SpaceX to pursue 2026 IPO raising far above $30 billion
SpaceX is moving forward with plans for an initial public offering that aims to raise more than $30 billion in a transaction that would be the largest listing of all time, people familiar with the matter said.
The Elon Musk-led company is targeting a valuation of around $1.5 trillion for the entire company; That would leave SpaceX close to the market value set by Saudi Aramco during its record listing in 2019. The oil giant raised $29 billion in that period.
Some of the people, who declined to give their names because the matter is confidential, said SpaceX management and advisors are pursuing a listing in mid- or late 2026. The timing of the IPO could change depending on market conditions and other factors, and one of the people said the timing could slip as late as 2027.
A representative for SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bloomberg and other media outlets reported Friday that SpaceX is exploring a possible IPO late next year. Musk and the company’s board of directors developed plans for listing and fundraising, including hiring for key roles and how to spend capital, in recent days as SpaceX accelerated its latest share sale to insiders, one of the sources said.
SpaceX’s faster path to public markets is due in part to the strength of its fast-growing Starlink satellite internet service, including the development of the Starship satellite and Mars rocket, as well as the promise of direct mobile business.
One of the sources said the company is expected to generate approximately $15 billion in revenue in 2025, a figure that will rise to between $22 billion and $24 billion in 2026, with the majority of sales coming from Starlink.
SpaceX expects to use some of the funds raised in the IPO to develop space-based data centers, including purchasing the chips needed to run them, two people said; It’s an idea Musk expressed interest in at a recent event with Baron Capital, the two people said.
In the current secondary offering, SpaceX set its price per share at around $420, people familiar with the discussions said, pushing its valuation above a previously reported $800 billion. The company has allowed employees to sell about $2 billion worth of shares and SpaceX will participate in some share buybacks, two of the sources said.
The valuation strategy is designed to bring the company’s fair market valuation in line with the lead-up to an IPO, one of the people added.
“SpaceX has had a positive cash flow for many years and conducts periodic share repurchases twice a year to provide liquidity to employees and investors,” Musk said in a Dec. 6 post on social media platform X.
“Valuation increases are a function of the progress made with Starship and Starlink and securing global direct-to-cell spectrum, which greatly increases our addressable market,” he said.
SpaceX executives have repeatedly floated the idea of spinning off its Starlink business into a separate, publicly traded company; it was a concept Mayor Gwynne Shotwell first proposed in 2020.
But Musk has cast doubt on the timing over the years, with Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen saying a Starlink IPO in 2024 would be something more likely to happen “in the coming years.”
SpaceX’s largest long-term investors are venture firms such as Peter Thiel’s Founder’s Fund, 137 Ventures led by Justin Fishner-Wolfson, and Valor Equity Partners. Fidelity is also a major investor, as is Alphabet Inc.’s Google.
If SpaceX sold 5 percent of the company at this valuation, it would have to sell $40 billion worth of shares; This amounts to the largest IPO of all time; This is well above Saudi Aramco’s nearly $29 billion IPO in 2019. This company sold only 1.5 percent of the property in this offering; That’s a much smaller slice than what the majority of publicly traded companies offer.
