The core space launch business added $4.1 billion but operated at a loss. Then came the AI segment. It lost more than $6.3 billion in 2025 alone. First-quarter 2026 results showed continued pressure. Consolidated revenue climbed to $4.7 billion for the period, yet operating losses widened to $1.9 billion. Yahoo Finance broke down the segmental results shortly after the prospectus appeared.
Burry had voiced doubts before the debut. In early June he told Substack subscribers that nothing in the S-1 supported a $1 trillion valuation, let alone $2 trillion. Business Insider documented those earlier comments. The stock has since traded as high as levels that value the entire company at nearly three times that initial skepticism. And still he holds no position.
This caution fits a pattern. Burry’s Scion Asset Management disclosed in November that it held millions of put options on Palantir and Nvidia. Both names had enjoyed spectacular runs. He has expressed repeated concern about artificial intelligence enthusiasm. The current wave of capital pouring into compute infrastructure strikes him as unsustainable. Demand signals look false. Computing power may commoditize faster than builders expect. SpaceX sits at the intersection of rockets, satellites, social media through X, and now heavy AI investment. That mix, in his view, does not add up to three trillion dollars.
Options pricing explains his hesitation more than any sudden optimism. The premiums reflect enormous implied volatility. A 50 percent drop below $100 by late 2026 would deliver profit, but the cost of waiting that long while paying for protection eats returns. Shorter-dated contracts cost less yet still demand a significant move. Burry sees the downside. He simply refuses to pay the price the market currently asks to express that view.
Investors piled in anyway. The IPO ranks as the largest on record. It raised tens of billions. Retail brokers opened access quickly. Trading volume surged. The stock’s early gains exceeded 40 percent in the first sessions. Comparisons flew. SpaceX briefly surpassed Amazon in market value. It dwarfed entire national economies and the fortunes of the world’s richest individuals outside Musk himself. Burry’s commentary landed amid that frenzy. X lit up with reactions. Some called it classic Burry bearishness. Others argued the growth case around Starlink subscribers, now over 10 million, and Starship progress justifies the multiple.
Yet the numbers remain stark. Losses accelerated even as revenue grew 33 percent in 2025. Capital spending on Starship alone ran into the billions. The AI bet adds another layer of expense before any clear path to outsized profit. SpaceX projects a massive total addressable market that stretches into the tens of trillions when combining space, connectivity, and artificial intelligence opportunities. Those projections fueled the IPO pricing. Burry focuses on current revenue and the businesses as they stand today.
He once bet against the housing market when few saw trouble. That call made his reputation. Shorting popular technology names has proven far harder. Tesla taught that lesson to many bears over the years. Musk’s ability to generate narrative momentum, secure government contracts, and attract talent creates a moat beyond traditional financial metrics. Starlink’s expansion into new markets and potential for vertical integration with other Musk ventures add further complexity.
So Burry sits on the sidelines. No shares. No puts. Just the public observation that the valuation looks stretched and the protection too dear. His Substack post carried the tone of a man who has seen manias before. He expects the stock to find a lower equilibrium eventually. Mid-$200s would represent a meaningful decline from recent levels. It would also value the company at a still lofty multiple of current sales.
Market participants continue to debate the merits. Bulls point to Starlink’s path to profitability, the reusable rocket advantage that has slashed launch costs, and the strategic importance of the AI infrastructure play. Bears echo Burry. They see hype, thin public float initially, and enormous execution risk across multiple capital-intensive fronts. Recent X discussions reflect that split. Posts from traders note the danger of stepping in front of momentum tied to Musk’s personal brand.
Burry’s decision not to act speaks as loudly as his words. The man who profited enormously from one of the great financial dislocations of the century now looks at another apparent dislocation and chooses restraint. The options market has priced the risk of disappointment so high that even he declines the wager. That fact alone keeps analysts watching. If Burry cannot find attractive terms to express his skepticism, what does that say about the breadth of the current enthusiasm?
SpaceX trades under ticker SPCX. Its performance will test whether fundamentals eventually reassert themselves or whether the combination of space leadership, broadband disruption, and artificial intelligence ambition can sustain extraordinary valuations for years. Burry has placed his bet on the former. He just refuses to pay today’s price to make it official.
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