By Henry Wildes
Elon Musk-founded aerospace company SpaceX filed confidentially with the Securities and Exchange Commission last month for an initial public offering, or IPO, the first round of shares to be sold in public markets, colloquially known as “going public.” The April 1 filing puts the company on a path toward a Nasdaq listing expected in June. SpaceX is targeting a valuation of around $1.75 trillion and aims to raise approximately $75 billion, which would make it the largest IPO on record, surpassing Saudi Aramco’s $26 billion debut in 2019.
The deal, internally codenamed Project Apex, involves one of the largest underwriting syndicates assembled in recent years. These syndicates are necessary for large offerings because no single institution is willing to take on the risk of a $75 billion deal alone. For SpaceX’s IPO, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup are serving as lead bookrunners, with an additional 16 banks signed on in smaller roles, bringing the total to more than 21 institutions. Large syndicates have become more common for offerings of this scale, with ARM Holdings working with nearly 30 banks on its 2023 listing.
The timeline is fairly well-defined. At least 15 days before marketing begins, SpaceX must file its full public prospectus, or S-1. This is a document laying out a company’s financials, risks and business details for prospective investors. For a June marketing goal, that puts SpaceX’s expected filing window between May 15 and May 22. The roadshow, a series of meetings where management pitches the offering to institutional investors, is projected to begin the week of June 8, with a retail investor event scheduled for June 11. Pricing is expected the week of June 16–20, with trading beginning shortly after.
Much of the company’s $1.75 trillion target valuation rests on Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service. At the end of 2022, Starlink had 9.2 million subscribers across more than 155 countries and generated over $10 billion in revenue for the year. Total SpaceX revenue for 2025 is estimated at approximately $15 to $16 billion, with analysts at Quilty Space projecting that figure could reach $20 billion or more in 2026, driven largely by continued Starlink growth. The company has also been cash-flow positive for several years and has regularly conducted insider share sales to provide liquidity ahead of the public offering.
In February 2026, SpaceX completed an all-stock merger with xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence company, creating a combined entity initially valued at $1.25 trillion. The xAI integration contributed to a reported $5 billion net loss in 2025, and how the two businesses fit together financially will be a key question investors focus on when the company’s S-1 is released. The document is also expected to disclose in detail SpaceX’s defense contracts for the first time.
The offering has a few structural features worth noting. SpaceX is reportedly planning to allocate up to 30% of shares to retail investors (individual investors, as opposed to institutions), roughly three times the industry standard. The company is also expected to use a dual-class share structure, a setup where certain shares carry more voting power than others. This would give Musk outsized voting control relative to his economic ownership and limit the ability of outside shareholders to influence governance decisions.
Analysts have offered a range of opinions on whether SpaceX’s massive valuation is justified. Morningstar has described a more conservative pricing estimate of $1.5 trillion as risky, but not irrational. PitchBook places the fair value range between $1.1 and $1.7 trillion, noting that the case becomes easier to make over a five- to seven-year horizon as Starship, SpaceX’s next-generation rocket, commercializes and new revenue streams develop. At the high end of this possible valuation range, SpaceX would be priced at roughly 87 times its estimated 2025 revenue, a multiple that reflects extremely high expectations and leaves little room for execution shortfalls. The first post-IPO earnings report, expected in August 2026, will give investors their first look at fully audited financials and a clearer sense of whether the underlying growth assumptions are holding.
The effects of this IPO are expected to be broad. At the $1.75 trillion target valuation, SpaceX would rank among the most valuable publicly traded companies in the world. Nasdaq also recently issued rule changes that could allow the company to join the Nasdaq-100 within 15 days of listing, which would require index-tracking funds to purchase SpaceX shares to remain accurate. The resulting wave of forced buying could push the stock price higher in the days following the debut.
At the target valuation, Musk’s stake in SpaceX, combined with his holdings in Tesla and other ventures, would likely make him the first person to reach a net worth of one trillion dollars. SpaceX going public is also expected to influence the timing of other large private technology companies weighing their own listings. OpenAI and Anthropic are both reportedly targeting late 2026 offerings, and Bloomberg reported that SpaceX deliberately moved to list first, before institutional investors have to divide their capital across multiple large offerings. Whether those subsequent offerings happen on schedule will depend in part on how the SpaceX listing is received.
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