Anthropic IPO: 1 Key Lesson Investors Can Learn From SpaceX

Anthropic IPO: 1 Key Lesson Investors Can Learn From SpaceX

Chris Neiger, The Motley Fool

Sat, September 19, 2026 at 6:30 PM GMT+3 4 min read

• SPCX -1.36%
• NVDA +1.34%

The Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX) IPO was one of the most highly anticipated public offerings in years. Within a few days of going public, SpaceX had a valuation of $2.7 trillion after raising nearly $86 billion in funding.

Then things started going sideways. The stock began falling amid fears that SpaceX is spending too much on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, and shares still trade below their opening price of $150 as of this writing. At one point, the share price fell enough to wipe out more than $1 trillion from SpaceX's valuation over a one-month span.

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Another AI company, Anthropic, could go public as soon as next month. Like SpaceX, it's a highly anticipated IPO. But investors would be wise to take the recent SpaceX sell-off as a warning that buying IPO stocks when they first go public is rarely a good move. History shows it's far better to wait before buying -- here's why.

What potential Anthropic investors can learn from SpaceX's $1 trillion wipeout

While there was an initial surge in interest for SpaceX, investors quickly turned their attention to the company's massive AI spending spree. The company's capital expenditures (capex) jumped 308% in the first six months of this year, compared to 2025, reaching $28.5 billion. That's a hefty sum, especially when you consider that SpaceX sales were just $12.5 billion over that same period.

While SpaceX is well known as a rocket company, its AI business is its largest expense. SpaceX owns the Grok chatbot and is building its Colossus data centers to sell AI computing capacity to customers. That resulted in 86% of the company's capex going to AI.

The problem for AI companies right now is that investors are increasingly skeptical of excessive spending without corresponding significant growth in revenue or profits.

Anthropic said recently that it has an annualized revenue run rate of $65 billion, nearly seven times its total sales in 2025. But Anthropic hasn't disclosed its capex yet, and it's safe to say the company is spending heavily to build out its AI capacity, likely much more than SpaceX.

Investors didn't like SpaceX's ramp-up in AI spending, and the sticker shock could be even greater with Anthropic.

History says the Anthropic IPO will fizzle at first

Jefferies research spanning more than two decades of IPOs shows that companies worth $10 billion or more when they go public average a 26.5% return in their first week. Pretty good, right? The problem is that over the first 12 months following their public debut, the average share price gain is just 3.5%.

Add to this historical data the fact that investors are skeptical of high AI spending and that recent calls for an AI slowdown are hammering tech stocks, and you have a recipe for one very volatile Anthropic IPO.

So, if there's one lesson SpaceX (and history) can teach potential Anthropic investors right now, it's to probably sit out the IPO when it happens.

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Chris Neiger has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Jefferies Financial Group. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Anthropic IPO: 1 Key Lesson Investors Can Learn From SpaceX was originally published by The Motley Fool