SpaceX Files Confidentially for IPO That Could Be One of the Largest Ever

Filing Sets Up Blockbuster Offering

SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite company, has confidentially filed for an initial public offering, according to two people familiar with the company. The move sets the stage for what could be one of the largest offerings ever.

The company is committed to debuting in June, and Musk is aiming to raise $50 billion to $75 billion from the offering, one of the people said. SpaceX values itself at more than $1 trillion, which would make it one of the most valuable companies ever to reach the stock market.

If completed at that scale, the offering would be a major windfall for Wall Street, SpaceX employees and investors, and Musk himself, whose fortune is heavily tied to the company.

Growth and Ambitions

Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with the goal of sending people to Mars, and the company has grown into one of the world’s leading space businesses. It has launched rockets into space and built Starlink, a satellite internet service with customers that include the federal government, the Ukrainian military and others.

In the United States, SpaceX accounts for five of every six launches into space, according to Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. In February, Musk merged SpaceX with xAI, bringing under the SpaceX umbrella Starship, Starlink, Grok and X, the social network formerly known as Twitter.

Money raised in an offering would most likely help finance long-term projects including launching artificial intelligence data centers into orbit, creating a colony on the moon and sending humans to Mars. These efforts are expensive and unproven and may take years and billions of dollars to achieve.

Cash Needs and Financial Stakes

SpaceX has also discussed using some of the proceeds to fund xAI and its working capital, according to one of the people, as well as to buy up and eliminate billions of dollars in debt that Twitter borrowed when Musk bought the social media company in 2022. Bankers have pushed SpaceX to hold at least $15 billion to $20 billion in cash, the person said.

Because the filing was confidential, the company’s financial details have not yet been publicly disclosed. Musk said in a June social media post that he expected SpaceX’s revenue to reach $15.5 billion in 2025, including about $1.1 billion from NASA. That would be up from $7.4 billion in 2023, according to documents previously obtained by The New York Times. Starlink alone generated $8 billion in sales in 2024, according to those documents.

A public listing would also be a major event for SpaceX’s executives, employees and longtime investors, many of whom have waited more than two decades for an opportunity to cash in on their shares. Musk, whose stake in the company was around 44 percent in 2022, could see his wealth rise further if SpaceX’s valuation climbs in public trading.

Investor Debate

The company’s expected main underwriters include Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, which are likely to collectively generate fees in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The offering would also mark a notable shift for Musk, who has often shown distrust of public markets. Taking SpaceX public would require him to disclose more information to investors and subject the company to greater scrutiny over his promises and timelines.

Some investors are skeptical about the timing. Ross Gerber, an investment manager whose firm invested in Twitter and is now a SpaceX shareholder, said volatile global conditions make it a bad moment to go public, but argued that Musk needs cash for costly projects and to support X and xAI.

Others are more optimistic. Brett Winton, chief futurist at Ark Invest, a SpaceX investor, said the scale of the proposed offering reflects the magnitude of the company’s opportunity.