Elon Musk Eyes Wall Street Record in SpaceX IPO
The filing states that after the offering, Mr Musk would serve as chief executive, chief technology officer and chair of the board.
SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite company, has filed for what could become the biggest initial public offering ever, outlining plans to raise as much as $75 billion from public investors.
If the deal goes ahead on those terms, the company’s market debut would eclipse every previous IPO on record.
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The filing states that after the offering, Mr Musk would serve as chief executive, chief technology officer and chair of the board.
US media reports said SpaceX is seeking to raise $75bn and secure a valuation of up to $1.75 trillion, with trading potentially starting as early as next month.
The documents show the company brought in $18.7bn in revenue in 2025, while reporting an operating loss of $2.6bn as it continued investing heavily in next-generation rockets and artificial intelligence.
The AI division reported an operating loss of $6.4 billion
Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet arm, remains the company’s main financial driver, generating $11.4bn in revenue in 2025, nearly 50% higher than a year earlier.
The AI unit, which includes xAI and social media platform X, posted $3.2bn in full-year 2025 revenue but recorded an operating loss of $6.4bn as the company accelerated construction of AI training data centres.
Capital spending in that segment alone hit $12.7bn in 2025, followed by another $7.7bn in the first quarter of 2026, underlining the vast costs of keeping up with AI rivals such as Google, Meta and Amazon.
SpaceX also said it had reached an agreement to lease surplus capacity at its COLOSSUS and COLOSSUS II data centres to rival AI company Anthropic for $1.25bn a month through May 2029.
The filing arrived only days after Mr Musk suffered a major courtroom defeat in his dispute with OpenAI, another direct competitor moving toward a public listing.
A US jury found against Mr Musk, ruling that OpenAI was not liable to him over claims it had departed from its original mission to benefit humanity.
In a unanimous decision, the federal jury in Oakland, California, said Mr Musk had filed the case too late.
With Anthropic also pursuing an IPO, 2026 is shaping up to be one of Wall Street’s most consequential years in recent memory.
Elon Musk is poised to command about 85% of voting power at SpaceX
The filing confirmed a dual-class share structure that will keep Mr Musk firmly in control after the listing, avoiding the kind of shareholder battles that have followed him at Tesla, where investors have repeatedly challenged his pay package and the board’s independence.
Mr Musk, the world’s richest person, is expected to hold about 85% of the voting power while owning roughly 42% of the equity.
SpaceX said the structure creates risks for outside investors, noting that Mr Musk “will have the power to control the outcome of matters requiring shareholder approval, including election of all our directors”.
The filing also set out an expansive plan to build data centres in space, arguing that solar power harvested in orbit is “the only truly scalable solution” to the surging energy demands of AI computing.
SpaceX said it aims to begin deploying AI computing satellites as soon as 2028, with a long-term target of placing 100 gigawatts of compute capacity into orbit each year.
Achieving that would require thousands of launches annually and the movement of about one million metric tons of payload into orbit.
The company said it was uniquely equipped to take on that challenge, describing it as “incredibly difficult” and beyond the reach of any other company at commercial scale.
Still, US government officials said improved reliability would be needed before approving an expansion on that scale, according to the head of the Federal Aviation Administration.
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FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said he had met with SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, who outlined the company’s sweeping ambitions.
SpaceX carried out 170 launches in 2025, putting about 2,500 satellites into orbit.
Mr Bedford said Ms Shotwell told him “about the SpaceX five-year vision to get to 10,000 launches a year”.
After a forum, Mr Bedford said the FAA would need to see stronger reliability before it could approve a target of that scale.
“We need to see a lot more reliability,” Mr Bedford told reporters after the forum.
The FAA is responsible for licensing all commercial space launches and for easing key regulatory bottlenecks.
It also enforces restrictions designed to ensure launches or space-related accidents do not disrupt passenger air traffic.
In one eye-catching figure, SpaceX put its total addressable market – its estimate of the maximum revenue opportunity for its products and services – at $28.5 trillion across its businesses, excluding China and Russia.
Reports suggest SpaceX is aiming for a June listing on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX, with trading expected to begin soon after.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note that the next move after the IPO could be a merger with Tesla, creating what he described as an AI-powered “holy grail.”
