SpaceX is aiming for a 2026 IPO that rises well above $30 billion

(Bloomberg) — SpaceX is moving ahead with plans for an initial public offering that would seek to raise significantly more than $30 billion, people familiar with the matter said, in a deal that would make it the largest listing of all time. The company led by Elon Musk is targeting a valuation of around $1.5 trillion for the entire company, which would leave SpaceX close to the market value Saudi Aramco set during its record listing in 2019. The oil major raised $29 billion at the time. SpaceX’s management and advisers are aiming for a listing as soon as mid-to-late 2026, said some of the people, who declined to be identified because the matter is confidential. The timing of the IPO could change based on market conditions and other factors, and one of the people said the timing could slip to 2027. A representative for SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Bloomberg and other media reported Friday that SpaceX is exploring a possible IPO as soon as late next year. Musk and the company’s board of directors have been advancing plans for the listing and fundraising in recent days — including hiring for key roles and how he would spend the capital — as SpaceX bolstered its latest insider stock sale, one of the people said. SpaceX’s faster path to public markets is fueled in part by the strength of its fast-growing Starlink satellite internet service, including the promise of a direct-to-mobile business, as well as the development of its Starship moon and Mars rocket. The company is expected to produce about $15 billion in revenue in 2025, rising to between $22 billion and $24 billion in 2026, one of the people said, with the majority of sales coming from Starlink. SpaceX expects to use some of the funds raised in an IPO to develop space-based data centers, including buying the chips needed to run them, two of the people said, an idea Musk expressed interest in during a recent event with Baron Capital. In the current secondary offering, SpaceX has set a price per share of about $420, putting its valuation above the $800 billion previously reported, people familiar with the discussions said. The company is allowing employees to sell about $2 billion worth of stock and SpaceX will participate in buying back some shares, two of the people said. The valuation strategy is designed to equalize the company’s fair market valuation as a precursor to the IPO, one of the people added. “SpaceX has been cash flow positive for many years and conducts periodic share buybacks twice a year to provide liquidity to employees and investors,” Musk said in a Dec. 6 post on his social media platform X. “Value increases are a function of progress with Starship and Starlink and securing global direct-to-cell spectrum that significantly increases our addressable market,” he said. SpaceX executives have repeatedly floated the idea of ​​spinning off the Starlink business into a separate, publicly traded company — a concept President Gwynne Shotwell first proposed in 2020. However, Musk has questioned the timing over the years, and CFO Bret Johnsen said in 2024 that a Starlink IPO would be something more likely to happen in those years. The largest long-term investors in SpaceX 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 significant investor, as is Alphabet Inc. said Google. If SpaceX sold 5% of the company at that valuation, it would have to sell $40 billion in shares — making it the largest IPO of all time, well ahead of Saudi Aramco’s roughly $29 billion listing in 2019. That company sold just 1.5% of ownership in that offering, a far smaller share than the majority of publicly traded firms make available. –With assistance from Loren Grush. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com ©2025 Bloomberg LP