Why SpaceX Is Finally Gearing Up to Go Public

SpaceX is planning To raise tens of billions of dollars through an initial public offering next year, multiple outlets have reported, and Ars can confirm this. This reflects a major change in the thinking of the world’s leading space company and its founder Elon Musk.

The Wall Street Journal and The Information first reported about the potential IPO last Friday, and then on Tuesday evening Bloomberg released a report suggesting the company would aim for a valuation of $1.5 trillion. This would allow SpaceX to raise more than $30 billion.

This is a huge amount of money. The largest IPO in history occurred in 2019, when the state-owned Saudi Arabian oil company began publicly trading as Aramco and raised $29 billion. Aramco is one of the top five companies in the world in terms of revenue.

Now SpaceX is poised to potentially equal or exceed this value. It’s no surprise that SpaceX would be attractive to public investors – it’s the world’s leading space company in launches, space-based communications and more. For investors seeking unlimited growth, space is the final frontier.

But why would Musk take SpaceX public now, at a time when the company’s revenues are rising due to the growth of Starlink Internet Group? The decision is surprising as Musk has long resisted going public with SpaceX. He has not enjoyed the public scrutiny of Tesla, and he fears that shareholder desires for financial returns were not in line with their ultimate goal of colonizing Mars.

data centers

Ars spoke to several people familiar with Musk and his thinking to understand why he wants to take SpaceX public.

A significant change in recent years has been the rise of artificial intelligence, in which Musk has been involved since 2015, when he founded OpenAI. He later had a falling out with his co-founders and started his own company, xAI, in 2023. At Tesla, he is advancing smart-driving technology and has recently focused on robotics. Musk sees the integration of these technologies in the near future, which he believes will profoundly change civilization.

Raising a large amount of money over the next 18 months will provide Musk with significant capital to deploy at SpaceX as he influences and participates in this convergence of technology.

How can SpaceX play in this space? In the near term, the company plans to develop a modified version of the Starlink satellite to serve as a foundation for building data centers in space. Musk said on his owned social media network X in late October: “SpaceX will do it.”