Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ: SPCX) closed at $158.96 on October 2, while Rocket Lab Corporation (NASDAQ: RKLB) closed at $73.92, setting up a comparison between two companies of vastly different scale.
One of these businesses is roughly forty times the size of the other, yet the market prices each dollar of their sales at a surprisingly similar level.
SpaceX generated $23.04 billion in revenue over the past twelve months, while Rocket Lab generated $769.15 million, approximately one thirtieth as much.
SpaceX is also growing faster off its far larger base, posting 91.90% revenue growth in the most recent quarter against Rocket Lab’s 62.00%.
The balance sheets tell an even more dramatic story, with SpaceX holding $100.01 billion in cash against $39.71 billion in debt, giving it the freedom to fund virtually any initiative without tapping capital markets.
Rocket Lab holds $2.30 billion in cash against $133.69 million in debt, a sound position but not one that affords the same strategic flexibility as its larger rival.
Cash generation separates the two companies further still, with SpaceX producing $9.90 billion in operating cash flow while Rocket Lab consumed $222.46 million over the same period.
Neither company is profitable, with SpaceX reporting a net loss of $8.89 billion and Rocket Lab posting a loss of $165.46 million, making traditional price-to-earnings comparisons meaningless for both.
The comparison therefore falls to revenue multiples, where SpaceX trades at 68.49 times sales and Rocket Lab at 53.41 times, a narrow gap given how different the underlying businesses are.
SpaceX’s operating margin sits at negative 1.80%, meaning its core operations are close to breakeven, while Rocket Lab’s operating margin of negative 24.57% reflects losses embedded deep within its operations.
Short sellers appear to recognize this distinction, with 7.31% of Rocket Lab’s float sold short compared to just 2.43% at SpaceX.
From a hedge fund perspective, SpaceX was held by 119 hedge funds with a combined stake value of approximately $116.45 billion at the end of Q2 2026, its first quarter as a listed company.
Rocket Lab was held by 52 hedge funds with a combined stake value of approximately $0.74 billion at the end of the same period, up from 43 holders in the prior quarter.
A buyer of Rocket Lab saves roughly a fifth on the sales multiple but takes on a company burning cash rather than generating it, which represents a small discount for a substantially larger risk profile.
SpaceX is the stronger of the two on nearly every measurable basis, but a forward multiple of 200 times leaves little room for any operational delay or market disappointment in either name.
