Elon Musk Is 'Underrated,' Says Shaun Maguire — Calls SpaceX IPO the 'Largest Wealth Creation Event' Ever

Despite extreme volatility and flash crashes in recent years, the US stock market continues to climb, led by megacap tech companies advancing the innovation and adoption of artificial intelligence worldwide.

Mag 7 stocks have returned considerable value to shareholders and are presenting the profound impacts of AI as a way to higher wealth creation opportunities. Elon Musk's companies, however, appear to stand out, given the upcoming SpaceX initial public offering that is expected to be a major wealth creation event.

Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire recently shared on the Sourcery podcast that the SpaceX IPO will help all private companies in 2026 because it will create a lot of equity, draw a lot of capital into tech, and ultimately generate funds that can be used to build the next wave of AI companies.

Maguire, who is an early investor in Musk's companies, said that he is 'maximum bullish' on all of the billionaire's ventures. 'SpaceX in 2019 was just a launch company and his bet was a highly contrarian investment. Back then, the launch market was worth about $5 billion to $6 billion, and SpaceX had conducted only 13 launches,' he said, adding that the same company is now becoming the key to implementing the next phase of interplanetary travel and data centres in space.

On Starlink, Maguire said it is a 'leapfrog' in technology as you don't require ground infrastructure. He believes the math is compelling because Musk's company is rapidly capturing market share in the long-distance communications space by offering fast internet connectivity in the remotest parts of the world as well as across industries, including airlines and even military drones.

'Starlink is gonna feed into all other Elon companies, optimus, airplanes, remote areas, literally everywhere,' Maguire had added.

Cost Control Model to Win Government Contracts

Musk initially started SpaceX to boost NASA's funding by sparking human curiosity and interest in space.

'He [Musk] was willing to just burn 100 million dollars on a philanthropic mission to display a greenhouse on Mars. So, he is shooting greenhouse to Mars with existing rocket technology to get this photo on the front page of every newspaper,' author Eric Jorgenson had said.

The idea was to show 'a little plant on the red planet,' symbolizing how life had transferred to another planet for the first time.

Musk found that the space launch market was expensive, with no innovation and insignificant progress for many years. 'That's actually how he discovered the opportunity to start SpaceX,' Jorgenson had stated.

Musk understood that the aerospace sector was supported by cost-plus contracts from the US government, but these contracts did not mandate success economically or on the original deadline. He approached the concerned agencies, requesting for 'outcome-based' contracts that incentivizes lowering costs and meeting deadlines. Jorgenson added that Musk achieved unprecedented things by competing on driving costs down.

Developing low-cost systems helped Musk win outcome-based government contracts, which is 'better for the government, better for taxpayers,' according to Jorgensen.

2026 Should be The Year of The Starship

According to SpaceX's registration statement related to its confidential IPO filing, the rocket company had spent $15 billion on Starship R&D alone. Maguire thinks 2026 will be the year of this giant space vehicle and rising space activities will offer the greatest market opportunities ever.

Maguire also shared that he wasn't in agreement with the massive expenditures on infrastructure and AI until this year. Now, he has changed his mind, and believes that the costs are justified because we already have artificial general intelligence.

'The top models are turning out to be better than PhD students. The economic output value is going to be so high. The whole AI field is becoming so useful at an extreme rate around the world, that it justified the capex,' Maguire concluded.