Why It Matters
The SpaceX initial public offering represents a landmark moment for U.S. capital markets and the commercial space industry. At a $1.77 trillion valuation, the company would immediately rank as the seventh most-valuable publicly traded firm in the United States — and the offering itself is roughly three times larger than any previous U.S. IPO on record.
The listing also arrives as the artificial intelligence sector pushes toward public markets, with OpenAI and Anthropic both having filed confidentially for their own IPOs, signaling a broader wave of high-profile technology listings that investors are watching closely.
What Happened
SpaceX, the rocket and satellite company founded by Elon Musk in 2002, is selling 555.6 million shares at $135 per share in what would generate $75 billion in total IPO proceeds. The company’s Nasdaq debut is scheduled for Friday.
Goldman Sachs is serving as the lead banker on the offering, with Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase also participating. Musk, 54, retains more than 82% of the company’s voting power. His stake in SpaceX is valued at approximately $866.5 billion — a figure that dwarfs even his $320 billion position in Tesla, which he took public 16 years ago.
By the Numbers
SpaceX posted $4.69 billion in revenue during the first quarter of this year, a 15% increase from $4.07 billion in the same period a year earlier. Full-year revenue reached $18.67 billion, reflecting 33% growth year over year.
The financial picture carries significant complexity, however. The company reported a net loss of $4.28 billion in its most recent quarter, following a $4.94 billion net loss in 2025. Capital expenditures hit $10.1 billion in the first quarter alone, with $7.7 billion of that tied to artificial intelligence infrastructure costs. Since its founding, SpaceX has accumulated a cumulative deficit of $41.3 billion.
Starlink, the company’s satellite broadband service, is currently its only profitable business segment. The xAI artificial intelligence division — which merged with SpaceX in February — adds scale but also cost.
Wall Street Reaction
Analysts moved quickly to establish coverage ahead of the debut. Oppenheimer initiated with an outperform rating and a 12-to-18-month price target of $190, implying roughly 40% upside from the $135 IPO price. Analyst Timothy Horan described SpaceX as the “only vertically-integrated AI company with required capital, data, LLMs, hardware, manufacturing and engineering talent,” and said the firm sees potential for the company to use its computing infrastructure as a cost and scale advantage in AI.
New Street Research set a price target of $165 and valued the xAI unit alone at $575 billion — a figure that underscores how heavily analysts are weighting the AI division’s long-term potential despite its early-stage losses.
Zoom Out
The SpaceX listing is the most consequential technology IPO in years and arrives during a period of renewed investor appetite for large-cap tech. Software stocks recorded their best monthly performance since 2001 earlier this year as concerns about AI-driven disruption gave way to optimism about AI-enabled earnings growth. SpaceX’s debut is likely to test whether that optimism extends to capital-intensive space and AI infrastructure businesses still generating substantial losses.
The sheer scale of the offering — three times larger than the previous record U.S. IPO — also raises questions about market absorption and whether demand from institutional investors can sustain the valuation at or above the offering price in early trading.
What’s Next
Trading is expected to begin on the Nasdaq on Friday. Market participants will be watching whether shares open at a premium to the $135 IPO price and how volatility plays out in the days following the debut. Musk’s dominant voting position means that despite the public listing, operational and strategic control of the company remains firmly concentrated with its founder. Future milestones will likely include updates on Starlink’s subscriber growth and the pace of xAI integration costs, which investors will use to gauge the path toward profitability.