The SpaceX IPO, Fable 5, AI Capex Update & Market Check w/ Gavin Baker, Andrew Fox & Clark Tang | BG2
June 11, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readSpaceX moved from having no presence in the AI hyperscaler rankings to number four in roughly thirty days after signing large cloud deals with Google and Anthropic.
SpaceX IPO valuation drivers
The discussion centers on two primary variables that determine whether the company can reach the revenue levels implied by a $1.77 trillion valuation at the $135 share price. The first is the pace at which terrestrial data centers can be deployed and monetized. Elon Musk’s team has demonstrated the ability to stand up large GPU clusters in 122 days, far faster than typical three-year planning cycles, and recent deals show monetization rates between $22 billion and $50 billion per gigawatt annually. The second variable is Starlink growth, which depends on achieving rapid reusability with Starship. Current expectations embedded in bank models project Starlink and direct-to-cell revenue rising from roughly $10 billion to $50 billion by 2028, requiring hundreds of millions of terminals once launch costs fall below $250 per kilogram.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:42) **Episode intro & SpaceX IPO setup** - Brad introduces guests and frames the SpaceX IPO discussion at $1.77T valuation
- 2 (02:20) **Two key variables for SpaceX valuation** - Gavin highlights terrestrial data center speed and model Pareto progress as the main drivers
- 3 (07:08) **Launch business as crown jewel** - Andrew explains why rapid reusability of Starship is foundational to all other economics
- 4 (09:46) **Starlink broadband & direct-to-cell TAM** - Discussion of subscriber growth potential and revenue trajectory to $50B by 2028
- 5 (13:28) **AI compute deals emerge as major new line** - Clark and Gavin cover the Anthropic and Google cloud deals and their margins
- 6 (17:58) **SpaceX becomes a top hyperscaler** - Gavin notes they are already #4 after the Google deal and passed Oracle/CoreWeave
- 7 (23:45) **Orbital compute economics** - Andrew walks through capex math: ~$5B per GW in space vs $20–25B terrestrially
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Guests on this episode
Show Notes
Brad Gerstner sits down with Gavin Baker and Andrew Fox of Atreides Management, alongside Altimeter partner Clark Tang, to break down one of the biggest questions in tech and markets: how should investors think about the SpaceX IPO?
They unpack the major levers behind SpaceX’s next phase: Starship rapid reusability, Starlink broadband and direct-to-cell, Elon’s emerging AI compute business, xAI’s model ambitions, the Cursor acquisition, and the long-term promise of orbital data centers.
The group also debates whether SpaceX is becoming a new kind of AI hyperscaler — “Elon Web Services” — and what that means for the future of compute, cloud, and frontier intelligence.
Then they dive into the latest model race: Fable 5, Mythos, ChatGPT 5.5, long-running agents, open source vs. frontier models, Nvidia vs. ASICs, the AI CapEx boom, and why the market may still be underestimating the scale of AI demand. Enjoy another episode of BG2!
Produced by Edward Schmidt & Dan Shevchuk
Music by Yung Spielberg
Available on Apple, Spotify, www.bg2pod.com
Follow:
Brad Gerstner @altcap https://x.com/altcap
Gavin Baker @GavinSBaker https://x.com/GavinSBaker
Clark Tang @_clarktang https://x.com/_clarktang
BG2 Pod @bg2pod https://x.com/BG2Pod
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