Eyes in the sky: SpaceX is aiming to make history on Wall Street

The initial public offering (IPO) of Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX), headed by Elon Musk, promises to be the most extraordinary ever, going by the filing last week at the United States (US) Securities and Exchange Commission. SpaceX is looking to raise around $75 billion at a valuation of $1.75 trillion-2 trillion. This will make it the largest ever initial listing in the US. SpaceX will be listed as the seventh-most valuable company on the S&P 500. If the IPO achieves its aim, it will boost Mr Musk’s personal net worth to well over $1 trillion. Much of the prospectus reads like a compilation of science-fiction themes. The mission statement is to take “the light of consciousness to the stars”, a phrase that occurs repeatedly. The prospectus speaks of mining on asteroids, manufacturing in orbit, energy production on the moon and Mars, along with transporting cargo and passengers to those celestial bodies, and setting up a one-million population colony on Mars. 

These plans require a large number of scientific and technological breakthroughs in multiple disciplines. In addition, SpaceX also owns Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) programme that powers the Chatbot in X (formerly Twitter). It owns X too. It runs the satellite internet service, Starlink, which is the core of the connectivity division. The company has different divisions. SpaceX, which would attempt to implement the futuristic ideas mentioned above, has two revenue streams. It has contracts with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) to ferry supplies and astronauts on its reusable spacecraft, and it launches satellites for various clients. The AI division (formerly another Elon Musk company, xAI) is hoping to generate significant revenues in 2026. 

The balance sheet shows $102 billion in assets and carries $60.5 billion of debt. In the 24-year history of the company, SpaceX has accumulated over $37 billion in losses. Last year (2025), SpaceX reported $18.6 billion in revenues with a net loss of $4.9 billion, even though Starlink had an operating profit of $4.3 billion. In the first quarter of 2026, SpaceX reported $4.7 billion in sales, aggregated across divisions, with a net loss of $4.3 billion. The “space” division lost $662 million on revenues of $619 million, with $930 million spent on research & development (R&D). 

SpaceX has set aside provisions of over $500 million for potential legal liabilities as it fights a long list of cases. Many of those cases were initiated by individuals whose photographs were “deepfaked” by using Grok to create pornographic content. SpaceX is also contesting claims of patent infringement, copyright infringement, and data breach, as well as being under investigation by the European Union for alleged noncompliance with content-moderation norms. The finances are, to put it politely, dreadful. Asteroid mining and colonies on Mars are decades or centuries in the future, if achievable at all. The mismatch between the valuation asked and revenues is stark. The IPO will make SpaceX the seventh-most valuable listed company in the US, while $18 billion in revenues leaves it ranked outside the top 200. But Starlink and SpaceX rockets are market leaders, and growth rates are strong. Given Mr Musk’s deeply embedded position in the tech ecosystem and his proximity to political power, he could soon become the world’s first trillionaire.