This article was originally published on February 23, 2026, it has not been updated.

We’ve talked about several of the “SpaceX Backdoor” plays in the past, but there’s a new ad from Mark Skousen that particularly pitches a couple, and our beloved Gumshoe readers are asking, so I thought we’d get you some answers…

This one caught my eye, in part because — in a little bit of a surprise — Mark Skousen retired from his longtime publisher, Eagle Financial, and is no longer helming Forecasts & Strategies, which was one of the pioneers in the newsletter space (he ran it from 1980 until, well, now, I guess)… but, surprisingly enough, it turns out he didn’t leave Forecasts to retire at 78, but instead decided to launch a new “entry level” newsletter, called The Skousen Report ($99/yr, full-year refund period), published by The Oxford Club. (Forecasts & Strategies still exists, publishers don’t give up on brand names easily, but it’s now being run by Jim Woods, one of their other pundits.)

More power to him, but surprising nonetheless. So this ad for “The Ultimate SpaceX Pre-IPO Play” is one of his first teaser pitches for this new newsletter.

Here’s a little taste of the ad:

“Today, I’m going to show you how to claim your stake BEFORE Musk takes SpaceX public…

“Which I predict could happen as early as March 26th, 2026.

“And shortly, I’ll give you the name and ticker symbol – for FREE – of a play that lets you to get in on SpaceX BEFORE its IPO.

“With this single opportunity, I believe you could transform your financial future.

“Because this could be the BIGGEST IPO ever.

“Consider…

“When Amazon went public in 1997, the entire company was worth just $438 million.

“SpaceX’s IPO could be more than 3,000 times larger.”

OK, but we should note… if you’re trying to buy exposure in the months before the likely IPO, and this does turn out to be one of the biggest IPOs ever, you’re not paying a bargain price, you’re not buying SpaceX at $438 million like those early Amazon investors in the public markets… you’re not even getting it at $438 billion. You’re likely getting partial exposure to SpaceX at a valuation somewhere in the neighborhood of $800 billion to $1.5 trillion (which could be, incidentally, a bit more than 100X 2025 sales, though “leaks” from the company indicate that the company was profitable in 2025 — on what basis, we don’t know).

So just a quick exercise: If you own a mutual fund that has 10% exposure to SpaceX, for example, and you buy in now, what happens if SpaceX doubles immediately after its IPO or becomes a $3 billion company within the next year or so, which would likely be the most spectacular large IPO in decades, if not of all time? That 10% portion of the fund would double in value, or maybe triple in value if your fund has a cost basis that sets the valuation at $1 trillion (maybe a little better if the valuation is still in the $800 billion range, where most funds reset their SpaceX valuation back in December). What happens if 10% of your fund doubles in value? All else being equal, the fund itself goes up by 10%. If it triples in value, the fund goes up by 20%. An impressive gain if it happens in a year or so, and perhaps the rest of the fund’s investments will do well if we’re in that kind of enthusiastic IPO market, but that’s not “getting in on the ground floor” venture capital investing. SpaceX is not an unknown startup, it’s better thought of as a very large, widely owned, very mature company that just happens to not be publicly traded right now.

That doesn’t mean a great outcome is impossible, of course — it’s an amazing company that has done amazing things, with big potential businesses in their launch rockets, Starlink, and, now that they’ve merged, xAI… and Elon Musk is the ultimate pitchman for his businesses. Maybe SpaceX even goes up 1,000% from here at some point, that would make it perhaps the first $10 trillion company… but they’re probably going to need to prove that out over a long period of time, with some extraordinary revenue and profit growth, and that’s all hypothetical at the moment — and since the company is considering an IPO maybe by the end of 2026, and is already valued near a trillion dollars in the private markets, it’s quite possible that you’d be able to buy SpaceX shares directly in the public markets at a cheaper price, during whatever the next market downturn happens to be.

That’s not a guarantee of how this plays out, just trying to push you to have an open mind to the wide range of possible outcomes — there is presumably some upper limit of valuation at which the world would want to trade SpaceX, and I don’t know what that limit will be… but it is already the most liquid private company, lots of investors and funds already own a piece, and it’s not a new surprising growth story. The only real surprise will be what we learn about the company’s actual financials if and when they file an S-1 to start the IPO process, we’re otherwise just guessing or relying on leaked highlights to imagine how the firm is doing.

So yes, in general you might miss out on 95% of possible returns by being a public-only investor, if we’re ignoring the risks of venture capital and just focusing on the gains from the best companies — but that’s not the case with SpaceX today, because it’s already a huge company… you almost certainly won’t get returns that are 20X better by buying it today than you would get by buying it as a public company in six months. People buying SpaceX today are not “early investors.”

How, then do we buy into this “SpaceX back door” that Skousen is touting? He offers two ways, with the first being a freebie:

“The first opportunity gives you solid exposure and the chance to double or triple your money over the next 12 months….

“… a play I guarantee you’ve never seen before.

“It was created by one of the most famous investors in America – a woman who saw a massive opportunity that everyone else was missing.

“Her name is Cathie Wood.

“A few years back, she realized something that changed everything…

“There was a huge unserved market when it came to regular Americans and the red-hot pre-IPO space.

“Millions of people wanted in on these private companies.

“But they were locked out.

“By law, only accredited investors and venture capitalists could touch them.

“Everyone else? Left on the sidelines.

“So Cathie did something brilliant.

“She created an investment fund called the ARK Venture Fund.

“Ticker symbol: ARKVX.”

OK, so yes, you have seen that before — we’ve written about Ark Venture (ARKVX) a few times, since Cathie Wood’s interval fund has been pitched by several folks as a way to “get in early” on investments like SpaceX and xAI.

And yes, Ark Venture does have 11% of its assets in SpaceX shares, and another 6% or so in xAI, so depending on the merger details they probably have roughly 17% in SpaceX now. The rest of the top ten is mostly made up of AI-related private companies like Figure AI, OpenAI, Databricks and Groq.

I’ll just tell you what I’ve written before: this is a risky investment fund, it might do very well if all of those companies go public at good valuations and they’re able to recycle that capital into good venture investments… but it might also collapse if interest in these companies declines or the firms go public at disappointing valuations, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to sell if you change your mind about owning ARKVX shares. I wouldn’t personally recommend high-cost interval funds like Ark Venture (ARKVX), the drag from bad investments and high costs (3% management fee) is just too high, over time, unless you get really lucky with timing… but yes, it might work out, and if this turns out to be a great year for IPOs, led by SpaceX, and lots of these firms go public at rich valuations, maybe ARKVX will soar in value. Like most secondary holders, ARKVX values its SpaceX shares at $800 billion — so if it goes public at $1.5 trillion and holds that valuation, the value of the shares that ARKVX owns would double.

The risks? Examine the fine print for yourself, of course, but the primary risk is that this is an interval fund that owns private companies, which means the NAV is an estimate, and the liquidity (your ability to get out) might be very limited. The value of each of those investments in the portfolio is estimated by Ark, based mostly on whatever the last financing deal was (which is why SpaceX is valued at $800 billion by most funds now, that’s the valuation they got with their last private share sales in late 2025), and those valuations can change dramatically, up or down. And ARKVX is a closed-end mutual fund, but will only allow 5% of the NAV to be redeemed by investors each quarter (5% of total NAV can be redeemed per quarter, not 5% of each investor’s holdings, so if everyone wants to redeem at once, get in line and hope for the best). Interval funds that only offer limited redemption rights feel the same as regular mutual funds unless and until you want to sell — especially if you want to sell at a time when other shareholders of the fund are panicking and trying to sell things. Doesn’t feel like that’s around the corner, of course, but, well, that’s why we have market crashes — you don’t know it’s around the corner until it happens, and the less you feel it coming, the bigger the surprise and the more knee-jerk the “sell it all!” reaction.

The structure makes sense for venture investing, they would fall apart if they provided daily liquidity to everyone, but it’s still a risk.

What does Skousen hold back as the “secret” investment you can buy for a SpaceX “back door?” A different fund, here are his clues:

“But what if you could own a much bigger piece of SpaceX – through a backdoor that 99% of every day investors will never find?

“Well, I’m about to open that door for you.

“One of my closest contacts is a Wall Street legend – one of the most successful investors of the past quarter century. He built his fund from nothing into a $45 billion empire.

“And for the past eight years, he’s been loading up on SpaceX.

“Year after year. Accumulating shares. Building his position.

“Today, his fund holds nearly a third in SpaceX… 32%.

“It’s one of the largest private stakes outside of Elon himself.”

And he says the guy who runs this fund has been betting on Elon for even longer, with a big Tesla position, too. More from Skousen:

“This is an opportunity for serious investors who want maximum exposure to SpaceX before it goes public.

“The kind of opportunity that can help build empires over the long haul. And all you need is the 5-letter access code I’ll give you….

“A chance to invest alongside a billionaire who already turned Tesla into a 30-bagger.

“A chance to piggyback on one of the largest SpaceX positions on the planet.

“A chance to position yourself before the biggest IPO in stock market history.”

So… hoodat? This is the Ron Baron’s Baron Partners Fund (BPTRX for the retail shares, minimum investment $2,000 and 1.3% adjusted expense ratio, or BPTIX for the institutional shares, $1 million minimum and 1.05% adjusted expense ratio).

And yes, Ron Baron has been a big Elon fan and backer for decades, a heavy investor in Tesla for years and a big investor in SpaceX for a long time. Many of the Baron funds, including their ETFs, have meaningful exposure to SpaceX, but yes, Baron Partners Fund is the most aggressive, with the highest exposure — as of the last update, the fund is about 28% in SpaceX and 25% in Tesla (TSLA) shares, and it’s also levered by about 15% (meaning the mutual fund has borrowed money to make bigger investments, which makes it more volatile still).

This is a fund that you’ve have to characterize as both great and risky. Here’s a little excerpt from the Morningstar analyst’s summary as of December, since they might be even more skeptical than I am:

“Baron Partners keeps producing amazing returns, but an increasingly unorthodox and extreme portfolio means it isn’t a recommended choice for most investors.

“Buy-and-hold investing is a common strategy, but few investors take it to the extreme that Ron Baron does here. Most managers will trim their winners to comply with internal guidelines around how much capital can be invested in any single stock or sector—but not Baron. While he historically gave some heed to diversification by owning a relatively balanced mix of business types, since he allowed portfolio holding Tesla to ascend to 54% of net assets at its 2022 peak, the traditional risk playbook has been out the window.

“More recently, another huge bet has emerged that pushes the envelope even further. Baron first established a roughly 4% position in Elon Musk’s SpaceX in 2017 when it was valued at about USD 20 billion, but through successive fundraising rounds and secondary market sales, the valuation has ballooned to a reported USD 800 billion, resulting in a much higher weighting. The latest markup is reflected in the retail shares’ 19% one-day return on Dec. 4, 2025….

“Baron Capital historically treated SpaceX as an illiquid security for regulatory purposes, which essentially puts a 15% cap on its share of the portfolio. However, because of the security’s active secondary market and SpaceX’s consistent repurchasing activity, the firm now classifies it as merely less-liquid, which gets around the 15% rule. The fund successfully sold a tranche of its stake in 2024, and Baron believes he won’t have an issue doing it again (though he hasn’t expressed a desire to sell). The firm has a case for its decision to reclassify, though it’s uncharted territory for a mutual fund, and the arrangement’s status in the eyes of regulators could also be subject to change (the firm states they’ve already run the plan by the SEC)….

“So, for the near future, this fund is likely to have over 60% of its net assets invested in just two companies. Certain investors may find that intriguing, though the risks they will bear are unlike those of any other fund in history. But one thing’s for sure: Long-term investors have enjoyed returns unlike any other.”

This is a regular mutual fund, without the redemption restrictions you see at Ark Venture or other interval funds, so that’s good… but 50-60% of the portfolio being in two stocks is an extreme level of concentration, and that has blown up plenty of funds in the past (notably the Sequoia Fund (SEQUX) a decade ago, back when they stuck with a huge 30%+ concentrated stake in Valeant Pharmaceuticals after falling too much in love with it following many years of strong performance). Doesn’t mean this Baron fund won’t work out, and it doesn’t take away from the fact that Baron has beaten the S&P handily over the past decade, mostly because of those Tesla and SpaceX positions, I’ll just reiterate that it’s a lot more speculative than most folks would expect from a mutual fund.

Here’s what I noted a few weeks ago, when looking at a long list of “SpaceX Back Door” investments: If I were looking for exposure to SpaceX specifically, I’d probably look first at Ron Baron’s Baron First Principles ETF (RONB), just because it should be liquid, has high exposure (~20%), and has a low-ish expense ratio compared to the other funds.

That exposure has come down, just because more money has poured into the fund, so the SpaceX exposure at RONB is now about 15% (Tesla is around 18%).

And with that, we’ll leave you to make your call. Personally, if I wanted exposure to SpaceX I’d wait — odds are decent that with all of the very large SpaceX shareholders there will be a meaningful amount of selling after an IPO, perhaps there will also be an opportunity to buy SpaceX a year or two from now at a valuation of “only” a trillion dollars, or even less. It’s a great story of a company, and maybe it will be the biggest company in the world in a few years, crazier things have happened… but it’s also probably valued as one of the 10 or 20 largest companies in the world today, despite probably having revenue and/or profit numbers that are far smaller than the rest of those 20 companies, and I’m also OK with not owning it or having much exposure to it for now… particularly since we’ve been told almost nothing about their financials. Stories drive stocks, for sure, but stories can also change a lot faster than revenue or profits.

And Skousen also throws in some secondary investments he likes, in the form of a special report called, “SpaceX’s Secret Partners: 3 Stocks Set to Soar 1,500%” … we won’t be able to dive deep into all of these, but we should be able to at least name them for you so you can investigate on your own. Clues, please:

“One is a historic launch partner…

“This company made one of the boldest bets in aerospace history.

“They handed Elon Musk around $500 million to launch their entire satellite constellation into orbit.

“75 satellites. 8 launches. Every single one on a Falcon 9 rocket.

“At the time, people thought they were crazy.

“SpaceX had never done anything like it.

“But it worked. Flawlessly.”

That’s Iridium Communications (IRDM), which is sort of an afterthought of a satellite telecom company these days, a bit washed out by the enthusiasm over other satellite solutions for mobile phones (that enthusiasm has recently lit up shares of GlobalStar (GSAT), which Alex Green, Skousen’s new boss at The Oxford Club, has been teasing as the Apple satellite partner and a potential takeover candidate, as well as the popular story stock AST SpaceMobile (ASTS)).

Unlike those sexier stories, IRDM is at least trading at a somewhat reasonable valuation, about 20X earnings. I don’t expect they’ll have any real connection to the potential SpaceX IPO, but one never knows, perhaps the failure of gravity will impact all the “space stocks” at once. Iridium has been one of SpaceX’s key customers over the past decade… but it’s also facing a pretty significant competitive threat from SpaceX’s Starlink service, as that spreads to offer more global coverage, so it could also suffer from the rise of SpaceX.

Next?

“Another co-designs the chips that power every Starlink satellite and every dish that gets installed on a rooftop.

“Without them, Starlink doesn’t work….

“This is a global semiconductor powerhouse.

“They co-design and manufacture the specific chips that power Starlink satellites and consumer dishes….

“Every satellite Elon launches into orbit is packed with their technology.

“Every dish that gets installed on a rooftop runs on their chips.

“As Starlink expands to billions of new customers around the world…

“This company’s revenue is set to skyrocket.”

We’ve seen essentially this tease before, and back then it pointed at STMicro (STM), which has been providing some of the core chips for the SpaceX ground terminals/antennae for a decade or so. And will probably continue to do so — reports last year were that STM had supplied more than five billion RF chips for Starlink to date,

STM might otherwise be appealing as a beaten-down semiconductor stock that’s in a slump of declining earnings for a few years, dependent on Apple order volumes as well as automotive and industrial customers who were cutting back quite a bit, so it’s not probably not super-expensive at ~30X what might be trough earnings this year… but it’s also a huge company, with a market cap of about $30 billion and annual sales of about $12 billion (down from the 2021-2024 highs), and it’s not going to be super-levered to Starlink even if the production of Starlink terminals rises substantially in the next few years (SpaceX is a top-ten customer of STM, according to their recent investor presentation, but I suspect that the other top ten customers are meaningfully larger — the only customer they highlight as generating more than 10% of their revenue is Apple, at about 15% in 2024, they haven’t filed their full 2025 annual report yet, and we know that the group of auto companies and auto parts suppliers has also historically generated a very large percentage of revenue).

STM could soar with a SpaceX IPO, of course, even though I don’t see a real reason for that.

Next?

“And the third has locked in a deal to distribute Starlink’s managed services to Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and military operations….

“As Starlink rolls out to new markets, this company collects a cut of every single contract.

“It’s like owning a toll road on the highway to space.

“And the traffic is about to explode.

“When the SpaceX IPO is announced…

“I predict each of these three companies could soar 1,500% or more over the next few years.”

That could be one of several legacy telecom providers, since I’m pretty sure nobody has an exclusive deal with Starlink, but I suspect that Skousen is talking about Comcast (CMCSA, CMCSB), which did agree a couple years ago to sell Starlink’s connectivity solutions as part of their Comcast Business offerings to enterprise customers, mostly as a way to provide redundant or extreme-location coverage for large customers who otherwise rely on Comcast cable and fiber connections. That’s an add-on service that other companies can also provide, so it’s not really a “toll road,” at least the way I think of that metaphor, but Comcast is, at least, pretty cheap (8X earnings) and offers a high dividend yield ~4%), thanks to years of cable TV cord-cutting and increased competition for broadband customers.

So there you have it, dear friends — Skousen’s favorite “back door” for SpaceX, plus three SpaceX-associated companies he thinks you should buy. Any of that sound enticingly delightful or egregiously terrible? Favorites we haven’t mentioned in this story? Feel free to share your thoughts with a comment below… thanks for reading!

Disclosure: Of the companies mentioned above, I own shares of Amazon. I will not trade in any covered stock (or fund, in this case) for at least three days after publication, per Stock Gumshoe’s trading rules.