Elon Musk has reportedly taken the first step towards taking his space tech firm SpaceX public. The billionaire tech mogul has confidentially filed for an IPO with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) — targetting to raise up to $75 billion to $80 billion. The IPO is likely to be scheduled for June which will bring SpaceX ahead of OpenAI and Anthropic in the public listing race.
After Musk merged his AI startup xAI with SpaceX in February this year, the private valuation of the combined entity hit an estimated $1.25 trillion. After the IPO, however, Musk is looking to spike this figure to a whopping $1.75 trillion, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday citing sources familiar with the matter.
If the target is achieved, SpaceX could become one of the most valuable companies in the world. As per reports, the Musk’s confidential filing with the SEC was completed this week, however, no confirmation on the same has made it to public forums as of press time.
Musk has been talking about building bases and AI data centres on the Moon and Mars in the coming future. Reports predict that high valuation target could be aimed at funding these ambitious projects that the Tesla founder seems to be working on.
On Tuesday, Musk did shut down rumors suggesting that SpaceX was considering the exclusion of Robinhood and SoFi from its IPO.
SpaceX’s fleet of Falcon 9 rockets has been lifting satellites and people into orbits. The company has also established a stronghold as an internet service provider with its Starlink satellites.
Bloomberg Intelligence estimates that SpaceX’s rocket launch programme and Starlink services are likely to fetch upto $20 billion in revenue this year. xAI is also expected to generate upto $1 billion.
As per reports, SpaceX is looking to offer its shares in a dual-class structure. This could result in Musk retaining major voting control over the company despite it going public. The filing also reportedly indicates that Musk may reserve a notable chunk of the IPO shares for retail investors.
Owing to the confidential nature of the filing, the SEC could respond with a feedback or amendment suggestions before the details are made public.
With this, xAI will secure space among the first AI firms to have gone public. As of now, neither OpenAI nor Anthropic have taken concrete steps to start their IPO processes.
OpenAI recently did rope-in $122 billion in a private funding round that drew funds from SoftBank, Amazon, and Nvidia among others.