SpaceX's $60 billion all-stock acquisition of AI coding startup Cursor, announced just four days after SpaceX's record-breaking public debut, has reignited a debate about where value is created in today's markets. For most public-market investors, the deal was a stark reminder of how much growth can occur before a company ever lists on an exchange.
Kevin Moss, co-founder and portfolio manager of the Private Shares Fund, saw the transaction as validation of his firm's strategy. The fund held SpaceX as its largest position, representing 23.8% of the portfolio, before the company's Nasdaq listing. Moss argues that investors seeking exposure to Cursor's explosive growth would have been better served by owning SpaceX while it was still private.
"If you only invest through public markets, you may be showing up after a lot of the growth has already happened," Moss told InvestmentNews. His comments come as the SpaceX rout deepens, with the stock experiencing volatility post-IPO.
The Structural Shift Keeping Companies Private
The Private Shares Fund focuses on late-stage private companies, and Moss has observed a fundamental change in the mechanics of the private market over the past decade. The reasons companies stay private longer are no longer primarily cultural; they are structural.
"There's far more private capital available than ever, so companies don't need the public markets to fund growth," he said. "Regulation played a role too — the JOBS Act in 2012 raised the shareholder threshold that used to force companies to go public, so they can stay private much longer without tripping into public reporting."
The result is a growing gap between where value is created and where most advisors' clients are positioned to capture it. "Waiting for the IPO could make you miss some potentially compelling growth opportunities," Moss said. "If you want exposure to these companies, you increasingly have to access them while they're private."
What the Cursor Deal Says About Growth
SpaceX announced the acquisition of Cursor for $60 billion in an all-stock transaction shortly after its public debut. Cursor had reached $4 billion in annualized revenue, was used by 67% of the Fortune 500, and generated 150 million lines of enterprise code per day.
For Moss, the deal illustrated two things simultaneously: the scale of value creation happening inside private companies, and the speed at which that value can be captured or redirected before public investors participate. "SpaceX folded xAI into its operations and acquiring Cursor provides software tools and talent as it operates in the evolving AI landscape," he said. "It also demonstrates SpaceX using its newly public stock as acquisition currency to expand."
Cursor's most recent private funding round — a $2.3 billion Series D closed in November 2025 — had valued the company at $29.3 billion. By the time of the acquisition, that figure had more than doubled. Investors in the public markets had no access to that compounding.
How Advisors Should Think About Client Suitability
Private market allocations are not appropriate for every client, and Moss is careful to draw that line clearly. The trade-offs — reduced liquidity, less frequent pricing, and lower transparency than publicly traded securities — require a considered fit assessment.
"Fit comes down to time horizon and liquidity needs," he said. "These allocations are typically evaluated for clients with longer time horizons, distinct risk profiles, and lower immediate liquidity needs."
Private companies now represent a meaningful and growing share of where economic value is being built. A strategy that operates entirely in public markets, Moss argues, may be structurally incomplete. "Private companies now represent a large and growing share of value creation, so a strategy that's entirely public may potentially miss a big part of the opportunity set," he said.
The pipeline of IPO-ready private companies continues to grow, but Moss does not expect that to resolve the fundamental dynamic. Some will list. Others will be acquired. Some will stay private indefinitely. For advisors looking at private equity and late-stage private growth, the question is less about timing the IPO window and more about whether clients are positioned before it opens.
"The trend is indicating toward staying private longer, and more of these companies exiting through acquisition rather than a traditional IPO," Moss said. "A public listing is just one of the potential outcomes — sometimes the least attractive."
