Why buy Space Exploration Technologies‘ (LSE: SPCX) stock? Best known as SpaceX, the ‘space economy’ company is loss-making. A valuation based on sales is enough to make an old-school value investor’s head explode. The social media brand X, formerly known as Twitter, falls under its aegis for some reason. And the company’s long-term goals (like building a self-sustaining city of 1m inhabitants on Mars) look so farfetched as to be ridiculous.

And yet, British investors can’t get enough. We can see this because SpaceX is consistently one of the most bought stocks every single week on AJ Bell’s platform. What’s going on here?

The attraction

As I see it, there are four reasons why investors in the UK are so excited. First is a chance to invest in a growing industry – a chance to get into the space economy on the ground floor. Who wouldn’t like a repeat of buying Nvidia in 2015, Amazon in 2000, or Standard Oil in the 1800s?

How much growth are we talking about? Well, the firm’s first update showed a 92% increase in year-on-year sales, and that might just be the start. Revenue of $19bn in 2025 is projected to balloon to $330bn-$474bn by 2030. That would mean a reasonable-sounding price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 4-5 and price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 15-25. That’s according to the IPO report, which may have some bias.

A second reason is that the firm’s dominant in delivering stuff into orbit. Around 90% of all payload sent to space is from SpaceX. That’s not just from America, or even Western countries, but 90% of all payload from every country in the world.

Its satellite internet service Starlink has no real competitors either, as of yet. And while the company as a whole may not be profitable, Starlink definitely is.

A buy?

Third up? There’s an AI play tucked in here too. The division’s called xAI and powers the Grok chatbot and popular AI coding editor Cursor. This is actually projected to be the main money spinner in the years ahead. Those lofty IPO projections have compute infrastructure accounting for hundreds of billions in sales. The bull case even has data centres taking advantage of 24/7 solar power as they orbit the Earth!

Lastly, we come to the enigma that’s the company’s founder and leader. I risk making something of an understatement by saying Elon Musk is a polarising figure. And his sometimes erratic behaviour and willingness to get distracted by politics and the like might put off many an investor.

But Musk does have a hardcore fanbase who would probably pile into the stock if he created a new company selling chocolate teapots. It might not all be blind faith either. A lot of money has been lost trying to short sell the man’s companies. SpaceX might defy the naysayers the same way Tesla did.

Are those four reasons enough to justify SpaceX’s popularity with British investors? We’ll find out sooner or later, at least. In any case, I think the stock’s worth a look.

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John Fieldsend owns shares in SpaceX, Nvidia and Tesla.