5 Stocks Analysts Say Look Like Better Buys Than SpaceX Right Now

With SpaceX commanding a valuation north of $2 trillion following its blockbuster Nasdaq debut, a growing chorus of market analysts is making the case that investors chasing space-and-AI exposure may find better value, lower risk, or stronger growth elsewhere. Here are five stocks repeatedly cited as alternatives worth considering instead.

1. Nvidia (NVDA)

While SpaceX's valuation is based on moonshot bets, Nvidia is the dominant player in artificial intelligence infrastructure. It trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of just 16 and grew its revenue by 85% in the first quarter to $81.6 billion. Its adjusted quarterly profits of $45.5 billion were nearly 2.5 times SpaceX's entire 2025 revenue.

That comparison underscores the core argument bulls make for Nvidia over SpaceX: Nvidia is already generating the kind of cash flow that SpaceX's AI ambitions remain years away from matching, all while trading at a multiple analysts consider reasonable relative to its growth.

2. Amazon (AMZN)

Amazon offers investors a comparable blend of established AI infrastructure and direct competition with SpaceX's own satellite ambitions. While SpaceX is trying to become a leading AI company, Amazon already is one. Its Amazon Web Services is seeing accelerating revenue growth, and its custom chip business gives it a cost edge.

The company also has its own space ambitions, looking to challenge SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service with its own offerings, while the acquisition of Globalstar gave it important spectrum and direct-to-device capabilities. One analyst argued Amazon "is a great company with two proven and growing businesses" that "should be worth much more than SpaceX's moonshot bets."

3. Alphabet (GOOGL)

Alphabet's case rests on a similar logic: a company with already-proven AI infrastructure, plus its own under-the-radar space project. While SpaceX is trying to become a leading AI company, Alphabet is already the most complete one. Its Gemini model is a top-tier foundation model, while its Tensor Processing Units give it a significant advantage by reducing training and inference costs.

Notably, Alphabet isn't ignoring space either. It actually owns a large stake in SpaceX, and its Project Suncatcher is developing a constellation of solar-powered satellites powered by TPUs and free-space optical links to perform machine learning in space. The company believes the cost of a space-based data center could become comparable to a land-based one by the mid-2030s.

4. Rocket Lab (RKLB)

For investors who specifically want direct exposure to the launch and space-infrastructure business SpaceX dominates, analysts point to Rocket Lab as a far cheaper way to participate in the same trend. Rocket Lab is a space stock with huge potential at a fraction of its market capitalization. It's pulling in record revenue, with $200 million in the first quarter alone, up more than 63% year over year, and has a backlog of $2.2 billion.

Rocket Lab's highly anticipated medium-lift reusable rocket, the Neutron, is slated for its debut late this year. It will immediately scale up Rocket Lab's payload capacity to roughly 13,000 kilograms, allowing it to compete directly for the high-margin national security and deep-space missions currently monopolized by SpaceX. The company has already locked in a five-launch deal for the Neutron before it even leaves the pad.

5. Redwire (RDW)

For investors seeking a "picks and shovels" approach to the space economy rather than a bet on any single launch provider, several analysts have pointed to Redwire as an appealing option. One closely followed view calls Redwire the best SpaceX alternative, and its product explains why. It builds the space-grade solar arrays that power satellites and spacecraft in orbit. That hardware is hard to copy, so even SpaceX would likely source it rather than build it. So Redwire grows by supplying the sector, not by competing.

Redwire's first-quarter revenue rose 58% year-over-year to $97 million, with gross margin expanding to 26.6% from 14.7% a year prior, and the company reported a record backlog of $498.1 million. On a positive note, Redwire trades at 7 times trailing sales, the lowest valuation cited among comparable space stocks — though it's worth noting the company is still losing money, posting first-quarter earnings of negative $0.40 per share that missed expectations, with a large portion of that loss tied to equity-based compensation.

The Bull Case for SpaceX, for Balance

Not every analyst agrees the alternatives are clearly superior. SpaceX's business model carries genuine offsetting strengths: Starlink already gives the company a large recurring revenue base, while Starship can help lower launch costs. The xAI merger gives SpaceX its own AI products, including Grok. Colossus is SpaceX's large AI data center system, giving the company a way to sell computing capacity to AI customers such as Anthropic. SpaceX has multiple growth engines and may be less affected by weakness in any one business line than a single-focus competitor would be.

SpaceX's AI infrastructure business is also gaining real momentum through outside partnerships. The company has entered into a cloud services agreement with Alphabet, under which Google will pay $920 million per month from October 2026 to June 2029 for access to AI compute capacity. Anthropic has also agreed to lease the full computing power of SpaceX's Colossus 1 data center.

The Case Against

Skeptics counter that SpaceX's valuation still requires near-flawless execution to justify. Elon Musk has predicted $1 trillion in revenue by 2030, but he has a long history of overly optimistic forecasts, and the chances of the company coming anywhere close to that number are slim. There are major technical hurdles that need to be overcome to have data centers in space, and no one can be certain this is a good business, let alone one that is right around the corner.

SpaceX also carries substantial financial risk regardless of its strategic positioning. Its AI business is still losing money. SpaceX's business model is also capital-intensive, with capital expenditures reaching $20.7 billion in 2025 and $10.1 billion in the first quarter of 2026 alone.

The Bottom Line

There is no single consensus answer on whether SpaceX or one of these alternatives represents the smarter investment, and the dispersion in analyst opinion reflects genuine, substantive disagreement about how to value a company straddling rocketry, satellite connectivity, and unproven orbital AI ambitions simultaneously. Some analysts favor established mega-cap technology names like Nvidia, Amazon, or Alphabet for their proven cash flow and lower relative valuations. Others favor smaller, more direct space-sector plays like Rocket Lab or Redwire that offer cheaper entry points into the same secular growth trend SpaceX represents, without SpaceX's premium price tag.

As with any investment decision, particularly involving newly public or rapidly evolving sectors like commercial space and AI infrastructure, it's worth doing your own research, weighing your personal risk tolerance and time horizon, and consulting a qualified financial advisor before deciding where to put your money. This overview is intended to summarize the competing perspectives currently circulating among market analysts, not to tell you what to buy or sell.