SpaceX filed publicly for its initial public offering, revealing billions in losses and the super-voting share plan allowing Elon Musk to keep the rocket, satellite and artificial intelligence giant under his control, and prevent him from being removed from power against his will.
The company known formally as Space Exploration Technologies Corp. chose Nasdaq to make its debut under the symbol SPCX, according to a filing Wednesday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. SpaceX previously filed confidentially for the listing, Bloomberg News exclusively reported in April.
The company had a net loss of $4.28 billion on revenue of $4.69 billion for the first quarter, compared with a net loss of $528 million on revenue of about $4 billion a year earlier, according to its filing.
The largest private company, led by the world’s richest person, is targeting as much as $75 billion in its listing at a valuation of more than $2 trillion, people familiar with the matter have said. That would eclipse the $29.4 billion IPO record set by Saudi Aramco in 2019.
Musk currently owns 12.3% of the company’s Class A shares and 93.6% of its Class B shares, which gives him 85.1% of the voting power in the company, according to the filing. Because the Class B shares carry 10 votes each, Musk will continue to control the company after the IPO, according to the filing.
The audacious plan by Musk, 54, for an IPO of unprecedented size is set to transform both the public and private markets if it succeeds. A blockbuster listing, and a rising share price after, would help dispel concern over whether private companies with limited financial disclosures and largely illiquid shares are reaching unjustified valuations in venture capital-led funding rounds.
SpaceX’s debut would also open the door for other private giants to plan their own mega-IPOs. AI firms OpenAI and Anthropic PBC, whose products capture a greater share of chatbot website traffic than SpaceX’s Grok, according to Similarweb, are preparing for listings as soon as this year.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley are leading SpaceX’s IPO, the filing shows. Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are also working on the deal, along with 18 other banks. Formal marketing, when SpaceX will disclose the proposed terms of the share sale, is expected to begin as early as June 4, ahead of pricing as soon as June 11, Bloomberg News reported earlier.
Mature Startup
The filing depicts a conglomerate with a maturity practically unheard of in a pre-IPO company.
SpaceX dominates the space transportation industry, and is a key rocket launch provider for both NASA and the Pentagon. So far, it derives the majority of its revenue from its Starlink satellite internet business.
For the three months ended March 31, the Space segment generated revenue of $619 million and a loss from operations of $662 million, the filing shows. A year ago, the company’s Space segment generated revenue of $4 billion and loss from operations of $657 million.
A letter from the billionaire announcing the xAI acquisition declared the deal would create “the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth.” He outlined his vision for the company of its next-generation Starship rockets lifting satellites delivering Starlink internet directly to mobile phones, and later, orbital data centers.
The least expensive way to do AI computations within two to three years will be in space, Musk wrote, by harnessing the sun’s power for data centers. These would one day be built in factories on the moon, and advance the goal of building a civilization on Mars.
The company has moved to bolster its AI pitch to investors. SpaceX said on April 21 it has an agreement giving it the right to acquire AI startup Cursor for $60 billion later this year or to pay $10 billion for the companies’ work together. SpaceX isn’t acquiring Cursor immediately because of the imminent IPO, and the $10 billion is a breakup fee if the deal doesn’t go through, Bloomberg News has reported.
Long a darling of private market investors, SpaceX’s private valuation has grown rapidly, reaching $1.25 trillion after it acquired Musk’s AI startup xAI earlier this year. The acquisition included X, the social media network that Musk acquired in 2022 in a $44 billion deal, including $33.5 billion in equity.
At $2 trillion, SpaceX’s market value would be larger than all but a handful of the companies in the S&P 500 Index, and larger than Tesla Inc. which Musk also runs. His fortune, which stands at $680 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, could surge if the IPO is a success.
After Musk, the largest shareholder is listed as Antonio Gracias, the founder of Valor Equity Partners, with 7.3% of the Class A shares. That’s largely through funds at Valor and Garcia’s personal ownership isn’t immediately clear.
Early backers are also expected to see gains from the IPO. Alphabet Inc.’s Google owned a 6.11% stake in Musk’s company at the end of 2025, according to regulatory disclosure in April. At a $2 trillion valuation, a holding of that size would be worth $122 billion, according to Bloomberg calculations.
SpaceX’s investors include Baillie Gifford, Baron Capital, Brookfield, Fidelity and Sequoia Capital, data compiled by PitchBook show. Employees and backers are expected to be bound by so-called lock-up agreements preventing them from selling stock until a certain period after the shares have begun trading.
Achievable Goals
Musk’s plan for SpaceX has drawn skepticism over whether goals such as data centers in space are achievable in anything like the foreseeable future, or even the stated aims of Starship rockets refueling while in orbit or putting 100 to 150 tons of cargo in orbit.
Some analysts and observers have called previously discussed valuations well over $1.25 trillion difficult to justify, based on earlier reports of financial information that showed revenue primarily coming from Starlink, and xAI’s heavy cash burn, which prior to the acquisition was averaging $1 billion a month. Musk appeared to push back on the valuation target of $2 trillion in an April 3 X post, saying “don’t believe everything you read.”
Large pension investors have criticized Musk’s proposed dual-class share structure and a provision giving him an effective veto over his own firing, with leaders of New York state and city pension funds and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System jointly publishing a letter May 14 urging SpaceX to revise the structure.
Separately, union-affiliated pension fund adviser SOC Investment Group asked the SEC to review SpaceX’s financial disclosures for accuracy and reliability, ensure its auditor remains independent, and scrutinize the accounting of SpaceX’s transactions with other Musk companies including Tesla. The American Federation of Teachers made a similar request, noting several board members are close Musk allies.
Much of the listing’s success will depend on the participation of retail investors, who could take as much as 30% of the shares in the IPO, Bloomberg News has reported. SpaceX plans to offer shares to retail investors through Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Robinhood Markets, and SoFi Technologies, as selling group members. SpaceX also plans to offer shares to retail investors through E*TRADE by Morgan Stanley, an affiliate of Morgan Stanley.
Another key factor will be whether index providers including S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and FTSE Russell decide to follow Nasdaq Inc. and change rules around how quickly very large IPO companies such as SpaceX can join key indexes. Funds that track the S&P 500 index must buy newly added stocks, and roughly $24 trillion is tied to that index alone, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
The wave of potential mega-IPOs has sparked a cottage industry of funds and platforms offering exposure to coveted private shares before the listing turns small stakes into fortunes. Executives and investors have warned about funds claiming to offer access to hot startups, a space with little transparency and limited regulatory oversight.
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