SpaceX's Trillion-Dollar Valuation Base: Who's Sharing in Musk's Annual Tens of Billions in Capital Expenditure?

Author: nini

If you missed the Apple supply chain in 2010, missed the Tesla supply chain in 2020, or even missed the Nvidia supply chain that you've been regretting these past two years,

SpaceX's supply chain is just beginning.

Of course, I think simply chasing SpaceX itself doesn't seem very cost-effective. It rose 19% on its IPO debut, priced from 135 to 160, with a price-to-sales ratio nearing 100 times, and the company is still posting huge losses. Retail investors rushing in on the first day face no small pressure.

So what I want to talk about are those companies that supply it.

History has repeatedly validated the same logic: the crazy nurturing of the supporting supply chain by a super-terminal product. In 2010, Apple created the iPhone 4; Luxshare Precision's revenue that year was 1 billion RMB, and a decade later it reached 92.5 billion RMB, with its stock price rising 30-fold. In 2019, Tesla's Shanghai factory started production; CATL's market cap was just over 100 billion RMB, and five years later it exceeded 1 trillion RMB. Nvidia's explosive growth in the past two years saw Zhongji Innolight's market cap grow from tens of billions to over a hundred billion RMB.

Apple, Tesla, Nvidia—each time it's the super-terminal product standing in the spotlight, but the ones who truly make a fortune are the supply chain enterprises behind them.

SpaceX spends tens of billions of dollars annually on chips, materials, components, and industrial gases. These procurement orders gradually become real revenue on certain companies' balance sheets. After the IPO prospectus was made public, this supply chain has data that can be looked up for the first time.

We can first look at where SpaceX's money comes from and where it goes.

Its business mainly consists of three parts. The first is Starlink. Last year's revenue was $11.3 billion, accounting for 60% of the group's total, with global subscribers exceeding 10 million—this is SpaceX's only consistently profitable part, and one could even say that all the money-burning ventures elsewhere are subsidized by it.

The second part is rockets. $3 billion in annual R&D investment for Falcon and Starship buys the world's lowest commercial launch costs, with a plan for 100 launches in 2026 and demand for 1,500 Raptor engines. The third part is AI. It lost over $6 billion last year, with the Colossus supercomputer being built on the ground, equipped with 220,000 GPUs, and orbital data centers planned for the future.

So, the flow of money is simple: money earned by Starlink → invested in rockets to drive down launch costs → low-cost launches send AI hardware into space → AI computing power is leased out to earn more money. That's roughly the cycle.

This cycle scatters tens of billions of dollars in procurement orders annually, so whose pockets does this money end up in?

Based on replaceability, suppliers can be divided into three categories.

First Category: Those who cannot be replaced in the short term.

1. NVIDIA, the Colossus supercomputer uses 220,000 of its GPUs. But NVIDIA's real moat isn't the hardware; it's CUDA. The global AI training ecosystem basically uses this software environment to write code. Hardware can be changed, but the migration cost of a decade's worth of code can't be made up in a year or two. We can understand it as: as long as SpaceX is building supercomputers, NVIDIA is collecting money.
2. Eutelsat, ticker SATS. It holds the radio spectrum for satellite communications. What is spectrum? Think of it as lanes in the sky. Physical laws dictate there are only so many; whoever occupies them first gets them. No matter how strong your technology is, you can't create a new one out of thin air. Musk's direct-to-cell satellite phone function must pass through here. Without paying the toll, the signals collide with those from other satellites. Moreover, SATS holds about 3% of SpaceX's shares. The day before the IPO, it rose 11%, with option trading volume 11 times the usual.
3. Filtronic, ticker FTC, listed in London—note you can't find it by searching US stocks. It makes millimeter-wave signal amplifiers for Starlink satellites, allowing signals to travel farther and clearer. In 2024, it signed a £47.3 million contract, with SpaceX contributing 83% of its revenue and granting a maximum 10% subscription right. This seems small, but aerospace-grade certification requires years of repeated testing under vacuum, radiation, and extreme temperatures. Once certified, SpaceX won't easily switch, because the recertification cycle can't keep up with production pace. Moreover, Filtronic's stock price has nearly doubled in a year.
4. Materion, ticker MTRN. The world's only fully integrated producer of beryllium metal, from mine to finished product, controlling about 56% of global supply. Beryllium is one-third lighter than aluminum, six times stronger than steel, with a melting point near 1300°C. Few metals on Earth simultaneously satisfy being light, strong, and high-temperature resistant. The F-35 fighter jet, the Webb Space Telescope's mirrors, and Starship's load-bearing structures all use it. The US Department of Defense lists beryllium as a strategic material, and Materion is the F-35's sole certified supplier, with certification lasting over a decade. This demonstrates its scarcity.
5. STMicroelectronics, ticker STM. Helps SpaceX make phased array antenna chips, with cumulative deliveries exceeding 5 billion chips, covering over ten thousand satellites. STM itself predicts its low-earth orbit satellite business can reach $2 billion by 2028 and $2.9 billion by 2030.

Second Category: Technically replaceable, but the cost of switching once is too high.

1. Honeywell, ticker HON. Provides the rocket's flight control and inertial navigation systems—everything that tells the rocket where it is, where to fly, and what attitude to maintain. This certification has been built up over decades, from Apollo to the Space Shuttle to commercial spaceflight. Changing suppliers is like transplanting the rocket's brain; all underlying code must be rewritten, and new certification must be run from scratch. SpaceX launches over a hundred times a year; it can't stop the launch schedule to save procurement costs.
2. Carpenter Technology, ticker CRS. Produces specialty steel alloys for the Raptor engine. Vacuum melting, repeated purification, impurity control at the parts-per-million level. Being off by a tiny bit spells disaster in the combustion chamber. This material process can't be transferred by blueprints alone; building an equivalent production line could take decades.
3. Hexcel, ticker HXL. Supplies aerospace-grade carbon fiber. Every extra kilogram on the rocket means one less kilogram of payload. Carbon fiber skeletons are half the weight of metal without losing strength. They've collaborated with SpaceX for over a decade, with material formulations and weaving processes specifically tailored for SpaceX's needs. Switching to another supplier would require revalidating the entire material system from scratch.
4. Broadcom, AVGO, handles terabit-level data exchange between satellites and ground. For data to be routed at high speed without congestion, you need them. The Linde Group invested $100 million in 2025 to build an air separation plant near the Starbase in Texas, dedicated to supplying liquid oxygen and nitrogen. The massive amounts of high-purity industrial gases consumed in rocket launches mean the closer the source, the lower the cost. This location itself is a moat.

Third Category: Those requiring stable mass production and the lowest possible cost.

You may not have seen a Starlink dish in person, but think about it: they plan to deploy 30 million units globally. Each unit contains thousands of components and dozens of processes, must be produced on assembly lines like smartphones, and must withstand aerospace-grade vibration and temperature extremes.

At this scale, technology isn't the primary factor anymore. The most important thing is who can deliver stably and who can push costs to the absolute lowest.

The logic of Foxconn assembling for Apple applies here exactly. Wistron NeWeb Corporation, ticker 6285, is the world's largest contract manufacturer for Starlink terminals and routers. Quality control standards were developed over years of collaboration with SpaceX, so it's not something any factory can just pick up.

Moving upstream, there are several A-share listed companies. Sunway Communication, 300136, is the global exclusive supplier of high-frequency connectors inside Starlink terminals, with 2025 SpaceX-related orders around ¥1.05 billion. Parker Advanced Materials, 605123, is the sole Chinese supplier of forgings for Starship bodies and engines, with orders around ¥680 million, accounting for 35% of its revenue. Western Superconducting, 002149, is the exclusive supplier of niobium alloys for Raptor engines, with orders around ¥1.02 billion. Yingliu, 603308, produces core castings for Raptor turbopumps, accounting for 42% of its own revenue—SpaceX's orders are already this company's largest income source.

Going even smaller. Tianyin Electromechanical, analogous to the star tracker on Starlink satellites—satellites use it to look at stars to determine their attitude—holds over 60% market share. Tongyu Communication makes Starlink ground antenna modules, with expected 2026 orders of ¥300 million.

On the US stock side, there are a few more. Trimble, ticker TRMB, manages time. With tens of thousands of satellites flying, each clock must be synchronized to the same beat; a microsecond's difference causes communication errors. Astronics, ticker ATRO, manages rocket power distribution. CTS, ticker CTSH, manages thermal management. These aren't black technology, but each is an indispensable cog in the entire system.

You might ask, these companies have always existed. Why now?

Three reasons.

• First, procurement volumes are just starting to ramp up. 100 launches are planned for 2026, Starship testing is accelerating, and AI data centers are scheduled for orbital deployment starting 2028. The target for Starlink terminals is 30 million units, but there are only 10 million subscribers now. SpaceX's spending spree hasn't peaked yet.
• Second, transparency has opened up for the first time. Previously, SpaceX was a private company, its procurement data a black box. After the IPO prospectus was made public, quarterly and annual reports will continue to disclose information, allowing the order growth rates of supply chain companies to be tracked and verified.
• Third, consider the historical rhythm. The Apple supply chain took ten years from the iPhone 4 to its peak. The Tesla supply chain has taken seven years from Model 3 mass production to now. The SpaceX supply chain's position today is more like Tesla in 2018—mass production just starting, suppliers just being finalized, order growth just beginning its steep climb. Starship is still in testing, Starlink is expanding, AI data centers aren't built yet. This is equivalent to its 2018.

Finally,

Buying SpaceX on its IPO debut, I think, is betting on Musk's dream, and a very highly priced space dream at that. Of course, you could also say you simply believe in Musk; that's your dream too.

But perhaps we can look from another angle,

Looking along the supply chain, we're betting on something else, because regardless of how SpaceX's stock price moves, its annual tens of billions in procurement orders must be fulfilled by someone. These orders are unrelated to the stock price; they are simply revenue arriving on the books every month.

This article does not constitute investment advice. There are still issues here, such as beryllium metal cycles, geopolitical discounts for Taiwanese companies, insufficient liquidity for small companies, and certifications possibly being reshuffled due to technological iteration. Each company requires individual judgment.

But if you didn't get an allocation on SpaceX's IPO day,

Then you can try a different play: don't chase the high flyer. Instead, let's look at the quiet suppliers.

The giant has ignited its engines. This time, the shovels are within your reach~