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Tom Yeung here with your Sunday Digest.
Imagine you own a small, successful restaurant chain. A couple of neighborhood locations with dedicated fans and decent lines that are never too long or too short. Life is great.
Then, your whole town decides your business is worth $250 million… and hands you $15 million to go prove it.
That’s probably why Elon Musk seems so frazzled in recent interviews. The world’s richest man was essentially given the same mandate by investors in Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPCX), scaled many times larger.
The mammoth initial public offering raised $85 billion in cash for his company… and investors are now demanding that the company be worth somewhere north of $1.5 trillion.
To fulfill that promise, Musk is implementing a familiar Big Tech tactic: Use acquisitions to juice internal growth. In early June, SEC filings revealed Musk had personally spent at least $1 billion to buy APR Energy, a company focused on powering AI data centers. Then on June 16, SpaceX bought AI coding platform Cursor for $60 billion – a roughly 100% premium to that startup’s last private valuation.
SpaceX will continue snapping up companies… and many will be public firms investors like you can buy before it happens. I will discuss the seven most likely publicly traded candidates below.
Of course, others will be privately owned, like Cursor was. InvestorPlace Senior Analyst Luke Lango can help you get in on these earlier-stage deals. In a new free presentation, , he lays out his method for spotting these targets and step-by-step instructions for buying them before everyone else gets in.
And now, the seven public companies I think SpaceX has in its acquisition crosshairs.
Tier 1: “I’d Be Surprised If They Don’t Happen”
Tesla Inc. (TSLA): The most obvious SpaceX acquisition is more of a family reunion. On July 22, Elon Musk told investors on Tesla’s earnings call that “there’s more and more overlap” between his two companies. Betting markets are giving a 64% chance of an acquisition by the end of 2027, while some analysts say the chance could be as high as 90%.
The rationale is straightforward: A SPCX-TSLA merger would consolidate Musk’s technology empire. Tesla could supply batteries and manufacturing expertise to SpaceX’s satellites and AI infrastructure, while Starlink could provide connectivity for Tesla vehicles and humanoid robots. Most importantly, the two firms can reduce double-spending on AI research. Both companies are currently pursuing expensive AI projects (Tesla’s Robotaxis, xAI’s large language models), and putting them under one roof would give them better access to computing power and talent.
A deal would also benefit Tesla shareholders, because Musk only controls around 20% of voting shares at the electric vehicle maker (vs. 80%-85% at SpaceX). He would have to offer a relatively hefty premium to Tesla’s shareholders – probably between $420 (ha!) and $500 per share – because Tesla shareholders would be losing both future upside and voting power at the new entity. (Musk can then unilaterally approve the deal at SpaceX.) Of course, Tesla remains a risky bet that I still avoid, but the possibility of a SpaceX takeover should stop anyone from betting against this stock.
EchoStar Corp. (ECHO): In September 2025, this telecom and satellite company negotiated a deal with SpaceX to exchange some of its satellite spectrum for SpaceX stock. Think of satellite spectrum like an FM radio frequency; a company must “own” a channel to use it. EchoStar had plenty of unused spectrum through Dish Network, and SpaceX needed it for Starlink. SpaceX paid with a mix of cash and its own stock and bought even more two months later.
Now, those same SpaceX shares are worth over $30 billion, or almost two-thirds of EchoStar’s entire enterprise value – the company’s market value plus its debt.
That makes EchoStar an unusually attractive acquisition target for SpaceX. With a little bit of financial wizardry, SpaceX can effectively buy back those old shares using new shares and receive EchoStar’s remaining business for just $17 billion. This all-stock swap transaction would give SpaceX valuable assets worth roughly $32 billion, and include goodies like Boost Mobile, Dish TV, HughesNet, Sling TV, unused spectrum, and more.
In addition, 90% of EchoStar’s voting shares are owned by its founder, Charlie Ergen, who is now 73. His recent sales of spectrum to SpaceX – and a separate $23 billion deal with AT&T Inc. (T) – are a classic sign of a founder-owner getting ready to retire. I give it at least a 50% chance that EchoStar prepares itself for sale within a year.
Tier 2: The Strategically Obvious
Anterix Inc. (ATEX): America’s “spectrum landlord” hired Morgan Stanley in early 2025 to begin a strategic review after fielding takeover interest. The company holds the country’s largest portfolio of licensed 900-megahertz (MHz) spectrum – the airwaves used for land-based networks (think cellphone towers).
And if SpaceX can lay its hands on all this bandwidth, it would gain the ground-level frequencies it needs to beam Starlink service straight to everyday devices. No dish or special antenna required.
Conveniently, Morgan Stanley is also the primary bank involved in financing Tesla and SpaceX. An acquisition could be negotiated in a swivel chair.
Now, Anterix is a less likely candidate for acquisition than EchoStar because some of its spectrum is already used by local utilities and telecom firms. Regulators might also balk at giving SpaceX so much bandwidth. So, it is not as “clean” a purchase. But Anterix’s relatively low price and vast spectrum holdings make it something SpaceX might be willing to fight for. I give it a 1-in-3 chance that SpaceX makes a bid by the end of 2027.
GitLab Inc. (GTLB): Now, here is a company I would recommend for buy-and-hold investors.
GitLab is a firm that helps its customers build and manage software. And it is an unusually well-suited target for SpaceX because Musk’s company already owns the other pieces.
Think of the software business like a textbook publishing company. There might be dozens of authors, editors, and quality-control analysts. Then there’s book printing, distribution, and follow-up for the next edition. After all, no textbook is perfect the first time around.
SpaceX already has the first parts nailed down. Grok Build is a coding engine, and Cursor is a developer workspace. It also has Colossus, the giant AI supercomputer that acts like the printing press that churns out finished work at an industrial scale.
What’s missing is everything that happens in between. Someone has to check each chapter for errors, get the book out the door, track which copies are in circulation, and manage the corrections that inevitably pile up for the second edition.
In software, that’s GitLab’s job. The company’s platform does the unglamorous back-office work that turns a pile of coding “manuscripts” into a publishing business. It is also already FedRAMP compliant (the gold standard for the government and its contractors), which fits in well with SpaceX’s U.S. government work.
In addition, GitLab is a perfect acquisition target because it is both cheap and willing to sell itself. Shares are worth just $5.5 billion (a rounding error for SpaceX’s cash pile) and explored a sale in 2024 to Datadog Inc. (DDOG).
I also give GitLab a 1-in-3 chance of getting bought by Elon Musk’s firm.
Tier 3: The Moonshot Bets
Viasat (VSAT): Viasat is one of the best strategic fits for SpaceX, but also the most likely to get struck down by regulators.
In short, Viasat controls an estimated $15 billion worth of “L-band” spectrum – the low frequencies that act as an “emergency lane” in satellite communications. This band is great at passing through clouds and is very dependable on moving ships, aircraft, and cars. However, there is very little L-band spectrum available, so it is usually reserved for critical situations.
SpaceX would almost certainly love to own this bandwidth. The company could offer Starlink’s higher-frequency “Ku” and “Ka” bands for speed, and switch to L-band whenever a cloud passes by. The company would also pick up Viasat’s customers and regulatory approvals. I would, however, only give SpaceX a 1-in-6 chance to make a move, given the number of governments that might oppose a deal.
6. Gogo Inc. (GOGO). Gogo is the name for in-flight Wi-Fi for private jets. The company serves roughly two-thirds of that market and has a nationwide backup network that uses ground towers for whenever satellite connection is obstructed.
An acquisition would accelerate Starlink’s move into business jets. Gogo already has sales agreements with every major business aircraft maker, and has its equipment installed on more than 7,000 aircraft. Starlink has been fighting hard for market share, so an acquisition would free up precious resources for other ventures. Gogo’s shares are also quite cheap – down 75% in the past year – and the company comes with the ground-based backup network that SpaceX might like to have.
Like Viasat, I give Gogo a 1-in-6 chance of getting acquired.
SentinelOne Inc. (S): Last week, I wrote how Alphabet Inc.’s (GOOGL) $32 billion blockbuster acquisition of digital security firm Wiz was a sign of more cybersecurity acquisitions to come. AI data centers need to protect their users, and some providers are moving this service in-house.
SpaceX might be tempted to do this as well as it builds out AI tools for business. And one of the most obvious cybersecurity firms it could buy is SentinelOne, which lands in the “Goldilocks” zone for a takeover.
It’s not too big like CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. (CRWD), which serves 60% of the Fortune 500. SpaceX is probably not interested in becoming a full-blown cybersecurity provider.
And it’s not too small like Rapid7 Inc. (RPD), which offers too narrow a product lineup to protect AI data centers on its own.
Instead, SentinelOne is just right because it offers a wide enough product range without threatening to eclipse SpaceX’s AI ambitions. Its Singularity Platform is considered a one-stop shop for threat detection and response.
Best of all, SentinelOne is a company I would be willing to recommend at current prices. Its business has a relatively wide moat, and its Singularity Platform is best-in-class. So, even if no offer ever comes, the company should keep growing on its own. Either way, shareholders win.
Getting in on the Ground Floor
It’s usually quite wonderful to own a publicly traded company that is getting bought out. Most buyers will offer a premium of about 30% to pre-deal share prices, and high-growth companies usually get better sweeteners.
Anyone who owned Slack before its 2020 acquisition by Salesforce Inc. (CRM), for instance, would have earned a 55% return from the pre-rumor price.
It’s even better to own an unlisted startup when buyers come knocking. Cursor’s 100% premium was quite low compared with other purchases like Alphabet’s acquisition of Wiz (167% premium) and Okta Inc.’s (OKTA) bid for Auth0 (239%). These smaller firms know they are trophy assets, and so will demand a price tag to suit them. Even the most ardent buy-and-hold investors have a price they should be willing to sell at.
In his latest presentation, , Luke walks us through exactly how to identify and buy these deals… even if they aren’t on the market yet. If SpaceX keeps shopping at this pace, the next megadeal may already be in the works.
Until next week,
Thomas Yeung, CFA
Market Analyst, InvestorPlace
