Jim Chanos said SpaceX is ushering in an "Enron-era" wave of IPOs and equity issuance.
- SpaceX options trading begins Tuesday, with some traders already speculating about a potential gamma squeeze.
- A Cboe week called this an "unusually busy" week amid the Fed meeting, BOJ decision and triple witching.
- While calling Starlink "a real business," Chanos said that much of SpaceX's valuation is driven by future AI expectations rather than current operations.
Shares of SpaceX (SPCX) jumped 11% in premarket trading on Tuesday ahead of the stock's options debut, while veteran short seller Jim Chanos compared today's IPO boom to the "Enron era" and warned that investors rarely make money buying stocks valued at over 100x revenue.
SPCX’s blockbuster IPO sent shares soaring more than 40% above its $135 offering price. The stock gained 20% on Monday, pushing the company's market cap above $2.5 trillion for the first time and adding $420 billion in value in a single session.
Traders Brace For SpaceX Options Launch
SpaceX options are scheduled to begin trading on Tuesday, opening the door to leveraged bullish and bearish bets on one of the market's hottest stocks. The launch comes during a week packed with market-moving catalysts, including Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh's first policy meeting, a Bank of Japan rate decision, and Thursday's quarterly "triple witching" options expiration.
"The combination of heightened geopolitical developments, the start of the Kevin Warsh Fed era and the upcoming launch of SpaceX options has made for an unusually busy, shortened trading week," JJ Kinahan, senior vice president at Cboe Global Markets, told MarketWatch.
Many traders expect SpaceX options to quickly become among the most actively traded contracts on Wall Street, mirroring the popularity of Tesla options. Daniel Roos, founder of the options analytics platform VolSignals, said speculation about a potential gamma squeeze is already building.
Chanos Warns Of An 'Enron-Era' IPO Boom
While traders prepare for the next phase of SpaceX mania, Chanos urges caution. The famed short seller told Bloomberg that SpaceX does not remind him of Enron itself, but of the period around it when record equity issuance signaled peak investor excitement."One of the things that I think SpaceX is ushering in, in 2026, is massive equity issues," Chanos said. "Anytime you've seen massive IPOs and secondaries relative to the size of the market or the economy, investors generally have been advised to be a little more cautious."
Chanos said 2026 could shatter IPO and secondary-offering records as companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic potentially follow SpaceX into public markets. He also said that the current AI investment boom is even larger than the tech buildout that fueled the dot-com bubble.
However, he also said, "SpaceX is probably now at about 110 times revenues," adding, "History tells us you just never really make much money buying equities at over 100x revenues." While calling Starlink "a real business," Chanos said much of SpaceX's valuation rests on AI-based expectations rather than its current operations.
How Do Retail Traders Feel About SPCX?
On Stocktwits, retail sentiment for SPCX was ‘extremely bullish’ amid a 712% surge in 24-hour message volumes.
One user said, “$SPCX Options start trading tomorrow... Gamma squeeze?”
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Another user said, “$SPCX 300 tomorrow with options. People will go crazy buying calls”
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