SpaceX is worth $800 billion, report says. This is only the beginning.

On Friday, Bloomberg reported that SpaceX had completed a second stock sale valuing the startup at about $800 billion, citing a company filing. The report stated that the price of the secondary IPO was $421 per share; That was up from July’s price of about $212 in private market trading.

SpaceX did not immediately respond to Barron’s request for comment.

The $800 billion figure would put SpaceX’s valuation above that of OpenAI as well as TikTok’s parent company ByteDance.

SpaceX is the dominant provider of space launch services, accounting for more than half of global orbital launches. But much of its value is tied to Starlink, the profitable space-based broadband service that now has more than 8 million customers, up from about 5 million a year ago.

Beyond Starlink, investors are excited about the potential of AI data centers in space after CEO Elon Musk recently tweeted about the idea. Data centers could run on solar energy and offer a lower-cost way to develop AI applications. SpaceX has launch capacity and the ability to quickly scale facilities through satellite manufacturing. Musk brings his own AI expertise from overseeing his own startup xAI.

AI data centers in space would also offer a way to connect xAI, which owns social media platform X, with Musk-led Tesla. Tesla is embedding artificial intelligence into machines, including robotaxis, and will eventually embed the technology into humanoid robots. Musk’s xAI is developing artificial intelligence agents like Grok, which competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives believes Musk’s companies will eventually invest in each other. One way this could happen is through SpaceX’s IPO, which is expected to happen in 2026 at a valuation of up to $1.5 trillion, thanks to another tweet from Musk. This figure would make it one of the largest IPOs in history.

Before that happens, Echostar remains one of the best ways to access SpaceX shares regardless of IPO timing. The satellite communications company made about $11.1 billion from shares of SpaceX by selling Musk’s rocket company wireless spectrum. That’s 52 million shares, currently worth about $22 billion at July prices.

Echostar shares gained nearly 44% in Friday trading, adding $9.5 billion to its market value since initial reports of an $800 billion valuation were published about a week ago. This falls short of the $11.1 billion valuation gain, and Echostar shares appear unresponsive to the $1.5 trillion IPO valuation potential.

However, the values ​​between Echostar shares and SpaceX do not have to be exactly aligned. There are factors to consider, including tax efficiency and investors holding Echostar have different exposure to SpaceX than if they own SpaceX. Still, tracking Echostar’s value is a good way to understand what the market thinks about one of the world’s most valuable and most followed private companies.

SpaceX’s $800 billion valuation would increase Musk’s wealth by approximately $160 billion. He owns about 40% of the company, although exact details have not been made public.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com