SpaceX files for IPO as Starlink growth drives valuation

SpaceX has confidentially filed a draft IPO registration with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), putting it on track for a June listing.

The company may seek a valuation above US$1.8 trillion and raise as much as US$75.0 billion, which would beat Saudi Aramco’s US$29.0 billion IPO record from 2019.

Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley are lined up for senior roles, and SpaceX is considering a dual-class structure and potentially a retail allocation of as much as 30%.

SpaceX acquired Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI in a deal valuing the combined business at US$1.3 trillion, while Bloomberg Intelligence estimates the company’s rocket launch program and Starlink satellites revenue approaching US$20.0 billion in 2026.

🔗 Source: Bloomberg

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

The IPO structure aims to protect Musk’s long-term plans

A proposed dual-class share setup would give insiders such as Elon Musk extra voting power, so he can keep control even with a minority stake 1.
Musk has floated a similar approach for Tesla, with the goal of fending off activist shareholders while keeping attention on long-range work rather than near-term performance 1.
That work could include tapping the recently merged xAI (Elon Musk’s AI startup) to build large orbital data centers, based on Musk’s view that space-based AI is the only way to scale computing without overloading Earth’s power and cooling systems 2.

A SpaceX IPO could reshape Musk’s holdings and bring new regulatory exposure

The filing comes as SpaceX’s private valuation edges closer to Tesla’s market capitalization (the total value of its publicly traded shares), which has fallen amid tougher competition and slower sales 3.
SpaceX leads the launch business with NASA and US Department of Defense contracts, while Tesla is moving into less proven bets such as robotaxi services and Optimus humanoid robots 3.
The merger also pulls in risk from xAI, which faces regulatory investigations in Europe, India, Malaysia and the US tied to its Grok image generator 3.
Legal experts say those probes could spill into SpaceX’s international Starlink business (its satellite internet service), adding headaches for public market investors 3.