Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) boosted its target initial public offering (IPO) valuation above US$2 trillion, according to people familiar with the matter, as the world’s most valuable start-up gears up to pitch potentially the biggest-ever market debut.
Billionaire Elon Musk’s rocket, satellite and artificial intelligence (AI) company and its advisers are floating the figure to prospective investors, the people said, ahead of meetings in the coming weeks.
At more than US$2 trillion, SpaceX’s valuation would increase by about two-thirds in a matter of months. The company’s acquisition of Musk’s xAI valued the combined company at US$1.25 trillion.
Photo: Getty Images via AFP
It would also be bigger than all but five of the companies in the S&P 500 Index — Nvidia Corp, Apple Inc, Alphabet Inc, Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc. It would be larger by that metric than Meta Platforms Inc and Musk’s own Tesla Inc, the two other members of the so-called “Magnificent Seven” stocks.
SpaceX has filed confidentially for an IPO that could take place in June. The listing would make SpaceX the first of a potential trio of mega-IPOs, followed by OpenAI and Anthropic PBC, whose chatbots are rivals to SpaceX subsidiary xAI’s Grok.
Deliberations are ongoing and details of the offering could still change, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is not public.
A representative for SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A listing for SpaceX would raise as much as US$75 billion. At that size, it would dwarf the biggest ever IPO — Saudi Arabian Oil Co’s US$29 billion debut in 2019. The company would use the funds to finance Musk’s vision of AI data centers in space and a factory on the moon.
The billionaire’s grand plans would require unprecedented amounts of capital, and resources that span several of the companies he controls.
Musk said last month that his Terafab project, which would eventually manufacture his own chips for robotics, AI and space data centers, would be jointly run by Tesla and SpaceX.
SpaceX has picked Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Morgan Stanley for senior roles on the IPO, and has added more banks to the lineup, people familiar with the matter have said.
The company has lined up a call with the broader bank syndicate today, and there is expected to be an analyst briefing later this month, a person familiar with the matter said.
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