SpaceX has signalled its intention to launch the largest initial public offering in stock market history, setting a preliminary price of $135 a share that would value Elon Musk’s conglomerate at an unprecedented $1.75tn. A formal debut on the Nasdaq is expected as soon as June 12.
Unorthodox move: Price revealed a week in advance
Releasing an indicative IPO price a full week before trading begins is a highly unusual step on Wall Street. Typically, issuers announce the final share price only on the eve of the listing, based on investor demand gathered during the book-building process.
The current $1.75tn valuation represents a rapid escalation in expectations, given that at the start of the year experts had put the company’s worth at $1.25tn. Through the offering, SpaceX aims to raise around $75bn – a sum that would set an absolute global record.
A trillionaire in the making?
Should the shares price successfully at or above the stated level, SpaceX would instantly become one of the most valuable corporations on the planet. Its founder and chief executive, Elon Musk, who controls more than 80% of the equity, could officially become the world’s first dollar trillionaire as a result.
However, analysts caution that a pre-announced price offers no guarantee of final success. The actual value will be determined by real-time supply and demand among buyers, and the figures could rise or fall. According to Dealogic, nearly half of all companies that have gone public over the past three decades have seen their share price drop compared with the initial offering level.
Bubble warnings from the City
Scepticism is also shared by some industry experts, who point to clear signs of overvaluation. Samuel Kerr, head of equity capital markets research at Mergermarket, stressed that SpaceX is pricing its shares at a far higher multiple of sales than any member of the technology “Magnificent Seven” – which includes Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Nvidia, Microsoft and Musk’s own Tesla. In Kerr’s view, investors are valuing SpaceX on forecasts of future revenue and strategic potential rather than its current financial health, meaning many are knowingly embracing significant risk.
Red ink amid the stars
The company’s latest financial reports indeed reveal serious imbalances. Space Exploration Technologies, the group’s official name, posted revenue of $18.6bn last year but a net loss of $4.9bn. The trend has continued into the first quarter of the current year: sales reached $4.7bn, while the net loss for the same period stood at $4.3bn.
Total assets, including rocket systems and specialised equipment, amount to $102bn, against debt obligations exceeding $60.5bn.
From rocketry to AI conglomerate
Investor enthusiasm is driven by the fact that SpaceX has moved far beyond mere space launches to become a diversified technology conglomerate. In addition to rocketry and the global Starlink satellite system, the company is actively developing IT infrastructure, social media platforms and artificial intelligence technologies. A key step has been the acquisition of the start-up xAI, creator of the Grok chatbot. Originally, this project evolved in close integration with platform X, using its real-time text data streams to train neural networks.
Orbital data centres and Musk’s master plan
Musk’s strategic vision rests on the belief that space infrastructure can solve the principal challenges facing AI development on earth – namely, acute shortages of land and available electricity. Management plans include launching specialised satellites with onboard computing power and eventually establishing fully fledged data centres in orbit and on the moon.
Ruth Fox-Bleider, managing partner at Citrine Venture Partners, notes that SpaceX’s investment appeal lies precisely in the colossal scale of its long-term initiatives, which open up entirely new technological horizons and shape the image of the future.
