SpaceX has confidentially registered with the SECthe US regulator, its application to go public, in what could become the largest public offering in history.
Why is it important. The valuation of Musk’s company exceeds one and a half billion dollars, and the objective is to raise between 50,000 and 75,000 million euros before the end of June. To put it in perspective: the IPO of the Arab oil company Saudi Aramco in 2019until now the largest in history, raised just over 25,000 million.
Furthermore, this news has been presented as a milestone in space exploration, but if you read between the lines, the real story is different.
Between the lines. The story that SpaceX is going to sell to Wall Street mixes rockets, Mars and AI. It is the perfect cocktail to attract capital in 2026, but analysts who have looked at the numbers and quote Reuters are a little cruder: the $1.5 trillion valuation is only supported by starlinkthe satellite Internet service that already has nine million subscribers and generated $8 billion in revenue in 2024 alone.
- SpaceX billed between 15,000 and 16,000 million dollars in 2025, with about 8,000 million in profit.
- Starlink accounts for the clear majority of that revenue and almost all of the margins.
- The orbital data centersthe great promise of the IPO, are still an unproven concept.
As said market strategist Shay Boloor: “Starlink is the only reason this assessment is defensible.”
The contrast. SpaceX was born in 2002 with a mission: to make humanity multiplanetary. Mars as a destination and reusable rockets as a means. That narrative has had to give some ground.
And Wall Street, which has been buying anything with the word AI for years, hears that and opens its wallet.
The money trail. This year, SpaceX absorbed xAI, Musk’s AI startup and now also the parent company of X. Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter in 2022 and since then, X and xAI are projects that consume a lot of cash, especially the latter.
SpaceX’s IPO, according to The New York Timesis proposed among other things to pay the debt that Twitter incurred when Musk bought it and to finance xAI’s data centers. In other words: the jewel in the crown finances loss-making companies.
The big question. Can SpaceX trade at $1.5 trillion with markets shaken by war? The Nasdaq just suffered its worst week in almost a yearwith the war between the United States and Iran in the background and oil skyrocketing. Some bankers have pushed SpaceX to keep between 15,000 and 20,000 million in cash before exiting. For what may happen. The moment of debut can be decisive for the worse even if the fundamentals are great.
What is certain is that if the operation goes ahead, Musk, who owns about 42-44% of SpaceX, will almost certainly cross the threshold of a trillion dollars of personal wealth. He would be the first billionaire in history.
Featured image | SpaceX
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings