Starlink IPO: how to buy SpaceX (SPCX) stock

What is Starlink?

Starlink is a satellite internet service operated by SpaceX, designed to deliver high-speed broadband around the world, especially to rural and underserved areas, using a constellation of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites built and launched by SpaceX itself.

By the end of June 2026, SpaceX reported about 10,200 Starlink satellites in orbit, by far the largest satellite constellation ever assembled. SpaceX has long-term plans to scale the constellation to around 12,000 satellites under current authorisations, with potential expansion to 42,000.

Most traditional satellite internet providers use geostationary satellites that orbit at very high altitudes, which causes high latency and slower speeds (because data has to travel huge distances between user and satellite). Starlink’s low Earth orbit constellation dramatically reduces that latency, with download speeds that can exceed 200 Mbps (megabits per second) and latency of around 25 milliseconds, while providing global coverage, including in areas with little or no terrestrial broadband infrastructure.

Starlink has scaled remarkably fast. According to SpaceX’s IPO prospectus (the S-1 filing) and its first quarterly report, subscribers grew from 2.3 million at the end of 2023 to 4.4 million at the end of 2024, 8.9 million at the end of 2025, 10.3 million in March 2026 and 12 million by June 2026, across 167 countries and territories. It is the world’s largest satellite internet provider by a wide margin.

Starlink is not a standalone listed company. It is reported as SpaceX’s Connectivity segment, alongside the Space segment (launches and Starship) and the AI segment (xAI and Grok, after SpaceX acquired xAI in February 2026). In 2025, Connectivity generated $11.4 billion, about 61% of SpaceX’s $18.7 billion in revenue, and it is the only segment that makes an operating profit.

Starlink key company facts

Starlink company statistics

Below is a breakdown of some key figures, including Starlink’s revenue, number of satellites in space, plus top investors and competitors. Since the IPO, SpaceX publishes audited figures every quarter, so the numbers below come from its own filings wherever possible.

Starlink number of satellites

Starlink revenue

Earlier figures were only analyst estimates, because SpaceX was private and published no accounts. The prospectus and the quarterly reports now give a much clearer picture:

• Growth: Starlink revenue grew about 50% in 2025 and 66% year on year in Q2 2026.
• Profitability: Starlink earned an operating profit of $4.4 billion in 2025, while the rocket business lost money. Segment EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) was $7.2 billion, a 63% margin.
• Revenue per user: average revenue per subscriber fell to about $66 a month in Q2 2026, from $85 a year earlier.

Starlink’s competitors

The satellite internet space is competitive, though few rivals come close to Starlink’s scale today. The main players competing with Starlink, or aiming to, include:

• Amazon Leo (formerly Project Kuiper): Amazon’s planned LEO constellation of 3,236 satellites, renamed Amazon Leo in November 2025. Around 400 production satellites had been launched by July 2026, with early service expected during 2026. It is arguably Starlink’s most credible long-term competitor given Amazon’s resources and AWS (Amazon Web Services) integration.
• Eutelsat OneWeb: formed after Eutelsat’s 2023 merger with OneWeb, with around 650 LEO satellites focused on enterprise, government, and aviation customers rather than mass-market consumer broadband.
• Viasat: a US satellite operator (now combined with Inmarsat after the 2023 acquisition) operating geostationary satellites. It is strong in aviation and maritime, but has higher latency than LEO competitors.
• Geespace: a Chinese player owned by Geely, building the Geesatcom constellation, part of broader Chinese efforts to compete in LEO satellite internet.
• Telesat (Lightspeed): a Canadian operator building a planned 198-satellite LEO constellation, primarily targeting enterprise and government markets, with deployment ramping up.
• IRIS² (European Union): the EU’s planned sovereign constellation of about 348 satellites, run by the SpaceRISE consortium (SES, Eutelsat and Hispasat) with partners such as Airbus and Thales Alenia Space. The first launch is expected in 2029 and government services in 2030.
• HughesNet: a long-standing US satellite internet provider, primarily geostationary, established in residential satellite broadband but losing share to LEO competitors.
• Chinese state constellations (Guowang and Qianfan/SpaceSail): two massive Chinese LEO projects targeting about 13,000 and more than 14,000 satellites respectively. Both are at an early stage but strategically significant given the geopolitical dimension.

Despite the growing list of competitors, Starlink retains a substantial first-mover advantage: about 10,200 satellites already in orbit (versus a few hundred for most rivals), 12 million subscribers, and SpaceX’s own rockets, which keep deployment costs at a level no competitor can currently match.

Starlink’s top investors

Since Starlink is part of SpaceX, its owners are SpaceX’s shareholders. Before the IPO, SpaceX attracted a wide range of major institutional investors and sovereign wealth funds, including:

• Elon Musk: founder, CEO, CTO and chairman. Through Class B shares with 10 votes each, he controls about 85% of the voting power.
• Founders Fund: Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm, a long-standing SpaceX backer.
• Sequoia Capital
• Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)
• Alphabet (Google): participated in earlier SpaceX rounds.
• Fidelity Investments
• Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF)
• Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company and Alpha Dhabi
• Mirae Asset (South Korea)
• BlackRock and other large asset managers: via secondary share sales and tender offers.
• Various other VCs, family offices and high-net-worth individuals: SpaceX’s regular secondary tenders gave many institutional and private wealth investors exposure to the company.

This combination of sovereign, institutional and venture investors supported SpaceX’s enormous capital needs over the years, particularly as it scaled Starlink’s satellite manufacturing, Starship development and global service rollout. Since June 2026, retail investors can also own SpaceX shares on the stock market. Most pre-IPO shareholders were subject to lock-up periods (366 days for Musk and insiders), and as these expire, more shares can come to market.

When was the Starlink IPO?

Starlink was never spun off on its own. Elon Musk said in 2021 that a Starlink IPO would only happen “once cash flow is more predictable”, and in the end SpaceX chose to list the whole company, with Starlink as its main source of revenue and profit. These were the key steps:

• February 2026: SpaceX acquired xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence company, so the listed company also includes xAI and Grok.
• 20 May 2026: SpaceX made its S-1 registration statement public, giving investors the first audited look at Starlink’s numbers.
• 11 June 2026: the IPO was priced at $135 per share, valuing SpaceX at roughly $1.75 trillion.
• 12 June 2026: SpaceX shares began trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market and Nasdaq Texas under the ticker SPCX.
• 15 June 2026: the offering closed. Including the underwriters’ option, SpaceX sold 638,888,888 shares and raised about $85.7 billion, the largest IPO ever. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley led a syndicate of more than 20 banks.
• 4 August 2026: SpaceX reported its first quarterly results as a listed company, with revenue up 92% to $7.8 billion.

The shares have been volatile since the listing. They fell below the IPO price in the weeks after the debut, closing at $125.33 on the day of the first results, and over the last 52 weeks they have traded between about $105 and $230, according to eToro’s SPCX page (12 October 2026).

What are the main risks?

Before buying SpaceX shares to get exposure to Starlink, keep in mind that:

• You are buying more than Starlink: the AI segment (xAI) and the Space segment both made operating losses in Q2 2026, and SpaceX as a whole reported a net loss of $541 million.
• Spending is very high: capital expenditure reached $18.4 billion in Q2 2026, most of it on AI computing.
• Revenue per user is falling: Starlink’s average revenue per subscriber dropped about 22% year on year in Q2 2026.
• Musk controls the company: with about 85% of the voting power, outside shareholders have little say over strategy.
• Valuation: SpaceX trades at a high multiple of its revenue, so expectations about future growth drive the share price.

How to buy Starlink (SpaceX) shares

Since 12 June 2026, you can buy SpaceX shares (SPCX) like any other Nasdaq stock, and that is currently the only way to invest in Starlink on the stock market. Interactive Brokers and eToro are two top-rated brokers where you can buy SPCX with low fees. Take a look at both these brokerage options below:

Founded in 1978, listed on NASDAQ (ticker: IBKR) and a member of the S&P 500 since August 2025, Interactive Brokers serves more than 5.5 million client accounts and gives you access to 170 markets in 40 countries, with the ability to trade virtually any asset class: stocks, ETFs, bonds, forex, funds, commodities, options, futures and CFDs. Currency conversion costs only 0.002% (minimum $2), which helps if you fund your account in euro or pounds to buy US shares such as SPCX.

Here’s how to buy SpaceX (SPCX) shares through Interactive Brokers:

1. Open a trading account with Interactive Brokers (the process is fully digital and there’s no minimum deposit).
2. Deposit funds into your account.
3. Search for the stock by company name or by its ticker, SPCX.
4. Choose the order type you wish to use (market, limit, stop, etc.). Because SPCX has been volatile, a limit order lets you set the maximum price you are willing to pay.
5. Once you’ve bought your desired number of shares, monitor your position and rebalance as needed.

If you’d like to learn more about the platform, check out our full-length Interactive Brokers review.

eToro is a multi-asset investment platform. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.

Founded in 2007, eToro now has more than 40 million registered users and 4.28 million funded accounts, and went public on NASDAQ (ticker: ETOR) in 2025. The platform is widely known for its social and copy-trading features, and lets users invest in stocks, ETFs and crypto, and trade CFDs on commodities, forex and indices. SpaceX is listed on eToro under the ticker SPCX.

Here’s how you can buy SpaceX (SPCX) shares through eToro:

1. Open an account with eToro (55% of retail CFD accounts lose money.).
2. Go to the “Markets” section and select “Stocks.”
3. Search for SpaceX or the ticker SPCX.
4. Select “Trade.”
5. Choose how much you want to invest (eToro supports fractional shares, so you can invest a fixed amount rather than buying a whole share).
6. Ensure leverage is set to X1 if you want to buy the actual stock rather than a CFD.
7. Optionally set take-profit or stop-loss levels to automate future actions.
8. Click “Open Trade” to place the order.

Note that buying SPCX on eToro carries a $1 commission per trade (ETFs remain commission-free, other fees apply), and depositing in a currency other than USD costs a 0.75% conversion fee. The minimum first deposit is $50.

If you’d like to learn more about the platform, check out our in-depth eToro review.

Bottom line on investing in the Starlink IPO

What began as a side project within SpaceX has become its primary revenue engine. Unlike some technology bets that may pay off years from now, Starlink solves a real-world problem today, bringing high-speed broadband to areas underserved by traditional infrastructure, which has driven both rapid satellite deployment and the explosive subscriber growth we’ve seen.

With 12 million subscribers, $11.4 billion in 2025 revenue and a Nasdaq listing since June 2026, the “if and when” questions of a few years ago have been answered. The remaining questions are around valuation, competition and execution, particularly as Amazon Leo, the Chinese state constellations and other LEO competitors ramp up.

Investing in SpaceX (and by extension Starlink) carries real risks: a high valuation, heavy spending on AI, Musk’s voting control and intensifying competition. Buying SPCX also means owning the rocket and AI businesses, not just Starlink. This article is for information only and is not investment advice.