Elon Musk’s SpaceX is planning to go public in the US, allowing ordinary individuals to purchase shares of the company on the stock market for the first time. Expected to be the biggest ever float on Wall Street, the IPO of the US stock market could start as soon as next month, with the ticker symbol SPCX.
SpaceX manufactures rockets, runs the internet satellite business, Starlink, and is also the parent company of Musk’s controversial AI firm, xAI. The listing could even make billionaire Musk, who is already the richest man in the world, the first ever trillionaire in the world because of the stake he would own in SpaceX.
The company is currently valued at $1.25 trillion, with Musk’s majority share worth $600 billion, and this would certainly put him way over the $500 billion net worth he achieved last year – making him the first human to pass the mark in history. The Musk owned electric car company Tesla is now worth considerably less than its competitor Ford due to the massive interest being generated around the SpaceX float, which is expected to surpass even Google.
The filing gives a long awaited glimpse into the inner workings of the company; in 2023, SpaceX brought in $18.6 billion but made a net loss of $4.9 billion; $4.7 billion of sales were made in the first three months of this year, but a net loss of $4.3 billion was also reported. It has $102 billion worth of assets, including the rockets, and $60.5 billion of debt.
“For a company of this scale to be losing money at the point of IPO should not come as a surprise, it was widely anticipated and now it is exciting. SpaceX is just an absolutely vast and gigantic project with so many different selling points and so many indicators that truly point to the future,” Ruth Foxe-Blader managing partner at US venture capital firm Citrine Venture Partners told the BBC.
Over half a billion dollars has been earmarked for anticipated legal expenses due to a very lengthy list of claims being made against the company, some relating to allegations that chatbot Grok is being used to create sexualized deep fakes of real women and girls, a plan Musk wishes to move to SpaceX, having acquired it and intends to dissolve xAI; he already owns social media giant X, formerly Twitter. Patent infringements, copyright issues relating to music and allegations of breaches of the EU’s digital services regulations and data security breaches are among some of the many cases mentioned.
A deal for $15 billion per year was struck between SpaceX and AI rival Anthropic, to give access to data centres in South America where Musk is to continue building his AI interests through SpaceX after purchasing xAI. Despite the difficulties he is facing in AI, both the rocket and internet satellite business are leaders within their industry, and have a distinct advantage over their competitors.
The news comes just days after Musk lost a highly publicized lawsuit he brought against AI rivals OpenAI and Sam Altman, where he claimed they were in breach of a non-profit agreement by bringing AI chatbot ChatGPT into a for profit organization, and he had originally invested over $43 million dollars in the venture. A jury ruled in favor of OpenAI after dismissing the case on grounds that Musk had taken too long to bring his 2024 suit, a claim that, to the judge and jury, was far too late to make. He stated that his own AI firm was nothing when compared with OpenAI and predicted the company was soon to IPO itself.
SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket is expected to launch this week, and the company is facing allegations it put its workers at risk at its facilities; Musk himself has faced criticisms over his right-wing policies and his increasingly close alliance with President Donald Trump after taking him to China last week.
