When SpaceX pulled back the curtain on its finances last week, some investors were taken aback.
The company’s space business was not generating as much revenue or profit as they had expected, and the losses from xAI, its artificial intelligence unit, were surprisingly large.
But some of those doubters will buy SpaceX’s stock anyway when the company goes public as soon as next month.
That’s because many investors said they could not pass on a company with Elon Musk as the main attraction. Nor could they forgo an initial public offering shaping up to be a marquee event for Wall Street.
“More people are biased to participate than not because no one wants to miss it,” said Renos Savvides, head of equity capital markets at the mutual fund manager Neuberger.
“If you miss SpaceX and it works, that’s when you can get tapped on the shoulder by your boss and say, ‘We need to have a bit of a talk’,” he added. If SpaceX’s offering flops, a huge swath of investors will be hit and no one will stand out, he said.
As Mr. Musk and his investment bankers prepare SpaceX for one of the largest I.P.O.s ever, they are working to create a self-fulfilling prophecy in which investors feel the risks of passing on the stock outweigh those of buying into it.
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