Here's an interesting contradiction: Scott Galloway thinks SpaceX is an absolutely remarkable company with better competitive positioning than OpenAI. But he still won't buy the stock when it goes public. Why? Elon Musk.

The Praise and the Pass

On his Prof G Markets podcast Thursday, the NYU professor and business commentator didn't hold back on either front. He acknowledged that SpaceX has accomplished something truly extraordinary—it's the only company that can send humans into space and dominates the low Earth orbit satellite market. Those aren't small achievements.

"SpaceX only did 13 billion last year and this year it's only going to do $15 billion," Galloway noted, discussing the company's revenue trajectory.

But despite these impressive credentials, Galloway made it clear he won't be participating in any SpaceX IPO. His reasoning centers on what he views as Musk's controversial business practices, particularly how Musk interacts with media outlets, which Galloway criticized as reducing them to "extreme, sensationalized content hubs."

Why SpaceX Beats OpenAI

The more interesting part of Galloway's analysis focuses on competitive dynamics. He compared SpaceX directly to OpenAI, arguing that while OpenAI is growing "much faster" at a similar revenue multiple, it's also "much more vulnerable" to competition from open-weight large language models, Chinese AI developers, and established players like Alphabet's Google (GOOGL).

Galloway emphasized SpaceX's dramatic cost reductions in space travel as a key driver of its success. Then he made a broader point about business models: digital companies might scale faster, but analog companies like SpaceX "have much bigger moats." Translation: it's a lot harder for competitors to build rockets and launch infrastructure than it is to train another AI model.

The IPO Everyone's Talking About

Galloway's comments arrive as speculation about SpaceX's public debut reaches fever pitch. Musk recently confirmed that the rocket company is indeed preparing for an IPO, and the numbers being floated are staggering.

Reports suggest SpaceX may pursue an IPO raising over $30 billion, which would potentially break Saudi Aramco's 2019 record. At a projected $1.5 trillion valuation, SpaceX would become one of the world's most valuable companies, surpassing Tesla (TSLA), which currently sits at a $1.41 trillion market cap.

SpaceX wouldn't be alone in the tech IPO wave. Amazon-backed Anthropic has reportedly begun early IPO preparations as it pursues a new funding round that could raise its valuation above $300 billion, marking a major step toward a potential public listing as early as 2026.

The OpenAI Question

While there's plenty of buzz around an OpenAI IPO too, Galloway has previously warned about the company's potential collapse. He pointed out that AI has driven roughly 80% of market gains since ChatGPT launched in 2022, creating a system that's extremely vulnerable if things go wrong.

Co-host Ed Elson highlighted some concerning financial metrics: despite OpenAI generating around $13 billion in annual recurring revenue, its spending is more than double that amount. Not exactly the kind of unit economics that inspire confidence.

So Galloway's take boils down to this: SpaceX is probably the better business with stronger competitive advantages, but he still won't invest because of who's running it. It's a reminder that even the best companies aren't always the best investments, depending on what you value.