SpaceX prepares for record $75 billion Nasdaq debut, valuation near $1.8 trillion

The biggest IPO ever

SpaceX will begin trading on the Nasdaq this Friday after finalizing the largest initial public offering on record. The company confirmed Thursday that it aims to raise $75 billion, three times the haul of Saudi Aramco’s 2019 debut. The filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission gives SpaceX the option to increase the offering to $86 billion if demand warrants. At the set valuation of $1,765 billion, the firm would immediately rank among the world’s ten most valuable listed companies.

The first day of trading will start with a ceremony at the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square on Friday morning. Trading itself is not expected to begin before mid-morning while underwriters allocate shares. Elon Musk arrived in the New York area on Tuesday, according to his jet-tracking account on Bluesky, though the company has not said which executives will ring the opening bell.

It seems that institutional investor demand represents four times the shares that will actually be sold to them.

A launch machine with deep losses

SpaceX’s operational muscle is undeniable. The company completed 165 orbital launches in 2025, breaking its own record of 134 the year before, according to Space.com. Revenues climbed 33% to $18.7 billion last year, but costs rose faster, resulting in a net loss of $4.9 billion. The bleeding continued in the first quarter of 2026 with a further $4.3 billion loss, dragged down by heavy investments in artificial intelligence and satellite infrastructure.

The valuation, which Morningstar pegs at a fair value closer to $780 billion, requires faith in markets that scarcely exist. SpaceX’s IPO prospectus points to a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion, driven by internet-from-space via Starlink and, especially, orbital data centres for AI. Yet its AI subsidiary xAI lags well behind rivals OpenAI and Anthropic, generating roughly $500 million in revenue.

Do something no one before him had done: put the same engine on all stages of his rocket.

Musk retains iron grip

Even with a flood of new shareholders, Elon Musk will keep decisive control. Retail investors receive Class A shares with one vote each; Musk holds Class B shares carrying ten votes apiece. As a result, he commands about 82% of voting power. The governance structure, combined with limited legal recourse for shareholders, concentrates authority in the founder’s hands.

Retail interest is enormous. SpaceX set aside around 30% of the new shares for individual investors, an unusually high share. That allocation may still be dwarfed by demand: Bloomberg reported that small investors stand ready to absorb up to $100 billion worth of stock.

Selling the Mars dream

What SpaceX is really selling goes beyond its proven Falcon rockets and Starlink broadband. The pitch is a multifaceted conglomerate spanning rockets, AI chips, satellite internet and social media, with ambitions to colonize Mars and build data centres in space. Investors are buying into that vision, even as the group lost close to $5 billion in 2025.

If you look at the numbers, there is no way to justify such a valuation. But the market wouldn’t do this if it didn’t believe at least a little in SpaceX’s optimistic projections.

A warm reception on Wall Street Friday could push Elon Musk’s personal fortune past the symbolic $1 trillion mark, a threshold no individual has ever crossed.