FEATURED ARTICLE

The Synthetic Musk Trade

You can’t buy SpaceX.

That’s the starting point.

And it’s exactly why the market is doing something more interesting:

it’s building workarounds.

Funds aren’t waiting for an IPO. They’re creating what I’d call a “synthetic Musk trade”—a basket of public names that benefit if Musk’s private ecosystem keeps expanding.

The opportunity here isn’t obvious.

It’s hidden in the adjacencies.

Scoreboard: What Actually Happened

Start with the asset nobody can touch.

SpaceX confidentially filed for an IPO on April 1, 2026. Bloomberg reported the company could seek a valuation above $1.75 trillion — with a listing potentially as early as June. To put that number in context: SpaceX was valued at roughly $210 billion in mid-2024. It hit $350 billion by December 2024. Then $800 billion in December 2025. Now the IPO target is $1.75 trillion.

That is an roughly 8x move in valuation in under 18 months — entirely in the private market.

The company reported over $18.5 billion in 2025 revenue. Starlink alone contributed approximately $10 billion of that — up from $7.7 billion in 2024, which itself was up 83% year-over-year. Starlink now has over 9 million subscribers. SpaceX conducted 165 orbital flights in 2025 and has received over $24 billion in federal contracts since 2008.

None of that is investable. Yet.

So positioning has shifted in a very specific way:

• ARK Invest has increased exposure to space names, particularly Rocket Lab (RKLB)
• Destiny Tech100 (DXYZ) is being used as a proxy for private exposure to SpaceX and OpenAI
• Third Point, led by Dan Loeb, is circling Intel (INTC) as a turnaround tied to the Terafab narrative
• Multi-strategy firms like Citadel and Millennium Management are driving unusual options activity in names like TeraWulf (WULF)

That’s not random.

That’s coordinated positioning around a theme the market can’t access directly.

The Real Reason This Is Happening

This is about scarcity.

There are only a handful of ways to get exposure to:

• private space infrastructure
• AI compute buildout
• energy-intensive data systems

And most of them aren’t public.

So capital flows into the next best thing.

That creates two effects:

• Crowding in obvious names
• Mispricing in less obvious ones

The first gets attention.

The second is where value usually sits.

Deep Dive: How the Trade Is Being Built

Let’s break the structure down.

1) Direct Adjacency (Space Infrastructure)

ARK’s focus on Rocket Lab is straightforward.

If SpaceX dominates launch and satellite infrastructure, then the next-best public competitor becomes the proxy.

The RKLB numbers are actually solid — for a development-stage space company. Full-year 2025 revenue came in at $602 million, up 38% year-over-year. Backlog grew 73% to $1.85 billion. Q4 2025 alone hit $180 million — a record quarter. Q1 2026 guidance is $185–200 million, suggesting the growth rate is holding.

The catch: Rocket Lab is still deeply unprofitable. The company recorded a net loss of $198 million on that $602 million revenue base in 2025. Operating margins are negative. Analysts project approximately 24–43% annual revenue growth over the next three years — but profitability is not on the near-term roadmap.

That’s clean growth narrative — but also increasingly crowded and increasingly priced for perfection.

2) Hybrid Exposure (Public + Private)

Destiny Tech100 is doing something different.

It mixes:

• small stakes in private names (SpaceX, OpenAI)
• large allocations to public infrastructure (Nvidia, Intel)

That creates a blended exposure model.

Not pure.

But investable — and increasingly in demand from retail investors who want SpaceX exposure before any IPO.

3) Value-Into-Growth (Intel Setup)

This is where it gets more interesting.

Funds like Third Point are not chasing hype.

They’re looking at Intel as a company that was priced as a laggard — and now has a credible catalyst stack.

Here’s what the Intel numbers look like right now:

The stock bottomed near $18 in April 2025. It’s now trading around $62. That’s a roughly 240% move off the lows — driven by a specific catalyst stack: Intel joined Elon Musk’s Terafab AI chip project alongside SpaceX, Tesla, and xAI. The Austin-based Terafab facility targets 1 terawatt of AI compute annually. Intel also bought back Apollo Global’s 49% stake in its Ireland fab for $14.2 billion and secured a $5 billion strategic investment from Nvidia.

That’s a classic “expectations reset” trade — and the catalysts are documented, not speculative.

4) Options Layer (Citadel / Millennium)

The most sophisticated part of this setup is happening in options.

Short-dated call activity in names like Rocket Lab and TeraWulf suggests:

• long-term bullish positioning
• hedged through short-term volatility

That’s not retail speculation.

That’s institutional positioning around a future event — most likely tied to a SpaceX valuation unlock. On April 2 alone, Intel traded nearly 130 million shares. On April 9, volume hit approximately 155 million shares. That kind of flow doesn’t happen without structured institutional involvement.

Is It Cheap?

Here’s the key distinction.

Most of these trades are not cheap anymore.

• Rocket Lab (RKLB): narrative-driven, increasingly crowded — trading at a significant premium to revenue with no clear path to near-term profitability
• TeraWulf (WULF): volatility-driven, not valuation-driven
• SpaceX pre-IPO proxies: pricing in $1.75T+ valuation at ~95x 2025 estimated revenues

The one name that still has a definable value argument:

Intel (INTC)

Why?

Because even after a 240% rally from the lows, Intel is still priced closer to its troubled past than its potential future. The stock is trading roughly 31% above the analyst consensus target of ~$47 — which tells you either analysts are behind the curve, or the stock has gotten ahead of itself. Probably both.

The tensions in the Intel setup:

• Legacy perception: slow, behind, capital intensive — Q4 gross margins of 29.7%, negative free cash flow of $4.5B
• New narrative: foundry relevance, Terafab partnership, $15B backlog, Nvidia’s $5B investment, 18A process node entering high-volume production
• Forward P/E: approximately 50x — pricing in a turnaround that has not fully materialized
• Analyst targets: range from $20 to $65, consensus Hold at ~$47 — a wide dispersion that signals genuine uncertainty

That gap between the depressed legacy valuation and the emerging foundry narrative is where value lives.

Not guaranteed.

But definable.

Bull / Base / Bear

Bull Case

The “synthetic Musk trade” continues expanding as the SpaceX IPO approaches. Capital floods into adjacencies. Intel’s foundry backlog of $15B converts into real external revenue, 18A yields improve to commercial viability by end of 2026, and the Terafab partnership generates meaningful chip demand. Sacra’s base-case model puts SpaceX at a $1.3T valuation by 2028 on $88B in revenue — if that plays out publicly, the entire adjacency basket re-rates.

Base Case

Crowded names like RKLB stall after their narrative-driven run. Intel holds ground as fundamentals slowly improve — Q1 2026 earnings on April 23 come in at the midpoint of $11.7–12.7B guidance, and the foundry story remains intact but unproven at scale. The stock consolidates in the $50–65 range while the market waits for a marquee 14A foundry customer.

Bear Case

The narrative outruns reality. SpaceX’s $1.75T IPO valuation implies roughly 95x 2025 revenues — if the offering disappoints or gets delayed, the entire synthetic trade unwinds. Intel’s negative free cash flow ($4.5B), still-depressed gross margins (29.7%), and $6.5B in new debt from the Apollo buyback become the story. Crowded adjacency trades correct hard and fast.

Action Plan

Do not chase the obvious names.

That’s already been done.

Instead:

• Focus on second-order beneficiaries
• Look for valuation gaps, not narrative spikes
• Scale in — do not assume timing precision
• Watch Intel’s Q1 2026 earnings on April 23 as the next hard data point
• Watch for a marquee 14A foundry customer announcement — that would be the transformational signal

If you want exposure to this theme without overpaying for it, Intel is the cleaner entry point today — but only if you’re comfortable with a 2–3 year holding period and a stock that is currently trading 31% above Wall Street’s consensus target.

Cheap Investor Checklist

Track these signals:

• SpaceX IPO filing updates — target valuation of $1.75T, potential June listing
• Intel Q1 2026 earnings (April 23) — watch DCAI growth and foundry revenue line
• Intel 18A yield improvements — target: commercial viability by end of 2026
• Terafab partnership milestones — production targets and near-term revenue guidance still undisclosed
• Rocket Lab Q1 2026 results — guidance is $185–200M; backlog at $1.85B needs to hold
• Continued flow into space/AI ETFs
• Options activity in RKLB and WULF
• Institutional ownership changes in DXYZ
• Any new data on SpaceX private market valuation ahead of IPO
• Momentum vs stability across adjacencies as IPO date firms up

Bottom Line

You can’t buy SpaceX.

But the market is building ways around that — and those workarounds are getting more expensive by the week.

SpaceX went from a $210 billion private valuation in mid-2024 to a $1.75 trillion IPO target in early 2026. That’s not a linear move. That’s a scarcity premium compounding in real time.

Most of the obvious adjacency trades are already crowded.

The opportunity is not in copying the trade.

It’s in finding the parts of the trade that haven’t fully repriced yet.

Right now, that looks less like Rocket Lab — which is already priced for a future that may take years to arrive…

And more like Intel —

A stock that spent 18 months being valued for what it was, and is only now beginning to be valued for what it might become.

The April 23 earnings report is the next checkpoint. Watch it closely.