Echo Wang, Joey Roulette and Milana Vinn
Fri, December 19, 2025
NEW YORK, Dec 19 (Reuters) - Morgan Stanley is emerging as a leading contender for a key role in SpaceX's blockbuster initial public offering, as the bank's close ties to CEO Elon Musk give it an edge in his decision, according to three people familiar with the matter.
How large could SpaceX's IPO potentially be?
What are SpaceX's plans for the IPO proceeds?
Why is Morgan Stanley favored for SpaceX IPO?
What changed Musk's thinking about going public?
A selection process, or "bake-off," for the IPO is still underway, with a select group of banks, including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, vying for roles, four people familiar with the matter said, adding that there is no certainty Morgan Stanley will secure the coveted "lead left" underwriting position, the sources said.
Musk's ties to Morgan Stanley run deep, dating back at least 15 years, leaving it widely viewed as the leading contender to run the syndicate of underwriters, three of the people said, though no banks have been selected yet and the discussions remain fluid.
The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions are confidential. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan declined to comment, while SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.
SpaceX is one of the world’s largest private companies and its potential IPO would be highly complex.
While Musk has not yet picked the lead banks, a decision could come before the end of the year, with the full syndicate likely to be finalized afterward, two of the people added.
The people cautioned that while plans are progressing, the IPO remains contingent on market conditions, and SpaceX could choose to delay or abandon the offering altogether.
LINKS TO TESLA'S IPO
Morgan Stanley, which has advised Musk for years, was among the banks that took Tesla public in 2010, alongside Goldman Sachs, the lead left, JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank. Morgan Stanley later advised Musk and led the financing for his 2022 acquisition of Twitter, now X.
Musk recently tapped one of his Morgan Stanley bankers on that deal, Anthony Armstrong, to become chief financial officer of his artificial intelligence venture xAI.
The connection runs even deeper through Musk’s family office in Austin, Texas. Another former Morgan Stanley banker who advised Musk on various Wall Street dealings over the years, Jared Birchall, built and runs Excession, which manages his personal assets, Reuters previously reported.
STAFF MEMO
In a staff memo sent last week, SpaceX Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen informed staff that the company was preparing for a public offering in 2026.
"Whether it actually happens, when it happens, and at what valuation are still highly uncertain, but the thinking is that if we execute brilliantly and the markets cooperate, a public offering could raise a significant amount of capital," Johnsen wrote.
Reuters has previously reported that SpaceX is seeking to raise more than $25 billion in an IPO that could come next year, a sum that would make it one of the biggest public listings ever globally.
The decision to go public caught some by surprise, given SpaceX's status as one of the world's largest private companies.
While Musk has long expressed a preference for keeping SpaceX private, people familiar with his thinking indicated that the company’s growing valuation and the success of its Starlink satellite-internet service have prompted a shift in strategy.
SpaceX, long known for its dominant rocket launch business, has become the world's largest satellite operator through Starlink, a network of nearly 10,000 satellites beaming broadband internet to consumers, governments and enterprise customers.
While there had been previous speculation about Starlink going public on its own, these people say the IPO could include both businesses, though the plans remain subject to change.
AI FUELS NEED FOR CAPITAL
SpaceX, Johnsen wrote in his email, would use the capital raised from an IPO to increase the flight rate of its next-generation Starship rocket under development and deploy AI data centers in space, an effort complementary to its Starlink business that would more closely tie the company to the AI boom.
The company would also build "Moonbase Alpha," a base on the lunar surface that Musk has mentioned. SpaceX is a core contractor in NASA's Artemis moon program with a $4 billion contract to land astronauts on the lunar surface using Starship.
Sending humans and robots to Mars has been Musk's long-held vision for SpaceX, with revenues from Starlink contributing to development of Starship, which is also envisioned to serve as a Mars transportation system.
Musk, during his stint as a government efficiency czar with U.S. President Donald Trump, had pushed for a greater American focus on Mars and advocated for a former associate, Jared Isaacman, to lead NASA. Isaacman became NASA chief on Tuesday.
Starlink remains SpaceX's top revenue-generating business. The company is expanding the satellite network into the wireless market with Starlink Mobile, which it trademarked in October.
(Reporting by Echo Wang and Milana Vinn in New York and Joey Roulette in Washington; Editing by Dawn Kopecki, Jamie Freed and Nick Zieminski)
Elon Musk's SpaceX Could Be Preparing for a Huge IPO. Here's What to Know.
Colin Laidley
Mon, December 15, 2025
Paul Hennessy / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images
Musk’s SpaceX is reportedly hearing pitches from investment banks interested in advising on an IPO.
Key Takeaways
Elon Musk's SpaceX is reportedly hearing pitches from investment banks this week as the space exploration company considers going public in what could be the largest IPO to date.
Next year could be a big one for IPOs: AI startups OpenAI and Anthropic are among the other private companies reportedly exploring going public next year.
Wall Street may be headed for a year of blockbuster IPOs in 2026. And a company led by Elon Musk could be leading the way.
Musk’s SpaceX is reportedly hearing pitches this week from investment banks interested in advising on what could be the largest initial public offering in history, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. That news advanced reports that the space exploration company was considering going public from last week, when Bloomberg said SpaceX is targeting a mid-to-late 2026 IPO that would raise $30 billion and value the company at about $1.5 trillion, among the biggest companies in the S&P 500.
If SpaceX hits its IPO targets, it would surpass Saudi Aramco, the Saudi state-owned oil company, as the largest debut in history. Aramco raised about $29 billion when it went public in 2019. (SpaceX is reportedly in the process of buying insider shares at a price that values it at $800 billion, double its valuation from this summer.) The company didn't respond to Investopedia's request for comment in time for publication.
Why This Is Important
IPO activity often reflects the prevailing mood on Wall Street, with listings rising when optimism is high and vice versa. The IPO market began to return to normal in 2025 after years of being pressured by high interest rates.
SpaceX stock can't be traded yet, but some market watchers are already betting on a big response from investors when it can. Saudi Aramco debuted with a market capitalization of nearly $1.9 trillion; users of online prediction market Polymarket on Monday put the chance of SpaceX's market cap finishing its first day of trading above $2 trillion at about 14%.
A listing of that size would make SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk, already the world's richest person, even wealthier. Musk's SpaceX stake accounts for more than a quarter of his $470 billion fortune, according to Bloomberg, which estimates that he owns about 42% of the company. Holding a stake anywhere close to that size when SpaceX goes public could make Musk the world's first trillionaire far earlier than some thought possible.
Musk has for years said he has no interest in taking SpaceX public, which he worried would derail his plans to facilitate the colonization of Mars. But he and others have lately discussed the notion that insufficient electricity is restraining the AI boom, and that sending data centers into space, where they can draw on solar energy, could help.
Musk last week called “accurate” a report that SpaceX was considering going public to fund efforts to develop orbital data center technology. SpaceX has reportedly floated the idea of using Starlink satellites to host AI workloads as part of its recent pitch to investors.
SpaceX is one of several massive companies considering a public offering next year. ChatGPT maker OpenAI, valued at $500 billion in October, has reportedly discussed a public offering with bankers. Competitor Anthropic is reportedly preparing for an IPO, according to the Financial Times, which also reported the company was targeting a $300 billion valuation in a funding round. Data software company Databricks, TikTok parent ByteDance and fintech Stripe are also rumored to be exploring IPOs next year.
Investors have been waiting years for the return of IPOs. Hundreds of companies went public via IPO or SPAC merger in 2021, spurred by post-pandemic liquidity and rock-bottom interest rates. Activity fell off a cliff in 2022 when the Federal Reserve began raising rates to address soaring inflation. The IPO market stayed cold until this year, when activity has finally picked back up, albeit at a more modest pace than during the pandemic bonanza
SpaceX’s Lofty IPO Valuation Hinges on Big Bet on Outsize Growth
Bailey Lipschultz, Sana Pashankar and Loren Grush
December 11, 2025
(Bloomberg) -- To buy into SpaceX’s audacious $1.5 trillion valuation in a listing next year, investors will need to have faith in Elon Musk’s equally galactic vision for his rocket and satellite maker, from orbital data centers to lunar factories to human settlements on Mars.
SpaceX is planning an initial public offering that may be the world’s biggest ever. Its revenue is forecast to be between $22 billion to $24 billion in 2026, largely fueled by its Starlink satellite-internet unit, according to people familiar with the matter.
Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
At that level, the proposed IPO valuation would clock in at an eye-popping 62.5 times sales. Of listed firms with similar characteristics, only Palantir Technologies Inc. comes close, at about 70 times.
The near-term investment case is that Starlink and a nascent mobile phone service fueled by its acquisition of spectrum from EchoStar Corp. provide the foundation for the outsize growth that IPO buyers will demand.
Musk’s plan, and the driving force behind his decision to pursue a faster-than-expected IPO, is much grander: orbital artificial intelligence data centers forming a distributed network in space. Musk appeared to endorse this vision, as well as Starship rockets bringing humans to settlements on Mars, and the futuristic notion of satellite factories on the moon, in a post on X late on Wednesday.
SpaceX’s IPO, then, is a bet on owning vast swaths of the space economy through the convergence of AI, robots and travel.
At that level, the proposed IPO valuation would clock in at an eye-popping 62.5 times sales. Of listed firms with similar characteristics, only Palantir Technologies Inc. comes close, at about 70 times.
The near-term investment case is that Starlink and a nascent mobile phone service fueled by its acquisition of spectrum from EchoStar Corp. provide the foundation for the outsize growth that IPO buyers will demand.
Musk’s plan, and the driving force behind his decision to pursue a faster-than-expected IPO, is much grander: orbital artificial intelligence data centers forming a distributed network in space. Musk appeared to endorse this vision, as well as Starship rockets bringing humans to settlements on Mars, and the futuristic notion of satellite factories on the moon, in a post on X late on Wednesday.
SpaceX’s IPO, then, is a bet on owning vast swaths of the space economy through the convergence of AI, robots and travel.
Will investors buy it? Skeptics aren’t hard to find. But to a number of observers, the combination of the near-term potential and Musk’s long-term outlook is irresistible and will catapult SpaceX into the realm of the “Magnificent Seven” companies like Nvidia Corp. and Microsoft Corp.
“This is an N of 1 company with limited to no real competition from the Mag 7 and it will likely have the biggest retail bid of all time,” said Jeremy Abelson, founder and portfolio manager at Irving Investors, whose firm is an investor in SpaceX. “The valuation will not, and does not need to, make sense when it comes public.”
Crown Jewel
A critical aspect of pitching a valuation north of $1 trillion in 2026 is the company’s current crown jewel: Starlink.
There could be more than one billion Starlink subscribers in 2040, Morgan Stanley’s analysts estimated in October, with the unit potentially accounting for nearly three-quarters of SpaceX’s roughly $122 billion in projected sales by that time.
The fast-growing unit makes up the majority of SpaceX’s current sales, and its potential as a mobile network provider is already setting it up to take on a legacy industry similar to how Musk’s Tesla Inc. tackled the auto business.
The company has a partnership with T-Mobile US Inc. to provide satellite service to cell phone users in remote areas. It is set to increase its direct-to-mobile capacity by more than 100 times thanks in part to spectrum deals struck with EchoStar earlier this year, enabling full 5G cellular connectivity, Morgan Stanley analysts led by Adam Jonas, a long-time Musk bull, wrote in September.
The amount of spectrum in the EchoStar transaction wouldn’t be enough to provide a disruptive, competitive mobile service, Citigroup Inc. analyst Michael Rollins said in September.
For now, Starlink’s ambition to cross-sell existing carriers would offer lucrative sales opportunities without the investment burden of competing with them directly, according to Morgan Stanley.
Eventually, Starlink could “theoretically beam into every cell phone on planet Earth,” resulting in an “almost an unlimited total addressable market,” said Ali Javaheri, an emerging technology analyst at PitchBook, in an interview.
Investors are similarly bullish on the company’s near-monopoly on the business of sending things to space, counting NASA and the US Department of Defense among its customers. Even AST SpaceMobile Inc., an upstart rival to Starlink, relies on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets to get its satellites in orbit.
Despite that dominance, Morgan Stanley believes launch will account for less revenue in the coming decades. The company’s developmental Starship rocket will eventually take the baton for launches from the Falcon 9. Musk promises it will do everything from launching satellites to shuttling people to the moon — which NASA has awarded SpaceX contracts worth roughly $4 billion to do.
SpaceX’s current dominance of internet from low-Earth orbit and the launch business, paired with dreams of data centers in space and frequent trips to Mars, could make the timing of an IPO “as good as it gets,” according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst George Ferguson.
That’s not necessarily an endorsement.
Frothy Market
Ferguson expects competition to grow, and pointed to Blue Origin LLC, the company founded and bankrolled by Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, among the companies that could see success in the coming years to close the gap.
By that logic, there’s no time like the present for a public listing.
“The more you sit on it, the more other companies can build, have success launching into space, and the less people will value you as if you’re a one of a kind company,” Ferguson said in an interview.
SpaceX’s leadership in space, in an environment where “valuation sensitivity is not high,” means the company will have “a significant amount of latitude” to live up to expectations as a publicly listed company, said Evelyn Chow, portfolio manager of Neuberger Berman’s Next-Gen Space Economy strategy.
It would need a lot.
A massive IPO is designed to fund the development of Musk’s plan for space-based data centers, as Bloomberg reported. That wouldn’t assuage practical concerns raised by Morgan Stanley analysts, who caveated the list of potential benefits such as the low temperatures in space and abundant solar power, with challenges that include maintenance in orbit and radiation requiring specialized hardware.
Market timing could also work against a listing, especially if institutional investor concern around potential overspending on AI gets more serious.
Aviation analyst Rob Stallard sees SpaceX’s IPO calculation as a “sure sign that the equity market is frothy.” With its expected $15 billion in sales this year, a $1.5 trillion valuation would add up to “a mere” 100 times revenue, Stallard said.
Even at the $800 billion valuation being weighed in SpaceX’s latest insider share sale, the company would be larger than the combined market caps of the six largest US defense firms, and would trail just 12 members of the S&P 500 Index, Morgan Stanley said.
“Valuation is subjective, unless you’ve got a voting public that determines your price,” said Chris Quilty, co-CEO and president of Quilty Space, a space research firm. While SpaceX’s board is nominally choosing the target, “In essence, one person, Elon Musk, could set that valuation.”
Indeed, as with all of his ventures, valuation discussions ultimately lead back to the founder himself. Some see it as the ultimate key man risk; PitchBook’s Javaheri called Musk’s track record of building successful companies the “Elon premium”.
Regardless of the sum-of-the-parts model analysts use to estimate the fair value for SpaceX, the lack of direct rivals — and the Elon factor — will make any valuation “hard for investors to wrap their heads around,” according to Irving Investors’ Abelson. That ambiguity can work to the company’s advantage.
“What better time to go to market with this, at a time when you don’t know if data centers in space work, you don’t know if you can mine the moon, a trip to Mars seems possible?” said Bloomberg Intelligence’s Ferguson.
“There’s no better time than now, when there are all of these possibilities.”
--With assistance from Ed Ludlow.
©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Elon Musk's SpaceX to raise over $25 billion in blockbuster 2026 IPO, source says
REUTERS
December 10, 2025
By Echo Wang, Manya Saini and Juby Babu
Dec 10 (Reuters) - Elon Musk's SpaceX is looking to raise more than $25 billion through an initial public offering in 2026, a move that could boost the rocket-maker's valuation to over $1 trillion, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.
The company's move towards a public listing, which could rank among the largest global IPOs, has been largely driven by the rapid expansion of its Starlink satellite internet business, including plans for direct-to-mobile service and progress in its Starship rocket program for moon and Mars missions.
SpaceX has started discussions with banks about launching the offering around June or July, the person said, requesting anonymity to discuss confidential information.
The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Talks over a listing plan are unfolding against the backdrop of a resurgence in the IPO market in 2025 after a three-year dry spell.
Wall Street's top executives expect the momentum to carry into 2026, turbocharged by a pipeline of high-profile companies preparing to test investor demand.
"SpaceX represents one of the most exciting opportunities in the global IPO market and has been on the dream-list of several investors for years," Samuel Kerr, head of equity capital markets at Mergermarket told Reuters.
"It is a genuine growth industry, with space technology seen as a key frontier in both defense, satellite proliferation and in tech infrastructure in general the growth of orbital data centers."
BLOCKBUSTER LISTING
Several big startups have stayed private for longer and continued to raise capital in private markets, and a listing from a company like SpaceX could prompt more of them to move toward public offerings.
SpaceX ranks as the world's second most-valuable private startup after ChatGPT maker OpenAI, according to data from Crunchbase. OpenAI and rival Anthropic are also reportedly in talks for an IPO next year.
"If all these deals come through the U.S. IPO market will experience a genuine revival, the green shoots of which have already been seen this year," Kerr said.
The news of the potential IPO comes days after a media report that said SpaceX is kicking off a secondary share sale that would value the rocket-maker at $800 billion. However, Musk dismissed the report, calling it inaccurate.
Saudi Aramco is the only completed IPO to achieve a more than $1 trillion valuation. The state-owned petroleum and natural gas giant debuted in December 2019 with an estimated market capitalization of $1.7 trillion.
SpaceX expects to use funds from the public listing to develop space-based data centers, including purchasing the chips required to run them, according to Bloomberg News, which was first to report the potential terms of the offering.
SPACE RACE
Several billionaires and private firms are fueling a new space race in the U.S., pouring money into rockets, satellites and lunar missions, including SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin.
With NASA relying more on commercial partnerships and defense spending rising, the space industry is becoming a high-stakes arena for technological dominance, national security and economic opportunity.
Still, questions about Musk's ability to run multiple listed companies valued at more than $1 trillion could keep investors cautious, analysts said.
"SpaceX could be one of the most divisive stocks to join the market in years," Dan Coatsworth, head of markets at AJ Bell told Reuters.
"If SpaceX did float, expect growing pressure on Musk to commit to only one of his listed entities – Tesla or SpaceX. It's hard to see how one individual could run two $1 trillion+ companies at the same time."
(Reporting by Echo Wang in New York, Juby Babu in Mexico City and Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel and Arun Koyyur)
Elon Musk reportedly plans massive IPO for SpaceX. Here’s what that means
Chris Isidore, Jackie Wattles, CNN
December 10, 2025
Elon Musk is reportedly considering a public offering for SpaceX. - Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
Elon Musk, already the world’s richest man, could soon be much richer. Bloomberg reports he’s planning one of the largest initial public offerings in history for SpaceX.
Musk’s space company plans to raise $30 billion next year, Bloomberg reported, and an IPO could value the company at up to $1.5 trillion. SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment on the report.
SpaceX has not had any trouble raising money despite being privately-held. But the ability to sell public shares could increase the cash flow into a company with ambitious, and exorbitantly expensive, plans.
A Wall Street debut would give Musk the added benefit of increasing his already massive wealth. However, it would also bring outside scrutiny to how SpaceX conducts business, something that has rankled Musk during his time running Tesla.
What does Elon Musk stand to gain?
The money raised would go to the company, not to Musk. But given that he reportedly owns nearly half the company’s shares, it would significantly increase his net worth.
A publicly-traded SpaceX means Musk could more easily borrow against the value of his stake in the company, as he has with his Tesla holdings. That frees up tax-free cash for his various endeavors.
According to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Tracker, Musk currently has a net worth of $461 billion with most of that due to his Tesla shares and options. If SpaceX is worth $1.5 trillion, that net worth could more than double, according to Bloomberg.
Why does it need to go public?
SpaceX is at an inflection point. It has cornered most of the market for astronaut and satellite launches. And its constellation of Starlink microsatellites has turned the company into a major internet service provider.
Elon Musk, already the world’s richest man, could soon be much richer. Bloomberg reports he’s planning one of the largest initial public offerings in history for SpaceX.
Musk’s space company plans to raise $30 billion next year, Bloomberg reported, and an IPO could value the company at up to $1.5 trillion. SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment on the report.
SpaceX has not had any trouble raising money despite being privately-held. But the ability to sell public shares could increase the cash flow into a company with ambitious, and exorbitantly expensive, plans.
A Wall Street debut would give Musk the added benefit of increasing his already massive wealth. However, it would also bring outside scrutiny to how SpaceX conducts business, something that has rankled Musk during his time running Tesla.
What does Elon Musk stand to gain?
The money raised would go to the company, not to Musk. But given that he reportedly owns nearly half the company’s shares, it would significantly increase his net worth.
A publicly-traded SpaceX means Musk could more easily borrow against the value of his stake in the company, as he has with his Tesla holdings. That frees up tax-free cash for his various endeavors.
According to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Tracker, Musk currently has a net worth of $461 billion with most of that due to his Tesla shares and options. If SpaceX is worth $1.5 trillion, that net worth could more than double, according to Bloomberg.
Why does it need to go public?
SpaceX is at an inflection point. It has cornered most of the market for astronaut and satellite launches. And its constellation of Starlink microsatellites has turned the company into a major internet service provider.
SpaceX's heavy Starship rocket makes a test flight in October. - Eric Gay/AP
More capital could help the company reach its more ambitious goals. (Even if its ultimate goal, a colony on Mars, proves to be technologically and economically prohibitive.)
SpaceX’s next generation of heavy rocket, dubbed “Starship” by the company, is a radical new approach to reaching outer space. But its still in development – and the rocket has suffered a number of mishaps and explosions during testing that have cast doubt on Musk’s ambitious timelines.
Going public would also allow current investors to cash out their stake in the company at a profit.
More capital could help the company reach its more ambitious goals. (Even if its ultimate goal, a colony on Mars, proves to be technologically and economically prohibitive.)
SpaceX’s next generation of heavy rocket, dubbed “Starship” by the company, is a radical new approach to reaching outer space. But its still in development – and the rocket has suffered a number of mishaps and explosions during testing that have cast doubt on Musk’s ambitious timelines.
Going public would also allow current investors to cash out their stake in the company at a profit.
Who is invested in SpaceX?
SpaceX’s business has drawn a wide spectrum of major investors, including Google parent Alphabet, financial giants such as Fidelity Investments, and prominent venture capital firms such as the Founders Fund, Sequoia Capital, Valor Equity Partners, and Andreessen Horowitz.
The company has raised $10 billion in funding already, according to Pitchbook. And any time it’s raised funds, it’s had more people clamoring to give it money than it needs.
Why is SpaceX believed to be so valuable?
Unlike most other space companies, SpaceX has a positive cash flow, according to the most recent tweets from Musk.
Musk said the Starlink business provides most of the company’s current revenue. But it also has multibillion-dollar contracts to service the International Space Station as well as carry astronauts to the moon under NASA’s program.
Starship has suffered several explosive setbacks during uncrewed test flights in 2025. However, if successful, Starship is expected to underpin SpaceX’s Mars ambitions, which include establishing a permanent settlement on the planet. Starship could also slash the price of carrying a kilogram of cargo to space by orders of magnitude.
Are there drawbacks to going public?
Yes. And no one has been more focused on those downsides than Musk.
Going public could put investor pressure on the company’s capital-intensive plans, which might not produce a return on any investment for years to come, if at all.
It also means greater oversight from the public, and scrutiny from regulators such as the Security and Exchange Commission, which Musk has battled with in the past. This is evident in how he’s responded to scrutiny of Tesla. In 2018, Musk proposed taking Tesla private once again, a move he eventually abandoned.
Musk has also regularly battled some investor groups. That includes analysts and short sellers (who make money by betting a stock will decline) as well with firms that advise institutional shareholders. He recently called such research firms “corporate terrorists.”
Musk Confirms SpaceX Is Preparing for an IPO
Moz Farooque ACCA
December 11, 2025
This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla (TSLA, Financials) and SpaceX, has confirmed what many investors have been wondering about for months: SpaceX is indeed moving toward an IPO. The acknowledgement came casually on X, where Musk replied to a post from Ars Technica's Eric Berger with, As usual, Eric is accurate. With that short comment, he essentially gave the strongest signal yet that the company is laying the groundwork to go public.
Is TSLA fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator.
Musk didn't commit to a date, but the consensus view points to 2026. SpaceX's momentum from Starlink's expanding subscriber base to ongoing Starship development has only fueled expectations that the company could debut with a massive valuation. Some analysts think it could eventually reach the trillion-dollar mark, thanks to recurring revenue from satellite broadband and the growing demand for space infrastructure.
Musk also said that he is looking at options for Tesla stockholders to buy SpaceX shares when it goes public. The details aren't apparent yet, but the statement makes it seem like he's thinking about ways to thank long-time investors who have backed him in a number of businesses.
Now that Musk has publicly confirmed the plan, the attention switches to time and structure. Will SpaceX's public debut change the space sector in the same way that Tesla's debut changed the electric vehicle market.
SpaceX May Launch IPO Market To The Moon
Photo via SpaceX
Brian Boyle
December 10, 2025
Elon Musk once promised that SpaceX wouldn’t go public until it delivered humans to Mars (lest pesky shareholders prioritize short-term profits over the long-term project of Martian colonization). The Red Planet must be within shouting distance, judging by the financial buzz. No, turns out it’s a lot easier to land on the S&P 500 these days than on Mars, so why wait?
On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that Musk’s aerospace company is moving ahead with plans to raise $30 billion for an initial public offering at an out-of-this-world valuation of $1.5 trillion, with a countdown clock set for mid- to late 2026. And while it may not be on course for Mars, the SpaceX rocket ship might yet deliver next year’s IPO market to a whole new stratosphere.
Reach For The Stars
SpaceX’s potential monster IPO would come after what has been a remarkable rebound year for public listings. Per another Bloomberg analysis published Wednesday, US IPO volume (not including SPACs and closed-end funds) is set to surpass $40 billion this year once medical supply company MedLine prices its IPO next week, easily besting last year’s total. Dealmakers on Wall Street are already preparing for an even bigger 2026. “The velocity of IPO pitch activity is overwhelming, in a good way, across every industry,” Jim Cooney, Bank of America’s head of Americas equity capital markets, told Bloomberg.
Already likely on deck for next year are names such as defense contractor York Space Systems and insurance firm Ethos Technologies, as well as crypto exchange Kraken and construction rental company EquipmentShare. But those names would be easily eclipsed by SpaceX, officially the world’s most valuable private company once again after a recent secondary share sale that valued the company at $800 million. And it may be one of a handful of shooting stars to go public next year:
Joining SpaceX, of course, might be the world’s second-most-valuable private company, OpenAI, which is similarly eying a $1 trillion valuation. (The difference between SpaceX and OpenAI? SpaceX claims to have been cash flow positive for several years now.)
Other “centicorns,” or private companies valued at $100 billion or more, possibly making public market debuts next year include Anthropic, ByteDance, DataBricks and Stripe; for reference, the median market cap of an S&P 500 company is about $40 billion. Per Bloomberg calculations, Wall Street could soon usher some $2.9 trillion worth of private companies into public markets.
Two Tickets to Paradise: While Musk may not have a ticket to Mars yet, a SpaceX IPO would be a second ticket to becoming the world’s first trillionaire. The first, of course, is Musk’s recently secured and first-of-its-kind 12-figure pay package at Tesla, which requires the company to reach some moonshot sales goals. Take it as a valuable lesson: Shoot for the moon, twice if you can, for even if you miss, you’ll land atop the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
This post first appeared on The Daily Upside.
Elon Musk's SpaceX chases a $1.5 trillion IPO
Quartz · Photo by Paul Hennesy/Anadolu via Getty Images
Shannon Carroll
December 10, 2025
Elon Musk is getting ready to see how much public investors will pay for his literal moonshots.
SpaceX is working toward a mid- to late-2026 IPO that, according to Bloomberg, could raise significantly more than $30 billion at a valuation of about $1.5 trillion. If bankers hit those numbers, it would be the biggest stock-market debut on record, leapfrogging Saudi Aramco’s roughly $29 billion listing in 2019 and dropping a rocket company straight into the same valuation airspace as Meta or Amazon.
The deal would bring the entire SpaceX machine — rockets, Starlink satellites, a growing defense business, plus a slate of off-world infrastructure projects — onto public markets in one shot, not just the Starlink unit Musk once dangled as a standalone IPO after its cash flow turned “predictable.” Analysts and bankers are modeling revenue of around $15 billion in 2025 and $22 billion to $24 billion in 2026, with Starlink doing most of the work, which means investors would be paying something like 60 to 70 times next year’s sales for a company that still blows up prototypes on livestreams.
SpaceX’s pitch is that this is no ordinary industrial listing. A chunk of the IPO cash is reportedly earmarked for space-based data centers and the chips to run them — essentially turning low-Earth orbit into a cloud region — on top of funding Starship, more Starlink launches, and presumably some classified work that keeps the Pentagon on speed dial. All of that makes for a seductive growth story if you believe in off-planet infrastructure... and a very expensive science project if you don’t.
In 2013, Musk told his social media followers there were “no near term plans” to IPO SpaceX and that any listing was “only possible in [the] very long term when Mars Colonial Transporter is flying regularly.” Five years later, company president Gwynne Shotwell was still saying, “We can’t go public until we’re flying regularly to Mars.” Well, then.
Private markets have been rehearsing this moment for a while. A tender offer in late 2023 valued SpaceX at about $175 billion; by the end of 2024, an insider share sale had pushed that figure to roughly $350 billion, making it — at the time — the world’s most valuable startup on paper. (OpenAI briefly leapfrogged SpaceX.) The Wall Street Journal then reported talks around a secondary sale at an $800 billion valuation, which would have made SpaceX the most richly priced private company in the U.S.; Musk fired back on X that those fundraising reports were “not accurate” and pointed instead to years of positive cash flow and regular buybacks to give employees liquidity. And now: over $1 trillion.
Public investors would be buying into a company that already launches more than 80% of global payload weight, runs a fast-growing satellite internet service, and sits at the center of U.S. space and defense strategy — and whose CEO is simultaneously running Tesla, X, xAI, and a live feed of his own impulses. A blockbuster IPO at this scale wouldn’t just raise capital for rockets and data centers; it would lock in another gigantic public-market currency that Musk can use as a lever against everything else he touches. Oh, and a successful listing at a $1.5 trillion marker would more than double Musk’s already staggering net worth and hand him a second mega-cap stock to wield alongside Tesla.
If SpaceX does ring the bell in 2026, the story investors are buying is a record-scale space-and-infrastructure bet valued somewhere north of $1 trillion — plus a fresh test of how much volatility they’re still willing to underwrite from Musk.
December 10, 2025
Elon Musk is getting ready to see how much public investors will pay for his literal moonshots.
SpaceX is working toward a mid- to late-2026 IPO that, according to Bloomberg, could raise significantly more than $30 billion at a valuation of about $1.5 trillion. If bankers hit those numbers, it would be the biggest stock-market debut on record, leapfrogging Saudi Aramco’s roughly $29 billion listing in 2019 and dropping a rocket company straight into the same valuation airspace as Meta or Amazon.
The deal would bring the entire SpaceX machine — rockets, Starlink satellites, a growing defense business, plus a slate of off-world infrastructure projects — onto public markets in one shot, not just the Starlink unit Musk once dangled as a standalone IPO after its cash flow turned “predictable.” Analysts and bankers are modeling revenue of around $15 billion in 2025 and $22 billion to $24 billion in 2026, with Starlink doing most of the work, which means investors would be paying something like 60 to 70 times next year’s sales for a company that still blows up prototypes on livestreams.
SpaceX’s pitch is that this is no ordinary industrial listing. A chunk of the IPO cash is reportedly earmarked for space-based data centers and the chips to run them — essentially turning low-Earth orbit into a cloud region — on top of funding Starship, more Starlink launches, and presumably some classified work that keeps the Pentagon on speed dial. All of that makes for a seductive growth story if you believe in off-planet infrastructure... and a very expensive science project if you don’t.
In 2013, Musk told his social media followers there were “no near term plans” to IPO SpaceX and that any listing was “only possible in [the] very long term when Mars Colonial Transporter is flying regularly.” Five years later, company president Gwynne Shotwell was still saying, “We can’t go public until we’re flying regularly to Mars.” Well, then.
Private markets have been rehearsing this moment for a while. A tender offer in late 2023 valued SpaceX at about $175 billion; by the end of 2024, an insider share sale had pushed that figure to roughly $350 billion, making it — at the time — the world’s most valuable startup on paper. (OpenAI briefly leapfrogged SpaceX.) The Wall Street Journal then reported talks around a secondary sale at an $800 billion valuation, which would have made SpaceX the most richly priced private company in the U.S.; Musk fired back on X that those fundraising reports were “not accurate” and pointed instead to years of positive cash flow and regular buybacks to give employees liquidity. And now: over $1 trillion.
Public investors would be buying into a company that already launches more than 80% of global payload weight, runs a fast-growing satellite internet service, and sits at the center of U.S. space and defense strategy — and whose CEO is simultaneously running Tesla, X, xAI, and a live feed of his own impulses. A blockbuster IPO at this scale wouldn’t just raise capital for rockets and data centers; it would lock in another gigantic public-market currency that Musk can use as a lever against everything else he touches. Oh, and a successful listing at a $1.5 trillion marker would more than double Musk’s already staggering net worth and hand him a second mega-cap stock to wield alongside Tesla.
If SpaceX does ring the bell in 2026, the story investors are buying is a record-scale space-and-infrastructure bet valued somewhere north of $1 trillion — plus a fresh test of how much volatility they’re still willing to underwrite from Musk.
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