Lockheed Martin CorporationArticle compares Lockheed Martin favorably to SpaceX due to lower valuation, stable earnings, and dividend yield, making it a smarter long-term buy.
SpaceX's $2.4 trillion market capitalization, trading at more than 120 times its 2025 revenue, makes Lockheed Martin the smarter long-term defense investment despite SpaceX's greater growth potential in space and artificial intelligence. SpaceX, which recently raised approximately $85.7 billion in its IPO, estimates its total addressable market at $28.5 trillion, with AI accounting for $26.5 trillion of that, but its lofty valuation raises the stakes for investors. Lockheed Martin, by contrast, trades at 17 times its 2026 earnings estimates, offers a 2.7% dividend yield, and is expected to grow earnings 7% to 8% annually over the next three to five years. While SpaceX leads in rocket launches and satellite connectivity through Starlink, and its xAI technology was used by the U.S. military in Operation Epic Fury in Iran, the federal government accounted for roughly a fifth of SpaceX's total revenue in 2025. Lockheed Martin's established role in missile defense systems such as NGI, THAAD, PAC-3, and SBIRS provides a more stable, if lower-ceiling, investment case.
Lockheed Martin CorporationArticle compares Lockheed Martin favorably to SpaceX due to lower valuation, stable earnings, and dividend yield, making it a smarter long-term buy.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Class A Common StockArticle highlights SpaceX's extremely high valuation (120x revenue) as a risk, suggesting it is overpriced compared to Lockheed Martin.