SpaceX publicly filed its IPO documents on Wednesday, revealing to investors the substantial losses Elon Musk has incurred in the AI sector and his grand bet on transforming the rocket manufacturer into an AI powerhouse. The company's future heavily depends on SpaceX dominating technologies and markets that do not yet exist—from Mars missions to space-based AI data centers. For many, Musk's track record of building Tesla into the world's most valuable car company, developing the first fully reusable rocket, and creating the largest satellite network is sufficient justification for this investment.
The prospectus discloses Musk's absolute control over SpaceX, granting shareholders minimal say. Since acquiring xAI in February, AI has become central to the company, driving the majority of spending and losses in the first quarter. This listing could become the first U.S. IPO to surpass a $1 trillion valuation, immediately placing SpaceX among the world's most valuable public companies.
Among SpaceX's three main business divisions, only the connectivity segment, powered by the Starlink satellite internet unit, was profitable in the first three months of this year. Although Starlink generated $1.19 billion in operating profit, it was not enough to prevent the company from recording a total operating loss of $1.94 billion for the quarter, on revenue of $4.69 billion. The AI division alone reported a loss of $2.47 billion on revenue of $818 million.
Musk's acquisition of his social media and AI company, xAI, brought new capabilities and opportunities to SpaceX but also led to staggering expenses—accounting for 76% of its $10.1 billion capital expenditure in the first quarter—and fresh losses. The prospectus indicates that much of the company's planned future revenue streams rely on technologies not yet built, including operating solar-powered data centers in space to tap into a potential market worth $28.5 trillion.
Since its founding by Musk in 2002, SpaceX has grown into the world's largest space enterprise by launching thousands of Starlink internet satellites. Its pioneering use of reusable rockets has transformed space economics, forcing competitors like Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin to catch up. A successful stock sale could value the company at a record $1.75 trillion, potentially making its founder the first trillionaire in history.
The filing also shows Musk will retain 85.1% of the combined voting power. This regulatory disclosure comes during a critical week for the rocket maker, as it prepares for a test flight of its next-generation Starship rocket on Thursday. While the board has handed control of the company to Musk, it has tied much of his compensation to extremely ambitious goals: establishing a permanent human settlement on Mars and building space-based data centers powered by computing capacity equivalent to 100 terawatts—the output of 100,000 one-gigawatt nuclear reactors.
SpaceX plans to list its shares as early as June 12, with a roadshow launch targeted for June 4 and the share sale expected as soon as June 11. As the biggest bottleneck for global AI data centers shifts from "AI chips" to "power systems and deployment," SpaceX's narrative of "placing data centers in space orbit powered by solar energy" is entering a phase of engineering trial and error. The capital markets urgently require larger, more stable capital pools and more unified organizational boundaries.
In Musk's vision for AI computing infrastructure, as the AI boom increasingly faces bottlenecks from large-scale infrastructure and energy supply, the next major leap in artificial intelligence might not occur on land but in space. SpaceX plans to launch a staggering 1 million satellites to act as a distributed, space-grade cloud computing super-server system. These orbital data centers in space are said to leverage nearly limitless solar power to handle massive AI workloads.
Musk believes achieving this goal will urgently require building a super satellite factory on the Moon to enable lunar electromagnetic catapult launches of AI super satellites. Undoubtedly, these Hollywood sci-fi-like visions will require substantial cash—and a potential SpaceX IPO is the source of that vast funding. As the world's wealthiest individual to date, Musk has previously accomplished what others deemed impossible: building a commercially viable high-frequency rocket launch business through SpaceX, mainstreaming electric vehicles through Tesla, and providing internet connectivity infrastructure from space via Starlink.
However, some investors doubt whether Musk can truly build the "most epic" chip-making initiative he recently outlined in Austin and realize his envisioned "super blueprint" integrating AI, autonomous driving, humanoid robots, and space-based AI data centers.
Musk Holds Absolute Control Analysts and academics note that for some investors, Musk's star CEO persona may be more critical than SpaceX's fundamentals, as there are no comparable peers in the market to benchmark its valuation against. "There's a sort of halo effect around Musk and his unconventional vision," said Reena Aggarwal, a finance professor at Georgetown University. "Valuing such a company is difficult because there's no peer group for comparison."
Achieving the $1.75 trillion valuation target would surpass Saudi Aramco's 2019 listing record. Saudi Aramco had a market capitalization of $1.7 trillion when it listed on the Riyadh exchange, setting the record for the world's largest IPO. Reuters previously reported that SpaceX aimed to raise over $75 billion in this offering.
The prospectus indicates SpaceX will adopt a dual-class share structure, with Class B shares holding 10 votes per share, concentrating control in the hands of Musk and a few other insiders. Class A shares offered to public investors will carry one vote per share. The company has implemented several provisions that collectively severely limit shareholder rights, including mandatory arbitration for legal disputes, restrictions on litigation venues, and protections for Musk from being fired by anyone other than himself.
The scale of this offering has drawn attention to the increasingly intertwined structure of Musk's business empire, often referred to as the "Muskonomy," which includes leading electric vehicle company Tesla, as well as his ventures in AI and brain-computer interfaces. SpaceX merged with Musk's AI startup xAI, a deal valuing the rocket company at $1 trillion and the developer of the Grok chatbot at $250 billion.
The filing shows that through its AI infrastructure platform, SpaceX has signed agreements stipulating that Anthropic will pay $1.25 billion monthly until May 2029 to access computing power from its Colossus and Colossus II data center clusters in Memphis, Tennessee. The company also disclosed it is a defendant in multiple lawsuits related to the image generation and editing features of its AI chatbot, Grok.
Intensifying Space Race The race to commercialize space has heated up as private companies, led by SpaceX and Blue Origin, compete to reduce launch costs, deploy large-scale satellite networks and orbital AI data centers, and secure government contracts. SpaceX's revenue is driven by Starlink, the world's largest satellite operator. This network of approximately 10,000 satellites provides broadband internet to consumer, government, and enterprise clients. However, the company's expanding footprint in aviation, maritime, and enterprise markets is helping transform capital-intensive space projects into a steady stream of recurring revenue engines.
Media reports in April indicated SpaceX plans to reserve a significant portion of shares for retail investors and will host around 1,500 retail investors at an event in June. The company is expected to list on Nasdaq and Nasdaq Texas under the ticker symbol "SPCX." Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan are acting as joint lead underwriters.
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