SpaceX to become the second 'Musk stock', causing potential dividend pressure for Tesla

After SpaceX initiates the IPO process, Tesla will no longer be the sole publicly traded avenue for average investors to bet on Musk's vision. Wall Street professionals believe that inevitably, investors' attention and capital will partially shift from Tesla to SpaceX.

Over the past few years, Tesla's stock price has embodied Musk's imagination in multiple directions including electric vehicles, autonomous driving, robotics, and artificial intelligence, becoming to some extent the main proxy for average investors to participate in the "Musk economy."Once SpaceX goes public, this singular narrative will be split.

Tesla's Risks: Divided Attention and Heightened Competition

Integrity Asset Management portfolio manager Joe Gilbert直言 that the SpaceX IPO “is definitely not a good thing” for Tesla. He points out that Musk's future attention may be more focused on SpaceX, although he has proven in the past that he can simultaneously advance multiple projects, but SpaceX is becoming his new core focus, and there is a risk of Tesla being marginalized.

Tesla's current valuation heavily relies on the narrative of future growth. Despite a stock price decline of 8.9% this year,Tesla's forward price-to-earnings ratio for the next 12 months is still as high as approximately 195 times, ranking second among S&P 500 index constituents. The high valuation is built on investors' confidence in its transformation from an electric vehicle company to an autonomous driving and robotics company.

However, these businesses have entered into fierce competition: electric vehicles face dual pressures from Chinese manufacturers and American traditional car companies; autonomous taxi services face competition from Alphabet's Waymo, which has already begun operations; and in the robotics sector, there are many tech companies with stakes.

In contrast, the SpaceX narrative is more concentrated, maintaining a clear leading position in the space sector, and Gilbert believes its potential market value could even exceed Tesla's.

Impacts May Not Materialize Immediately

The diversion of funds will first be evident at the retail investor level. BNP Paribas analyst James Picariello estimates that retail investors hold about 40% of Tesla's shares, and the SpaceX IPO could attract this portion of capital, exerting direct pressure on Tesla.

However, not all market views are entirely pessimistic. Tigress Financial Partners Chief Investment Officer Ivan Feinseth believes that SpaceX's public listing could reinforce the broader "Musk ecosystem" narrative; Roundhill Financial CEO Dave Mazza indicates that investors who agree with Musk's vision might allocate to both companies, with only a portion of funds rotating from Tesla to SpaceX due to the new stock's hype.

DataTrek Research co-founder Nicholas Colas cautions that the actual impact of SpaceX on Tesla may take about three months to manifest: institutional funds adjust more slowly, early IPO trading is usually volatile, and as a constituent of the S&P 500, Tesla is still supported by passive funds in the short term.