Updated Fri, Jun 12 2026 5:48 PM EDT TSLA share performance This time around, the Atlanta-based entrepreneur said Musk himself was a primary reason for wanting to get into the trade, describing him as someone who "makes it happen." "It's hard to bet against Elon Musk in whatever he does," Moran told CNBC. "It's really hard to dispute that [Musk] is not the greatest entrepreneur of all time." Andrew Chen learned the hard way not to bet against Elon Musk. The 21-year-old Cornell University student, who studies finance and computer science and trades stocks on the side, once invested in aircraft-connectivity companies that many investors believed would be insulated from competition. Instead, they were disrupted by SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet network. "I was long a lot of those names and ended up being completely wrong because Elon was able to execute," Chen said. "I've been wrong before betting against Elon, and I don't think that he'll be wrong when it comes to executing in space, he's obviously been tremendously successful." Now, as SpaceX prepares for its highly anticipated public debut, Chen is taking the opposite side of the trade. He requested five shares through Robinhood and plans to hold them despite concerns from some investors that the company's valuation has become stretched. "In terms of corporate finance and fundamentals, there's no way you can multiply your way into a $1.7 trillion market cap," he said. "It hinges so much on future execution." For Chen, however, that uncertainty is precisely the point. Having watched Musk repeatedly overcome skepticism from investors and competitors alike, he is willing to place another bet on the entrepreneur's ability to deliver. "I think it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be able to buy the stock right now," he said. Looking beyond SpaceX has been one of the most discussed names on Reddit's WallStreetBets forum in the days leading up to the IPO, with more than 1,600 mentions since Monday, according to Breakout Point. Even with all the buzz, Ross Cameron, 41, still isn't fully convinced the demand is there. Cameron, who lives in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, founded trading education platform Warrior Treading more than a decade ago, and his YouTube channel has more than 2 million subscribers. He requested 2,500 shares on Charles Schwab, stressing that his decision on whether he will move forward with the investment in the SpaceX IPO is dependent on just how much they give him. "If they say, 'We got them, here, you can have all of them,' I'm going to say, 'No thanks,' because that's going to tell me that there's an abundance of supply," he said. "If they say, 'We could only get you 1,000 shares or 2,000,' then I'll probably take them, because that tells me there's a lot of demand, and that indicates more likely that at the IPO it will open higher, and we'll still see more demand." If he were to invest, it wouldn't be for long anyways before he'd exit. He's already skeptical about the IPO price, saying, "We are buying at the very highest price it has ever traded, and that kind of defines dumb money." With the retail allocation being the "biggest wild card," he believes he'll have a better chance to secure a "good" risk-to-reward ratio after evaluating the stock's movement over six months and once the lock-up period has ended. "My feeling on SpaceX is to trade it and not to marry it yet to give it a chance to sell off, let all the insiders cash out, and then see where it finds support," Cameron said. "Then, maybe there's something to work with." Helaine Markham sees opportunity well past that point. Markham, who's 30 years old and lives in Monterey Bay, CA, runs Markham Trading – a market education platform – alongside her husband, Blane Markham. While she thinks the short-term growth opportunity lies in Starlink, there's another part of the company that excites her down the line. As seen from Canaveral National Seashore, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 60 Starlink satellites launches from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on October 6, 2020 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. This is the 13th batch of satellites placed into orbit by SpaceX as part of a constellation designed to provide broadband internet service around the globe. (Photo by Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images) Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images "The long-term growth opportunity is the space-related arm of the business," Markham said. She noted the "potential to be in space-related industries that aren't even yet in existence like mineral extraction from space and also the potential for [artificial intelligence] data centers in space." Though Markham only requested two shares through Robinhood, she wants to possibly increase her holding gradually. "I'm really hoping to hold this for the long term, for the next 10-plus years, to realize the full long-term growth opportunity at hand," she said. "It could turn into a legacy investment that's passed down to my children over time." She might be on to something, as there's been a burgeoning interest in space among investors. Maurits Pot, CEO of Tema ETFs, views it as an inevitability that there will be multiple space-related constituents in the S&P 500 by 2030. Pot runs the largest space-themed ETF in the world known as Tema Space Innovators ETF (NASA) , which debuted at the end of March. The fund has roughly $2.6 billion in assets under management and is the only space ETF that will own SpaceX directly at about 7% of net asset value. Quarter to date, the ETF has jumped about 40%. Stock chart icon