Rumor has it that SpaceX is advancing its 2026 listing and the financing scale far exceeds US$30 billion, making it the largest IPO in history

The Zhitong Finance App learned that people familiar with the matter revealed that SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, is advancing an initial public offering (IPO) program, and the proposed financing scale will far exceed 30 billion US dollars. This is likely to be the largest IPO in history. The company, led by Musk, is targeting an overall valuation of around $1.5 trillion. If listed at this valuation, SpaceX's market value will be close to the level established by Saudi Aramco during its record listing in 2019. At the time, the oil giant raised about $29 billion.

Some people familiar with the matter said that SpaceX's management and advisory team are working to complete the listing as soon as possible in mid to late 2026. The timing of the IPO may be adjusted according to market conditions and other factors, and one of the people familiar with the matter said it may be postponed until 2027.

News about SpaceX's IPO plans boosted the stock prices of other space companies on Tuesday. Echo Star Communications (SATS.US), which has agreed to sell spectrum licenses to SpaceX, rose 12% in the intraday period and hit a new intraday high of $98.90, eventually closing up nearly 6%; space transportation company Rocket Lab (RKLB.US) rose 4.3% intraday and eventually closed up 3.6%.

It was reported on Friday that SpaceX is exploring the possibility of an IPO as early as the end of next year. A person familiar with the matter said that with SpaceX finalizing the latest round of internal employee shareholding sales, the company's founder Musk and the board of directors have recently advanced plans related to listing and financing, including recruiting personnel for key positions and planning the use of funds raised.

SpaceX has accelerated its entry into the open market, thanks in part to the strong performance of its rapidly growing Starlink (Starlink) satellite internet service, including the potential prospects for direct-to-mobile (direct-to-mobile) business, and continued research and development of its Starship (Starship) lunar landing and Mars rocket projects. A person familiar with the matter said that SpaceX expects revenue of about $15 billion in 2025 and will increase to between $22 billion and $24 billion in 2026, with most of the revenue coming from Starlink's business.

Two people familiar with the matter said that SpaceX expects to use part of the capital raised from the IPO to develop space-based data centers, including purchasing the chips needed to operate these data centers. Musk previously expressed interest in this idea during an event with Baron Capital.

A number of people familiar with the matter said that in the current sale of shares in the secondary market, SpaceX is pricing each share at about 420 US dollars, making the company's valuation higher than the 800 billion US dollars previously reported. SpaceX allows employees to sell about $2 billion in shares, and the company will also participate in repurchasing some of its shares. A person familiar with the matter added that this valuation strategy aims to “calibrate” the company's fair market valuation before the IPO.

In a post on its social media platform X on December 6, Musk said, “SpaceX has been achieving positive cash flow for many years and has carried out regular stock repurchases twice a year to provide liquidity for employees and investors.” He also said, “The increase in valuation depends on the progress of Starship and Starlink, as well as access to global direct-connected mobile spectrum, which will greatly expand the size of our serviceable market.”

SpaceX's largest long-term investors include venture capital institutions such as Peter Thiel's Founder's Fund, 137 Ventures led by Justin Fishner-Wolfson (Justin Fishner-Wolfson), and Valor Equity Partners. Fidelity (Fidelity) is also an important investor, and Google (GOOGL.US) is also one of its shareholders.

If SpaceX sells 5% of its shares at this valuation level, it would need to sell 40 billion US dollars of shares — this would make it the largest IPO in history, far exceeding Saudi Aramco's 2019 funding scale of around $29 billion. Notably, Saudi Aramco only sold 1.5% of its shares that year, a ratio far lower than the share sold abroad by most listed companies.

“Sister Mu Tou”'s big prediction: SpaceX's market capitalization will reach 2.5 trillion US dollars by 2030

Ark Invest, an investment company owned by “Sister Wood,” predicts that the corporate value of Elon Musk's space company SpaceX will reach about 2.5 trillion US dollars by 2030. Based on ARK's open source model, this valuation is based on a Monte Carlo simulation that takes into account 17 key variables that reflect SpaceX's potential for development over the next twenty years.

The model provides three possible valuation scenarios: $2.5 trillion for the base scenario, $1.7 trillion for the pessimistic scenario, and $3.1 trillion for the optimistic scenario. These predictions show differences due to strategic initiatives, such as satellite development and deployment, and the ultimate emphasis on colonizing Mars.

At the heart of SpaceX's ambitious future plans is the full deployment of the “Starlink” satellite constellation, which is expected to be achieved by 2035. Once in use, Starlink is expected to generate up to $300 billion in annual revenue, accounting for about 15% of global communications spending. This expansion highlights the transformative impact brought about by the spread of affordable, high-speed satellite internet around the world.

Second, the reusability of Starships is another key factor in Ark Invest's assessment — SpaceX aims to make significant progress in the Earth and Mars projects by reducing the turnaround time of the Starship fleet and reducing launch costs. The Starship's implementation complies with the “Wright Law” which indicates that increased efficiency will accelerate return on investment by increasing launch frequency.

Damo: SpaceX's next big story will be a space data center

SpaceX's potential valuation of 800 billion US dollars is not only double its July estimate of 400 billion US dollars, but it will also surpass OpenAI to become the most highly valued private unicorn company in the world.

Morgan Stanley said that Musk's next grand story may be a space data center, and this concept is driving a significant increase in SpaceX's valuation. The bank's analysts pointed out that the market is pricing the grand narrative of a new AI infrastructure — “orbital data center.” The underlying logic behind SpaceX's doubling valuation is the expansion of business boundaries. Musk is drawing up a blueprint for SpaceX to enter orbital data centers. Musk said bluntly on X that space data centers are “the fastest way to expand computing power within the next 4 years.”

Analysts also detailed Musk's four core advantages of moving the data center into space, including extreme cooling (Cooling), unlimited power (power), global edge connectivity (Global Edge Connectivity), and capacity barriers (barriers).

Although SpaceX dominates, Damo emphasized that there is not only one player on this track, and many companies are also actively deploying the space data center field. Starcloud, a startup founded in 2024, is dedicated to deploying orbital data centers to serve AI and cloud computing workloads using sufficient solar power, passive radiative cooling, and space-scale infrastructure. The company has raised more than $20 million in seed funding. Houston commercial space infrastructure company Axiom Space is developing an “orbital data center” (ODC) product line and plans to launch the first two free-flight ODC nodes into near-Earth orbit by the end of 2025. These nodes are designed to provide secure cloud storage and processing services for commercial, civil, and national security customers. The company has raised more than $700 million in capital.

Furthermore, Google is actively promoting the “Moon Landing” program called Project Suncatcher, which aims to build a solar satellite constellation with customized TPU hardware as a space AI/computing data center. The company plans to launch two prototype satellites in early 2027 to test the viability of the system, and anticipates that by the mid-2030s, as launch costs drop, space computing will be close to cost parity with terrestrial data centers.