Why SpaceX Is Finally Gearing Up to Go Public

SpaceX plans to raise tens of billions of dollars through an IPO next year, multiple media outlets have reported, and Ars can confirm. This represents a major shift in thinking for the world’s leading space company and its founder, Elon Musk.

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

This is a huge amount of funding. The largest IPO in history took place in 2019, when Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company began trading under the name Aramco and raised $29 billion. In terms of turnover, Aramco is among the top five companies in the world.

Now, SpaceX is on pace to match or exceed that value. That SpaceX is attractive to public investors is no surprise: It is the world’s dominant space company in launch, space communications and much 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 revenue is increasing thanks to the growth of the Starlink internet constellation? The decision is surprising because Musk resisted taking SpaceX public for so long. He resented the public scrutiny of Tesla and feared that shareholders’ desires for financial return were inconsistent with his ultimate goal of colonizing Mars.

Data centers

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

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

Raising large sums of money over the next 18 months would give Musk significant capital to deploy at SpaceX as it influences and participates in this technological convergence.

How can SpaceX play in this space? In the short term, the company plans to develop a modified version of the Starlink satellite to serve as a basis for building data centers in space. Musk said it on the social network he owns, X, at the end of October: “SpaceX is going to do this.”