Elon Musk can still enchant investors with his vision of the future.

Any questions about SpaceX’s record-breaking initial public offering — be it about the valuation, the company’s trajectory or technical execution — were brushed aside as the retail marketing for the deal got under way. Smitten with the world’s richest man and lauding his character, many participants at an investor event hosted by Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase’s headquarters chose to focus on the big picture.

“It was an epic event,” said Sidd Pagidipati, founder and chairman of Ayon Capital. “This company I think will be the biggest, largest, most iconic company in human civilization.” Though Pagidipati said he’d limit exposure to one per cent to start, he is an unwavering believer in SpaceX. “As long as Elon stays alive, I’m not skeptical,” he said.

Bankers across Wall Street have been meeting with potential buyers to pitch the terms of the listing by the rocket, satellite and artificial intelligence company as it targets a historic debut. The Starbase, Texas-based company kicked off the marketing process for its US$75 billion initial public offering, set to be the biggest of all time, at a fixed price of US$135 per share.

Some research analysts are telling would-be buyers that their models show 100 times revenue growth for SpaceX’s AI division by the end of the decade, to help justify the targeted valuation of US$1.8 trillion. For the investors emerging from the JPMorgan event, those numbers sounded entirely justified.

It’s “not an outrageous valuation for the company,” said Dylan Hixon, president of Arden Road Investments, who’s gained exposure to the company over the years through venture funds and Special Purpose Banks. He estimates SpaceX comprises around 20 per cent of their entire portfolio, and says they will continue to invest after the IPO. “This is a generational company.”

Several investors Bloomberg spoke to said they had not read the prospectus, which details ambitions like building a colony on Mars and a US$28.5 trillion total addressable market. But Musk’s chat with Dimon, in which the billionaire detailed his vision for big ideas like space travel, vacations on the Moon and a Mars colony, swept the enthusiastic crowd along.

“He’s very prescient and a futurist. I’m a believer in what he does” Oliver Grace, chief executive officer of Grace Family Office, said in an interview. Grace said the event shored up his confidence because it showed “a lot of very serious people backing his venture.”

Ronald Baron, an ardent SpaceX bull and founder of Baron Capital, which manages nearly $50 billion in assets, intends to invest a billion dollars more in the company after it goes public — on top of its already over US$15 billion stake in the company. The Baron Partners fund has about 33 per cent exposure to SpaceX and more than 20 per cent to another Musk venture, Tesla Inc., according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

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“This guy has a dream, plus he’s a really good man with a great heart and brilliant guy, and he does things for humanity, not just for himself,” Baron told Bloomberg. He envisions that the SpaceX businesses will eventually generate “trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars a year of revenues.”

Bloomberg.com