Elon Musk is setting up a stock market debut that could be the biggest in history by value. Bloomberg reported that SpaceX is planning a public offering that might value the company at close to $1.5 trillion and raise over $30 billion in new capital by a wide margin.
In case the transaction goes ahead as it is planned, it would compete with, and probably surpass, the 2019 Saudi Aramco listing, which raised $29 billion and still holds the global IPO record.
Executives and advisors at SpaceX want to go public as soon as the middle or the end of 2026, however, the date could be 2027 depending on the condition of world markets, interest rates, and investor sentiment for high-growth tech.
As of now, the company is around the corner in the company with some IPO-related tasks: deciding on appointing to the key roles, how much equity to float and how the new money will be spent, according to what insiders say, reported Bloomberg.
The truth behind that $1.5 trillion dream is not just the rockets but rather the Starlink. The satellite internet business of SpaceX has gone from being a daring project to a profitable machine with a rapidly growing worldwide user base and the potential of direct-to-mobile access which will change the entire telecom industry.
According to the internal forecast, SpaceX could rake in close to $15 billion in 2025 and between $22-24 billion in 2026, with the biggest part of those sales coming from Starlink.
Such a tremendous growth helps to explain the staggering valuation and gives public-market investors a much clearer picture: SpaceX is not only a launch company but also a vertically integrated space-and-internet behemoth.
This first public offer is far from being only about showing off. A large portion of the money raised by SpaceX will go to the construction of space-based data centers and the purchase of advanced chips required to power them. Musk recently introduced that notion at an event with Baron Capital, where he described a future in which computation literally happens above the clouds.
Besides that, the building and the advancement of the Starship super rocket, the one intended for deep-space missions to the Moon and Mars, along with the expansion of worldwide Starlink coverage will require a lot of money, in fact, an astronomical amount.
The IPO is a way to enable SpaceX to fund those dreams without having to depend entirely on private funding rounds.
In some ways, SpaceX is already a blue-chip tech giant, even if it hasn't gone public yet. Currently, in its secondary share sale, the company has set a price of close to $420 per share, which indicates a valuation of more than $800 billion.
Employees have been permitted to sell approximately $2 billion worth of stock, while SpaceX has provided some liquidity by buying back shares in the market.
Musk has emphasized that SpaceX has been cash-flow positive "for many years" and carries out stock buybacks twice a year so that long-time employees and early investors can partially cash out.
If the IPO is anywhere close to the $1.5 trillion level, well-known investors like Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, 137 Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, Fidelity, and Google’s parent Alphabet will be the ones who gain the most.
If the target levels were the case and SpaceX sold approximately 5% of the company, it would be able to raise around $40 billion, thereby instantly achieving the largest IPO in history and setting a new record for the maximum value of a private tech company before entering the public markets.
