ARK Invest's Cathie Wood Poised for Comeback as SpaceX IPO Looms at $1.75 Trillion Valuation

Cathie Wood's ARK Invest — once a pandemic-era superstar turned cautionary tale — may be heading toward a major vindication as SpaceX prepares to go public at a targeted $1.75 trillion valuation. SpaceX is the single largest holding in ARK's $1 billion internal venture fund, which first bought in during late 2023 when the company was valued at under $200 billion. ARK has since added to its position and gained further exposure through its stake in xAI, which merged with SpaceX earlier this year. The math on those entry points, if the IPO hits its target, is extraordinary.

The venture fund, launched in 2022 even as ARK's public ETFs were hemorrhaging value, has averaged a 29% annual gain since inception. Its other top holdings — OpenAI and Anthropic — are also expected to go public, potentially delivering another wave of returns for Wood and her investors. Beyond SpaceX, the fund holds stakes in prediction market Kalshi and next-gen computing firm Tenstorrent, reflecting ARK's continued appetite for high-risk, high-ceiling bets.

Wood's relationship with Elon Musk predates ARK entirely — she was a Tesla backer during her time at AllianceBernstein before founding ARK in 2014. The firm delivered staggering 150%+ returns in 2020, drew billions in new assets in 2021, then lost 67% in 2022 as rising interest rates crushed growth stocks. That collapse shrank the flagship ETFs' asset base by roughly two-thirds. Wood and her team, however, frame the downturn as noise within a longer arc — and SpaceX's imminent IPO as proof of concept for their decade-long thesis on disruptive convergence.

ARK's chief futurist Brett Winton points to a pre-COVID internal research report that predicted AI would fundamentally reshape software development — a claim that now looks prescient given the multi-trillion-dollar AI boom. Director of investment analysis Tasha Keeney argues that traditional sector classifications fail companies like SpaceX and Tesla, which blur the lines between industries in ways that confound conventional analysts. The firm's thematic, technology-first approach is designed precisely for companies that defy easy categorization.

Morningstar analyst Robby Greengold, who covers ARK, remains cautious, noting ongoing concerns about the firm's risk management practices, though he acknowledges the recent hire of chief risk officer Dan Rodriguez — formerly of hedge funds P. Schoenfeld and Point72 — as a step in the right direction. ARK manages roughly $16 billion in total. Whether the SpaceX IPO becomes the redemption story Wood needs depends heavily on how public markets price a company that is simultaneously a rocket manufacturer, satellite internet provider, and — in Wood's framing — a civilization-scale infrastructure bet.