By Al Root
Details of the pending mega- SpaceX IPO keep coming. Investors now have a pretty good idea about when the IPO will happen -- and how much it will cost to buy a piece of Elon Musk's rocket company.
It turns out shares will be a better deal than some feared. That might be a warning sign for the market.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the IPO would happen next week, valuing the company at about $1.75 trillion and raising about $75 billion.
Shares will be priced at about $135.
As of now, SpaceX has roughly 12.9 billion Class A and B shares outstanding. CEO Elon Musk owns 12% of the Class A stock and 94% of the Class B stock, which have 10 votes per share.
Raising roughly $75 billion by selling 550 million to 600 million shares around $135 each would give SpaceX about 13.5 billion shares outstanding.
The valuation also means that SpaceX will be priced at about 70 times estimated 2026 sales. That reference valuation could be an issue for some other space stocks. Rocket Lab and AST SpaceMobile trade for about 75 and 250 times estimated 2026 sales, respectively.
AST stock was down about 9% in midday trading, while the S&P 500 was off about 0.6%. Rocket Lab stock was down 7%. Coming into Wednesday trading, those two stocks were up 56% and 67% over the past month, respectively.
The $1.75 trillion figure also means that SpaceX will be valued at 265 times 2025 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or Ebitda. Palantir Technologies, for comparison, is valued at about 225 times 2025 Ebitda.
The valuation, while astronomical, is a little disappointing given the hype. Earlier reports hoped for a valuation closer to $2 trillion. That's a note of caution for investors. How much investors are willing to pay for SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic matters greatly to the market.
All three, of course, are AI companies that are spending billions to build AI computing infrastructure. Any hiccup in financing can cascade through all layers of the value chain, from Nvidia chips to Caterpillar machines that prepare data center sites for construction.
What's more, the ability for the three to demonstrate a path for AI profitability, justifying all the spending, is likely more important for the long-term health of the stock market than the ability to finance AI data centers.
SpaceX's AI business isn't profitable yet. Its Starlink space-based broadband product is highly profitable, demonstrating to investors what's possible in space. Still, Starlink isn't responsible for the majority of the $1.75 trillion valuation. AI is.
Investors will get a look at the financials of OpenAI and Anthropic later this year. Both are expected to sell shares in an IPO, following SpaceX.
How SpaceX trades early in its life as a public company will be important for OpenAI and Anthropic. It will be a little tough to gauge the true market reaction, though. SpaceX is selling a relatively small amount of stock, and its shares will be added to the Nasdaq 100 shortly after the IPO. Index buying will eat up roughly $30 billion or $40 billion worth of stock. That will leave even fewer shares truly available to trade freely.
For a company this large, with this little stock being sold, going into a major index is unusual. Then again, most business situations involving Elon Musk, the world's richest person, are a little unusual.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 03, 2026 13:12 ET (17:12 GMT)
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