Ron Baron, billionaire and founder of Baron Capital, is not mincing words: his firm is set to make a fortune from SpaceX. In an interview with CNBC, he laid out an investment thesis as ambitious as it is precise, backed by hard numbers.
With a $25 billion position in Elon Musk‘s company, Baron Capital is one of the largest institutional investors in SpaceX. And according to its founder, the best is still very much ahead.
Between Starlink, orbital data centers, and space-based AI, Baron’s thesis rests on concrete catalysts that could fundamentally reshape SpaceX‘s valuation over the next decade.
From $2 Trillion to $14 Trillion: Ron Baron’s Valuation Framework
Ron Baron builds his projection around a highly structured ten-year scenario. Currently valued at approximately $2 trillion, SpaceX could reach a market capitalization of $14 trillion — a 7x multiple — driven primarily by the Starlink division alone.
His logic is straightforward: Starlink‘s revenues would grow from their current $13 to $14 billion to roughly $1 trillion within ten years, generating an estimated EBITDA of between $700 and $800 billion. Applied to a valuation multiple consistent with the standards of major technology platforms, that level of EBITDA mechanically justifies a $14 trillion market cap. Baron is clear on one point: Starlink remains today an “immature business,” meaning the projected growth is not built on a peak of maturity but on a still early-stage expansion phase.
For Baron Capital, whose position represents approximately 1.25% of that target valuation, the potential upside runs into the hundreds of billions of dollars — a return on investment that very few funds in the world can realistically expect from a single asset.
Space-Based AI: The Wildcard That Changes Everything
Beyond Starlink, Ron Baron introduces a second catalyst that is still largely absent from most valuation models: orbital data centers. According to him, SpaceX plans to launch computing infrastructure into space as early as next year to meet the explosive demand for processing power driven by artificial intelligence.
The argument is pragmatic: building new data centers on Earth is running into mounting constraints — land availability, energy consumption, local regulations, and geopolitical instability. Space structurally bypasses all of these obstacles. For AI players that need massive, decentralized computing capacity, orbital infrastructure represents a credible medium-term alternative.
This segment — which Baron describes as “compute AI” — is not yet priced into the current SPCX share price, which was trading at $191.82 at the time of the interview. If this thesis plays out, it represents a meaningful additional upside on top of the already aggressive projections for Starlink. Baron Capital is therefore playing a rare convergence: the organic growth of a space telecommunications asset combined with exposure to tomorrow’s AI infrastructure — all through a single investment vehicle.
