Elon Musk has a knack for turning science fiction into reality. From reusable rockets to autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots, the billionaire’s ventures often achieve what was once thought impossible. With SpaceX’s initial public offering (IPO), it is aiming for an even bigger milestone.
The company, which remained completely private for 24 years, is now preparing to go public. In an S1 filing submitted to US regulators on Wednesday, which runs into hundreds of pages, SpaceX planned to raise about $75 billion (€64.5 billion) from new investors, which would value the company at up to $1.75 trillion.
Not bad for a company that’s still loss-making and Musk – already the richest man in the world – is effectively still in control.
Mars colonization, asteroid mining, orbital AI data centers
Musk wants SpaceX to do more than send astronauts into space. He plans to build the infrastructure to secure the future of human life beyond Earth. Musk has said that the ultimate goal is to build a self-sustaining city on Mars that could be home to one million people.
To achieve this, SpaceX plans to use Starship – its giant reusable spacecraft – to make the first unmanned journey by 2030. A one-way trip to the Red Planet covers an average distance of about 140 million miles and takes six to nine months. Initial missions will test landing systems and begin installation of infrastructure, followed by crewed trips in a few years.
SpaceX wants to use resources on celestial bodies very close to Earth to support humanity’s multi-planetary expansion. Musk believes that asteroids, which fly through space in changing orbits, could one day be mined.
The near-zero gravity on asteroids makes it far easier and cheaper to land on them and extract material. However, large-scale asteroid mining of platinum, nickel, gold and ice (water) – vital to supporting life on Mars, creating habitats and producing fuel – will not be achieved until 2040 or beyond, space industry analysts have predicted.
However, an important first step will be the Moon, which is only three days away from Earth. SpaceX envisions that habitats, factories, and fuel depots could be built on the Moon – a much cheaper option than launching tons of material from Earth.
Musk also believes space holds the answer to one of the biggest problems facing artificial intelligence (AI) – the enormous amounts of power and cooling required for giant data centers to handle billions of user requests at once.
Instead of building these power-hungry facilities on Earth, SpaceX has floated the idea of placing giant AI supercomputers in orbit on a large series of satellites.
These data centers can harness unlimited sunlight for energy and the cold vacuum of space for free cooling, making large-scale AI training far cheaper and more efficient than on our home planet.
Irreversible Musk – The World’s First Trillionaire?
If SpaceX’s ambitions aren’t crazy enough, the plan to elevate Musk — who is already the world’s richest man — to an IPO is truly out of this world.
Musk currently owns an estimated 42% of SpaceX. At the targeted $1.75 trillion valuation, their stake alone would be worth about $735 billion. With Musk’s stake in Tesla, XAI and other ventures, the IPO would likely push his net worth to more than $1 trillion, making him the first trillionaire in history.
A special dual-class share structure gives Musk more than 80% of the voting power despite owning a much smaller portion of SpaceX equity. This setup effectively makes him ineligible as CEO, allowing him to pursue long-term, high-risk projects without pressure from short-term investors or activist shareholders.
Musk’s ironclad control has been criticized before, most notably at Tesla, where shareholders sued over his hefty pay package and potential conflicts of interest, arguing the board lacks real independence. Similar concerns have also been raised over his control over social media platform X, where decisions such as major layoffs and strategic changes were made by him.
The blockbuster listing will generate huge wealth for early backers and executives as well. according to financial TimesSpaceX Chairman Gwynne Shotwell and CFO Brett Johnson’s shares will be valued at more than $1 billion. Longtime investor Antonio Gracias could be sitting on $70 billion or more, while PayPal co-founder Luke Nosek’s stake would be worth about $5 billion.
Record float, Wall Street’s boldest bet
Wall Street is preparing to create the largest IPO in history, with Goldman Sachs serving as lead underwriter.
If SpaceX secures the additional $75 billion in funding, it would nearly triple Saudi Aramco’s previous record of nearly $29.4 billion in 2019. Prior to this, Alibaba’s US listing was the largest share offering, raising $22 billion in 2014.
The $1.75 trillion valuation would put SpaceX among the world’s top 10 public companies, along with Nvidia, Apple, Google owner Alphabet and Microsoft.
This would mark a huge leap of investor confidence as SpaceX remains completely unprofitable, reporting a net loss of $4.94 billion in 2025 due to heavy investments in Starship, satellite deployment and AI resources.
The IPO filing brings to the fore the real dangers facing SpaceX, due to rapidly advancing AI as well as the enormous threats of extraterrestrial operations. These include “a unique range of space-related risks”, including “radiation from solar and cosmic sources; micrometeoroids and orbital debris” and “human injury or death”.
Wednesday’s filing also warned: “We have a history of net losses and we may not be able to achieve profitability in the future.”
The skyrocketing valuation has led some analysts to wonder whether SpaceX’s ambitions are more pie-in-the-sky than rocket science — a debate that will only intensify once it begins trading on the Nasdaq next month.
Edited by: Srinivas Majumdaru