GoKawiilAn odd amalgamation of Elon Musk's projects not named Tesla is about to become one of the world's largest publicly traded companies. And while the name SpaceX brings to mind the firm's rockets, it also includes an internet provider, a social media site and (naturally) an AI developer.
SpaceX's initial public offering is expected to be the biggest ever in terms of money raised, with $75 billion in shares going on sale to value the company at roughly $1.75 trillion. By comparison, oil giant Saudi Aramco's 2019 IPO raised more than $25 billion at a valuation of about $1.87 trillion.
SpaceX's IPO isn't just a landmark event in financial history, but tech history, too. While big AI names like Google and Meta have long been public, Musk's megacorporation includes the first major AI company to go public. This should give investors and the general public new insights into how well the business of AI is really doing. Competitors Anthropic and OpenAI have both recently begun to take steps toward their own public offerings.
Unlike Anthropic and OpenAI, however, SpaceX has a more diversified business, if still not really a profitable one. SpaceX, the namesake business unit, launches rockets into space, mostly carrying satellites but also carrying Musk's dream of colonizing the moon and Mars. It includes Starlink, which uses satellites to offer broadband internet access without the necessity of cables. There's xAI, which operates the chatbot Grok, perhaps best known for having guardrails so lax that it allowed users to generate sexual images of minors. And X, the social media site once known as Twitter.
The IPO has ramifications all over the place. It could make Elon Musk, already the world's wealthiest person, the first trillionaire. It could put a complicated and not-profitable company in index funds that make up a lot of our retirement funds -- meaning we all would own part of SpaceX, whether we wanted to or not. And it puts the company further in the public spotlight and under the scrutiny of Wall Street analysts and investors, despite a business structure that ensures Musk maintains full control.
Shares of SpaceX are expected to go on sale on the Nasdaq Friday at a price of $135 per share. Where things go from there is in the hands of the market. We'll be keeping an eye on what transpires and sharing the latest updates here.