SpaceX Raises Record $75B in IPO, Valued at $1.77T

SpaceX sold 555.6 million shares at $135 each in its initial public offering, raising $75 billion and reaching a market value of $1.77 trillion. The debut marks the largest IPO on record and places the company ahead of Tesla among U.S. firms by valuation. Investors bought into a business whose Starlink satellite unit generated $11.39 billion in revenue last year, or 61 percent of total sales, while the company posted a $4.9 billion net loss and carries a $41.3 billion accumulated deficit since 2002.

The offering gives Elon Musk, who already controls roughly 42 percent of equity, about 85 percent of voting power through dual-class shares. He can be removed as chief executive only if he votes to fire himself. SpaceX stated in its prospectus that this structure supplies an economic incentive for success and that no other individual could run the company. Several large public pension funds had urged Musk to reduce that control before the listing.

Proceeds will fund Starship development, already costing more than $15 billion, and plans for orbital artificial-intelligence data centers targeted for initial deployment as soon as 2028. Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer, told CNBC the company now possesses the operational maturity for public markets yet will continue prioritizing long-term projects over quarterly results. Musk has said on a JPMorgan livestream that SpaceX has been cash-flow positive since around 2015.

Trading in proxy stocks such as EchoStar and AST SpaceMobile rose sharply in the days before the debut, with options volume in EchoStar exceeding eleven times its 30-day average. Prediction markets on Polymarket assigned a 70 percent probability that SpaceX would close its first trading day above a $2 trillion valuation. Retail investors received an unusually large 30 percent allocation of the float, though institutional orders still exceeded available shares.

SpaceX has completed more than 300 Falcon launches and holds NASA contracts for crewed missions. Its acquisition of xAI earlier this year added Grok models and data-center assets. The company faces ongoing litigation tied to those AI products and recorded a $530 million accrual for probable losses. Starship must still demonstrate reliable orbital flight and reusability before it can support the higher launch cadence required for the planned satellite and compute constellations.