IPO investors could be spoiled this year, as three AI juggernauts in SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic look to go public. Undoubtedly, it’s quite unusual to have such mega-cap tech titans land on the public markets with valuations in the hundreds of billions, and, in the case of SpaceX, the trillions. Indeed, it’s tough to know how high SpaceX’s market cap will fly on the opening day. But let’s just say that $1.75-2 trillion wouldn’t be all that out of the ordinary, especially given the sky-high barriers to entry and the profitability potential of Starlink.
Add the involvement in TeraFab and the potential to acquire AI coding play Cursor for $60 billion (that seems hefty, but it might prove a bargain, especially in the hands of Elon Musk, who knows better than anyone else what it takes to cut costs while ensuring everyone who remains goes “hardcore”), and I think SpaceX has a growth engine that’s really tough to top.
Either way, the S&P 500 is probably going to look quite a bit different in a year or two from now, especially as we enter the next stages of the AI boom, with agents, robots, and maybe even space-based data centers.
Massive market caps, massive growth profiles amid the AI boom
Of course, there’s just so much excitement to be had from the headliner that is the SpaceX-xAI IPO. Space and frontier AI innovation come in one large package. For investors looking to spread their bets more broadly on AI model makers, though, perhaps picking up a few shares of OpenAI or Anthropic could make a lot of sense as well. After the enthusiasm surrounding Claude Code, Claude Cowork, and, most recently, Claude Mythos, it’s hard to argue against opting for Dario Amodei’s Anthropic over OpenAI.
After all, Anthropic’s financials are quite a bit easier to digest right here. While Anthropic steals headlines, though, investors shouldn’t lose track of Sam Altman’s OpenAI. It’s spending heavily, as it should. But, what’s more, the firm has a response to the market-moving innovations that Anthropic has been showing off in recent quarters.
Whether we’re talking about the firm’s shift into enterprise AI or the potential behind the coming GPT-6, OpenAI is expected to have a heftier valuation than Anthropic for a reason.
The S&P 500 is bound to change in a big way over the next two years, thanks to the mega IPOs
Though, questions linger as to what will happen after shares go live on public markets, given increased anxiety about the financial situation. For now, OpenAI has plans to reserve a big chunk of IPO shares for the retail crowd. And that might mean OpenAI’s financial jitters could quickly prove unwarranted, especially as the ad-based model looks to start helping out with all those lofty AI bills.
In any case, it’ll be interesting to see how the S&P 500 stands to be reshaped in the coming two years or so as they meet the eligibility requirements (seasoning, earnings, public float). Given the rules, each mega IPO will have to spend at least a year in the waiting room before it’s added to the S&P 500. That is, unless something changes, given how unprecedented it is for a company worth over $1 trillion to join the ranks of the incredibly deep roster of U.S. companies.
Either way, it’s time for a new acronym, one that goes beyond the Magnificent Seven for 2027 and beyond.
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