The biggest IPO in history is here. How far is Musk from becoming a trillion-dollar billionaire?

Tao Zhu, Jinse Finance

Summary:On June 3, 2026, sources revealed that SpaceX plans to price each share at $135 in its public offering. SpaceX plans to issue 555.6 million shares in its IPO, potentially raising $75 billion. This article summarizes the essential details of the SpaceX IPO.

I. Key Timelines for the SpaceX IPO

• May 20: SpaceX officially releases its prospectus.

• June 4: Launches investor roadshow.

• June 11: Expected confirmation of the final offering price per share.

• June 12: Expected official listing and trading.

II. What is SpaceX's valuation?

SpaceX plans to issue less than 5% of its shares, with a total value of approximately $60 billion to $80 billion, targeting a valuation of $1.75 trillion to $1.8 trillion. If the $75 billion fundraising target is achieved, it will surpass Saudi Aramco's $29.4 billion IPO record set in 2019, becoming the largest IPO in history.

III. Who are the SpaceX IPO underwriters?

SpaceX's IPO underwriting syndicate consists of more than 20 investment banks, with the five major Wall Street investment banks jointly leading the effort.

Lead Underwriter:

Goldman Sachs will serve as the lead underwriter for this IPO.

Lead Underwriter:

Morgan Stanley is leading this IPO, and its E*Trade subsidiary will be responsible for meeting the trading needs of retail investors.

Joint Lead Underwriters：

JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup  

Others:

The underwriting syndicate also includes Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Mizuho Bank of Japan, Macquarie Bank, Barclays Bank, and other institutions.

IV. SpaceX  What role will Musk play after the IPO?

SpaceX stated that after the IPO, Musk will serve as CEO, CTO, and Chairman of the Board.

Musk is highly likely to continue with dual-class shares or a similar design to maintain voting control, a structure highly similar to that of Tesla when it went public.

Musk is very likely to continue with dual-class shares or a similar design to maintain voting control, a structure highly similar to that of Tesla when it went public.

The dual-class share structure means that Musk's shares have several times the voting rights of ordinary shares. Even if his shareholding decreases due to dilution after the IPO, his dominant position in the company's strategic direction will remain unshaken. The IPO is expected to be a fully primary offering, meaning all proceeds will belong to the company, and existing SpaceX shareholders will not be able to sell any shares in the IPO. The proceeds will be used for purposes including expanding artificial intelligence computing resources and the SpaceX satellite network. Why is SpaceX going public now? Musk has long been explicitly opposed to going public, arguing that the capital market's focus on short-term profits contradicts SpaceX's long-term macro mission. However, the situation changed at the end of 2025, driven by multiple factors. SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen stated that the funds raised in the IPO will be used to increase the launch frequency of Starship rockets, deploy an AI data center in space, and advance plans for unmanned and manned Mars missions. Analysts point to deeper structural reasons: the private equity market currently has approximately $2 to $3 trillion in idle capital, compared to the global stock market's size of $100 to $150 trillion. SpaceX has effectively reached the upper limit of what the private equity market can support; the private equity structure can no longer bear the burden of financing a decades-long industrial-scale blueprint. The IPO also provides early investors with a liquidity exit channel. Existing shareholders include Alphabet, Fidelity Investments, and several top venture capital firms, who have long awaited liquidity events. Furthermore, regarding Musk's personal wealth, the IPO allows him more flexibility to use his shares as collateral for loans, similar to his past use of Tesla shares, to cash out funds for other ventures without selling shares. VI. What controversies exist surrounding SpaceX? 1. Governance Trust Crisis On May 29, the Danish pension fund Akademiker Pension decided to add SpaceX to its "exclusion list" due to concerns about the company's governance. The fund stated that its "primary reason" for avoiding SpaceX was related to ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) factors, "especially the company's extremely poor performance in governance matters. That said, if we assess SpaceX as representing a highly attractive investment opportunity, then from an investment return perspective, we cannot justify this decision. However, as long-term investors, our view is that the company's valuation is also seriously overvalued." 2. Musk's Tweets Discrepancies with Prospectus Information Musk's tweet on the social media platform X regarding a collaboration with AI startup Anthropic, revealing details of leasing computing power from the Colossus 1 data center, differs from the information disclosed in the prospectus. However, the prospectus shows that Anthropic will pay SpaceX "$1.25 billion per month until May 2029," and both parties can terminate the agreement 90 days in advance; Musk's tweet stated that the lease is only "180 days, after which both parties can terminate at any time," raising significant questions about the actual revenue and contract duration.

3. Valuation in Doubt

BIT Official released a weekly report stating: Mars exploration is the most eye-catching narrative. But the market is pricing in far more than just the Mars vision. After acquiring xAI in February of this year, SpaceX's long-term growth story has further extended to AI, global connectivity networks, and infrastructure. This means that SpaceX's valuation logic is being repriced. It may be one of the most attractive IPO stories in history, but the market has already given this story a very high price, and investors need to judge whether the subsequent upside potential is still sufficient to support the current valuation.

3. Valuation in Doubt

BIT Official released a weekly report stating: Mars exploration is the most eye-catching narrative. But the market is already pricing in a very high price for this story, and investors need to judge whether the subsequent upside potential is still sufficient to support the current valuation.

Analyst Farrar points out that Starlink's core business financial performance is insufficient to support a $1.5 trillion valuation. For investors to accept this price, they must appeal to highly speculative future scenarios such as Mars colonization and space data centers, as well as a premium based on their faith in Musk. This is similar to Tesla's long-standing logic of maintaining a high valuation based on future narratives rather than current profits. Renowned accounting analyst Jack Ciesielski points out that this goal itself is a "moonshot" mission. The key to success lies in whether SpaceX can achieve a scale advantage in rocket manufacturing far exceeding its competitors, forming a true monopoly moat. 4. Severe Losses in AI Business Analyst Robert Cyran points out that Musk's SpaceX is preparing to go public with a $1.75 trillion valuation; however, its prospectus is mired in a "black hole" of grandiose AI rhetoric, with a significant portion of the problems stemming from xAI. xAI has brought about extremely large capital expenditure needs, burning through $7.7 billion in the first three months of this year, more than three times that of the same period last year, accounting for more than three-quarters of SpaceX's total investment. The $2.5 billion operating loss in the first quarter is enough to drag the entire company into losses. In addition, SpaceX has reached an agreement with Anthropic, which is leasing idle computing power from Musk's Colossus data center for approximately $1.3 billion per month. Considering that xAI's revenue over the past 12 months has only slightly exceeded $3 billion, the division's main business has effectively become renting out idle servers. The real problem is that SpaceX's core AI business has not made significant progress; Grok lags behind competitors in various benchmark tests, with first-quarter revenue growth of less than 13%. Meanwhile, Anthropic expects its quarterly growth rate to be five times that of the former. In a sense, SpaceX is indeed a "rocket ship." But from a financial perspective, it is still struggling to reach "escape velocity."

VII. What are SpaceX's main sources of revenue?

SpaceX's primary source of revenue is its Starlink satellite internet service, which has become the company's core pillar, contributing over 70% of its total revenue. This is followed by rocket launch services and government contracts. 1. Starlink accounts for 70% to 80% of the company's revenue. With its vast low-Earth orbit satellite constellation, Starlink provides broadband subscription services to millions of individual and enterprise customers worldwide, achieving substantial profitability and positive cash flow. 2. Commercial rocket launches. Leveraging the reusable technology of its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, SpaceX dominates the global commercial space launch market, generating stable commercial revenue through frequent launch missions.

3. Government and Agency Contracts

These include cargo and crew transportation missions for NASA's International Space Station and military payload launches for the U.S. Department of Defense. While these contracts are significant, they currently account for a relatively small percentage (approximately 5%) of overall revenue.

VIII. What Impact Has the SpaceX IPO Had?

1. Space ETFs Are Experiencing an Explosive Growth

With SpaceX's highly anticipated IPO imminent, space ETFs are experiencing an explosive growth. Morningstar Direct data shows that in the past month alone, space-related ETFs have attracted $1.3 billion in new inflows, pushing the total assets under management in this emerging sector to $3.3 billion. However, a ETF strategist at Strategas cautioned that the "space economy" remains a niche segment within the broader technology landscape. He warned that "blindly chasing SpaceX, space concepts, and the next big thing" could lead to problems.

2. Boosting Investment Sentiment in the Commercial Space Sector Huatai Securities believes that SpaceX, as a leading global commercial space + AI company, may boost investment enthusiasm and confidence in my country's space industry with its IPO plan, potentially creating a resonance in the Chinese and American capital markets. They recommend paying attention to investment opportunities in my country's commercial space sector. 3. Negative for Other Space Stocks Brian Jacobsen, chief economic strategist at Annex Wealth Management, points out: "This is either a bellwether or a harbinger." The enthusiasm surrounding SpaceX is enough to attract investor interest, but because its CEO is a celebrity, the company may be too unique, potentially harming other space stocks rather than boosting them by attracting all the attention. In fact, not only space stocks, but if SpaceX attracts a large amount of capital to preferentially subscribe to its shares, other IPO applications may also face the possibility of lower valuations or even forced delays. IX. How much BTC does SpaceX hold? According to SpaceX's S-1 listing application filed with the U.S. SEC, as of March 31, 2026, SpaceX held 18,712 Bitcoins, with a fair value of approximately $1.29 billion, which, at current prices, is worth nearly $1.45 billion. This holding exceeds Tesla's previously disclosed Bitcoin reserves of 11,509. The prospectus shows that SpaceX's cost basis for its Bitcoin holdings is approximately $661 million, with an average cost basis of approximately $35,324 per Bitcoin. The digital assets are held in custody by a third-party custodian. The market believes that this disclosure indicates SpaceX has incorporated Bitcoin into its long-term corporate strategy, rather than as a short-term speculative investment. 10. How much will Musk's net worth reach? If calculated according to the currently circulating SpaceX IPO plan, Musk could very well become the first person in history to reach a net worth of $1 trillion. According to Forbes estimates, Musk currently holds a 43% stake in the merged company, worth approximately $542 billion. The Wall Street Journal's figures differ slightly from Forbes, placing Musk's SpaceX stake at $538 billion. In addition, Musk holds substantial other assets: Tesla at $167 billion; stock options at $150 billion; Neuralink (Musk's neurotechnology and brain-computer interface company founded in 2016) at $5 billion; and The Boring Company (Musk's US infrastructure and tunnel construction company founded in late 2016) at $5 billion. Therefore, Musk's total net worth is approximately $970 billion. If the stock price rises, Musk's net worth could reach $1 trillion in the near future. In summary, Musk has revolutionized multiple industries, including electric vehicles, rocket launches, satellite internet, and artificial intelligence. The SpaceX IPO may well be the most important capital market moment of his business career. If the IPO goes through as expected by the market, Musk will not only have the opportunity to become the first trillionaire in human history, but will also further extend his influence into the space economy era.