SpaceX Slump Signals Risk for OpenAI, Anthropic IPOs
As SpaceX's stock falls 18% from its record IPO price, Apollo's Torsten Sløk warns that the same hostile macroeconomic conditions will likely weigh on upcoming offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic.
SpaceX stock has fallen roughly 18% since its record-breaking initial public offering six weeks ago, validating early warnings from market veterans. The decline comes as the broader market prepares for a new deluge of highly anticipated listings, most notably from artificial intelligence leaders OpenAI and Anthropic.
Torsten Sløk, Apollo's chief economist, is advising investors to temper their expectations. He points to a post-2019 market regime defined by three distinct headwinds: "peak valuations," "a hostile rate regime," and "low quality, high bar." These dynamics have consistently punished newly public companies in the years following their debuts.
The current environment echoes the pandemic-era boom of 2020 and 2021. During that period, a combination of zero interest rates and retail demand fueled by government stimulus drove rich valuations. According to Sløk, that frenzy pushed marginal companies public before they were ready, forcing them to compete for returns against a benchmark index carried by a handful of mega-cap winners.
The SpaceX offering serves as a high-profile test case for this thesis. Jay Ritter, an economist and veteran of the IPO market, correctly predicted that the space company's stock would underperform despite its historic size and hype. The 18% drop from its $135 IPO price illustrates the difficulty new entrants face in generating immediate alpha.
The implications for the coming AI mega-IPOs are significant. When index returns remain concentrated in a few mega-caps, newly listed firms must deliver extraordinary growth just to keep pace with passive benchmarks. Sløk noted that each of the historical headwinds could easily persist moving forward.
"Valuations may re-inflate in the next IPO window, rates look set to stay structurally higher than the 2010s and index returns remain concentrated in a few mega-caps that keep the relative bar high," Sløk wrote. For market professionals, the calculus is clear: buying into the AI public debut wave requires a strict focus on long-term fundamentals rather than short-term momentum.
