SpaceX targets biggest ever stock market debut, putting Musk on course to be trillionaire
By The Guardian, June 4, 2026SpaceX is seeking to raise about Ksh9.675 trillion ($75bn /£55bn) through its imminent stock market listing, the company has said, which would make it the largest initial public offering ever.
If the stock market launch – primed for next week – goes as planned, founder Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, could be poised to make history as the first trillionaire.
The rocket, satellite and artificial intelligence company, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp, said in a filing on Wednesday that it would sell 555.6m shares at $135 a piece.
That would give SpaceX, which is loss-making, a market value of $1.77 trillion. Only six companies in the blue chip S&P 500 stock market index are now worth more, with US semiconductor company Nvidia topping the list at $5.2 trillion.
Musk is not selling any of his shares in the SpaceX offering, and he would retain 82.4 per cent of the voting power in the company.
Forbes values Musk’s net worth at $825bn, and his stake in SpaceX at $542 billion. The South African-born billionaire also leads Tesla, the electric carmaker, as well as the social media platform X.
SpaceX is expected to have a hefty weighting in the S&P 500 due to its sheer size, which means most people with investment accounts or pension pots will be exposed to its stock market performance.
AI boom fuels IPO
The company confidentially filed to go public in April. Founded in 2002, SpaceX has been central to Musk’s ambition of building a “self-sufficient city on Mars”. Since its inception, the company has been the recipient of lucrative aerospace contracts. Nasa, for example, depends on SpaceX rockets for most of its launches.
SpaceX has also joined competitors such as Anthropic and OpenAI in the race to scale up AI technology. The company acquired Musk’s xAI in a move to build out solar-powered infrastructure that could meet the energy demands of this AI boom era.
Anthropic, known for its AI chatbot Claude, filed paperwork this week to go public. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is expected to follow suit soon. Meanwhile, Alphabet, the owner of Google, moved to raise $80bn in equity this week to fund its vast artificial intelligence infrastructure investments.
The wave of splashy IPOs and fundraising has widely been interpreted as an attempt to generate capital that will fund datacentres powering the AI technology.
A roadshow for SpaceX’s IPO is expected to start today, during which bankers helping the deal kick off will pitch the company to investors.
JP Morgan Chase boss Jamie Dimon is reportedly planning to discuss the IPO with thousands of the bank’s high net worth clients this week, according to Bloomberg.
Dimon will reportedly host a “live interactive discussion” on Thursday from JP Morgan’s headquarters, joined by Mary Callahan Erdoes, the boss of the bank’s asset and wealth management division, as well as two SpaceX executives: president Gwynne Shotwell and chief financial officer Bret Johnsen.
Space X’s listing represents a huge money-making opportunity for bankers. Last month, Goldman Sachs was selected as the lead bank for the IPO, alongside Morgan Stanley. JP Morgan, Bank of America and Citigroup are also among the 23 banks working on the listing.