- SpaceX filed for an IPO expected to raise $75 billion at a $1.75 trillion valuation
- The IPO filing warns of risks from nascent technologies that may not become viable
- SpaceX aims for Mars settlement with one million inhabitants as a long-term goal
Tech billionaire Elon Musk filed papers for the upcoming initial public offering of his rocket and satellite giant SpaceX, which is likely to be the largest IPO in history. The blockbuster public issue is expected to raise a record $75 billion at a valuation of roughly $1.75 trillion, placing SpaceX among a handful of the world's elite kilocorn companies. Analysts reckon that the IPO filing delivers a rare mix of hard financial data and bold ambitions of exploring the frontiers of space, according to news agency Reuters.
In its filing, SpaceX acknowledged the risk, warning that many of its initiatives depend on technologies that are either nascent or do not yet exist, and may never become commercially viable. Since SpaceX has no obvious public market peer, the projections may be treated as a necessary part of the pitch rather than a flaw, according to analysts. SpaceX IPO gives Musk the power to outvote anyone else, and promising him outsize rewards, including as many as one billion shares, if he can pull it off, according to the IPO filing Wednesday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
The goals Musk, 54, would need to hit include a human settlement on Mars with at least one million inhabitants, the filing shows. Before that can happen, SpaceX is tasked with making the dream of data centers in space a reality, part of what it says is the largest total addressable market in history, at $28.5 trillion.
SpaceX had a net loss of $4.28 billion on revenue of $4.69 billion for the first quarter, compared with a net loss of $528 million on revenue of about $4 billion a year earlier, the filing shows. The Texas-based satellite company's IPO filing depicts a conglomerate with a maturity practically unheard of in a pre-IPO company, according to Bloomberg analysts.
Overall, SpaceX had $18.7 billion in revenue in 2025, up from $14 billion the previous year. During that period, the company swung from a profit of $791 million in 2024 to a loss of $4.94 billion last year, according to the filing. So far, it derives the majority of its revenue from its Starlink satellite internet business, which accounted for about two-thirds of sales in the first quarter of 2026.
Subscribers to SpaceX's Starlink internet service have roughly doubled over the past couple of years from 2.3 million in 2023 to 4.4 million in 2024 and up to 8.9 million in 2025. Income from those operations reached $4.42 billion last year, compared with $2 billion a year earlier. Though SpaceX dominates the space transportation industry, and is a key rocket launch provider for both NASA and the Pentagon, that business still loses money on an operational basis, the filing shows.
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