Better Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stock to Buy: SpaceX vs. Nvidia

In the artificial intelligence (AI) investing world, investors just got a new option: Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX), better known as SpaceX. It may not sound like an AI investment at first, but it is. Earlier this year, before it went public, SpaceX acquired another of Elon Musk's companies -- xAI, the business behind the Grok generative AI platform and the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

But is SpaceX a better AI stock than the one that all others in the space are compared to? I'm talking about Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), the world's largest company, of course. The graphics processing unit powerhouse has been the industry's standard-bearer since the AI race kicked off in 2023.

Image source: Getty Images.

Nvidia's AI business is more impressive

First, let's take a look at each company's AI business. For SpaceX, xAI was obviously a recent addition, and it has a few unique attributes. Most investors will remember the saga of Elon Musk acquiring Twitter and then changing its name to X, but it would have been easier to miss when he sold X to one of his other companies, xAI. So, after another merger beyond that, SpaceX is now the proud owner of a social media platform. The ad revenue from X makes up around half of the $3.2 billion in revenue that SpaceX's AI division generated in 2025. This division grew revenue at a 22% pace, which isn't bad, but it's also not great.

Nvidia, on the other hand, is growing rapidly. In its latest quarter, its revenue grew by 85% year over year, indicating massive demand for its GPUs. Moreover, Wall Street analysts project it will deliver 96% growth in the current quarter. With the vast majority of Nvidia's revenue coming from AI processors being sold to data centers, I think it's pretty safe to say that Nvidia's AI business is stronger than SpaceX's at the moment.

Winner: Nvidia

SpaceX outperforms Nvidia in other industries

Describing SpaceX primarily as an AI company would be inaccurate, as it has many other businesses. The most obvious are its rocket-launching business and other space exploration aspirations. But its biggest, fastest-growing, and most profitable segment is its connectivity division, which gets most of its revenue from the Starlink satellite internet service. SpaceX has a lot of growth options, even if the AI build-out turns out to be a bust for it.

While it's true that Nvidia also has products for gaming, manufacturing, and self-driving cars, the vast majority of the chipmaker's revenues are coming from AI-centric sources. This makes SpaceX the more versatile company, which would give it an advantage if current market trends and spending habits were to dramatically shift.

Winner: SpaceX

Nvidia looks reasonably priced

From a market cap perspective, Nvidia, at $5 trillion, is roughly 2.5 times as big as SpaceX, which closed Monday's trading at around $2 trillion. So, if those companies are reasonably valued, then their revenues and profits should roughly fall in line with that ratio, but that's far from the case.

Over the past 12 months, Nvidia has generated over $250 billion in revenue and about $160 billion in net income.

NVDA Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts

So, I'd expect SpaceX to have around $100 billion in revenue and about $64 billion in profits if it deserves to be valued at 40% the price of Nvidia. But that's far from the case.

In 2025, SpaceX's revenue totaled less than $20 billion. Net income wasn't discussed, but SpaceX's adjusted EBITDA totaled $6.6 billion. Those aren't the numbers I'd expect from a company with a $2 trillion market cap, and leads me to believe that SpaceX's stock price is based more on hype than on its business results. Usually, situations like that don't pan out well for companies or their shareholders over the long term, but it could be different for SpaceX.

Still, I think Nvidia has a far more reasonable price tag, giving it the win over SpaceX at a score of two to one.

Winner: Nvidia

Keithen Drury has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.