Sequoia's Maguire compares SpaceX to Nvidia 3 years ago, vows to hold forever

Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire compared SpaceX to Nvidia three years ago, calling the freshly traded stock a generational holding.

"SpaceX looks more like Nvidia three years ago than Tesla," Maguire, a partner at Sequoia Capital, said on CNBC last week. He said he plans to hold his shares "forever."

Nvidia traded at a split-adjusted $39.41 in June 2023. Since then, shares surged 419.89%, pushing the company's market cap to $4.95 trillion. Q1 FY27 data center revenue alone hit $75.25 billion, up 92% year over year. SpaceX's Connectivity segment generated $11.39 billion in 2025, with segment adjusted EBITDA of $7.17 billion, growing 49.8% year over year. Maguire rejected the Tesla comparison because Tesla "often traded on narrative rather than on visible contractual revenue."

Maguire said he expects "dramatic growth" over three years from Starship, orbital data centers, and Starlink direct-to-cell. SpaceX says Starship V3 could reduce the cost to reach orbit by 99% or more. The company expects to begin deploying orbital AI compute satellites as early as 2028, potentially millions running inference workloads in sun-synchronous orbit. The xAI acquisition, closed in February 2026, generated $818 million in revenue in Q1 alone while burning operating cash on compute buildout.

Maguire said he has a model for the company's 2029 and 2030 revenue and a "reasonable multiple" on that, calling the result "a very big number." He also described SpaceX's mission as "the most important mission of any company in history." SpaceX's S-1 filing describes the company as "highly dependent" on Elon Musk and notes it does not maintain key-person life insurance on him. Musk also runs Tesla, holds roles at Neuralink and The Boring Company, and previously served as Senior Advisor to the President.

Tesla carries a $2 billion equity stake in SpaceX and shares Musk's attention. Tesla shares are down 7.2% year to date at $406, though Polymarket assigns a 90.5% probability that SpaceX carries the higher valuation between the two by June 30. The closest public launch comparable, Rocket Lab, is up 34% year to date and 285% over the past year. Q1 revenue grew 63.5% to $200.35 million, with backlog reaching $2.2 billion. Rocket Lab trades at 102.6 times trailing sales, a multiple that already prices in substantial future growth.

The comparison implies SpaceX sits at a similar inflection point to Nvidia in mid-2023, before the AI trade repriced the entire semiconductor sector. Public investors, however, buy at market prices rather than Sequoia's cost basis, making position sizing and timing critical. The next catalyst for SpaceX is its first earnings report as a public company, which will test whether the revenue trajectory matches Maguire's 2029-2030 model.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.