The long-anticipated initial public offering (IPO) by Elon Musk’s aerospace and satellite giant SpaceX is grabbing eyeballs. If the company sticks to its deadline of going public this year at a valuation of over $1 trillion, it will break existing listing records, as reports suggest it has filed paperwork targeting a valuation over $1.75 trillion and potentially raising $75 billion. Most importantly, 30% of the shares will be reserved for retail investors.
While SpaceX is looking to surpass Saudi Aramco’s 2019 record of $25.6 billion, a regulatory filing revealed that the company is securing a $20 billion bridge loan to manage existing debt. SpaceX will have to repay the loan using IPO proceeds if other funding sources are not secured within six months after the offering.
Double-edged sword for Elon Musk
Elon Musk was never fully in favour of taking SpaceX public, mainly because he believed “market pressure could distract from long-term goals like Mars missions and deep-space exploration”. However, the company has grown massively, and rising costs from Starship, along with strong revenue from Starlink, have changed the situation.
By late 2025 and into early 2026, SpaceX quietly began gearing up for an IPO, through early filings and discussions with big banks. There is speculation that the company is planning a roadshow in June. However, the IPO can be troublesome for Musk.
The tech maverick’s wealth is tied to company shares (including Tesla). Turning shares into cash for short-term gain is not a good idea, as it triggers taxes, decreasing an entrepreneur’s net worth.
Besides, a report in The New York Times (NYT) claimed that Musk took personal loans amounting to $500 million from SpaceX.
In 2008, Musk took $20 million from SpaceX to save Tesla from a financial crisis.
In 2015, SpaceX bought the debt of SolarCity, a renewable energy company. Post SpaceX spending $255 million on the company, Tesla bought SolarCity for the equivalent of $2.6 billion. The electric vehicle maker then paid SpaceX to clear the debt.
In 2018, Musk took a nearly $100 million loan from SpaceX. He borrowed more and ended up securing $500 million in personal debt. In 2021, he paid back the amount plus $14 million in interest.
In 2023, Tesla, a public entity by then, limited loan amounts by large shareholders, including Musk, if they used the EV maker’s stock as collateral.
In 2024, a pension fund that reportedly held Tesla stock filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk. The fund accused Musk of harming the electric vehicle maker by diverting company resources to his tech startup xAI.
Additionally, X (formerly Twitter) was a public company until Musk acquired it in 2022. After the acquisition, the popular micro-blogging platform became part of xAI. In 2026, xAI was integrated into SpaceX, and if the upcoming IPO is successful, X may become a public company again.
Starlink: The engine behind the IPO
SpaceX is primarily a rocket company, but Starlink, its satellite-based internet network, generates most of its revenue, and is growing faster than its launch business and now serves millions of users across the globe. Analysts see the IPO as essentially a Starlink story inside the broader SpaceX narrative, with the satellite internet division driving much of the valuation growth, and rocket development and Mars ambitions as long-term bets.
One of the driving forces behind SpaceX’s move to public markets is the need for capital. Starship, orbital infrastructure, and global satellite expansion are capital-intensive projects that cannot be financed indefinitely through private markets.
SpaceX now has something closer to a steady income. Starlink’s user base has grown rapidly, and its margins have been improving, giving the company a much more reliable earnings base than before.
At the same time, big institutions have been trying to get exposure to SpaceX for a while now, especially as its valuation in private markets kept climbing higher and higher.
As SpaceX looks to expand into new areas, such as AI infrastructure in orbit and advanced space systems, it will need long-term financing at scale.
Risks and market uncertainty
Several risks are associated with SpaceX’s IPO, such as the fact that the company’s riskiest projects, like Starship, lunar infrastructure, and orbital AI data centres, are not proven at commercial scale. Internal filings have shown technical complexity and long development timelines, and concentration risk, since a significant amount of the valuation hinges on Starlink growth and reliable access to global markets, which could be affected by a slowdown in subscriber growth or increased competition, as well as geopolitical tensions, launch failures, or delays in Starship development.
The SpaceX IPO is likely to have ripple effects in the space and tech industries, with potential to catalyse a wave of space-related listings and unlock liquidity in the private tech ecosystem. Investor interest in space companies is already surging in anticipation of the SpaceX IPO and comparisons being made between SpaceX and other Elon Musk companies, like Tesla, which may shift capital flows in the broader tech sector once SpaceX is public, according to some analysts.
What investors should watch
The long-awaited IPO is a big deal, but when the dust settles and the listing is complete, investors will zero in on the handful of metrics that capture the drivers of the company: launch services, satellite internet, and deep-space infrastructure, which is why it is important to understand the different aspects of a business.
For investors, the key will be the performance of Starlink, which started as an experimental network and became a global broadband provider with millions of residential, maritime, aviation, and government subscribers, and which is expected to be the main revenue engine behind SpaceX’s public-market valuation.
The first metric that investors will examine closely is subscriber growth, especially growth in rural and underserved regions, which were central to the original value proposition. But growth will not be sufficient; profitability will also be essential.
Starlink is a capital-intensive business that needs to continue to launch satellites, expand ground infrastructure, and manage spectrum. Investors will monitor whether the division can move from hypergrowth to healthy margins, and whether it will face any pricing pressure, customer churn, or high operational costs.
The second is competition. As traditional telecom companies, satellite competitors, and government-backed broadband projects compete for market share, investors will seek to understand whether Starlink has sustainable pricing power or will become a commoditised provider of connectivity.
Another big focus is Starship – SpaceX’s next-generation reusable rocket system. While Starlink is already bringing in most of the revenue, Starship is really about the long game, cutting the cost of going to space and opening the door for much bigger ambitions down the line. Even as SpaceX has made its reusable Falcon 9 rockets operational, Starship is still in the testing and development phase, and failures could greatly impact market confidence, as the scale of expectations for the system is immense.
The other major focus of SpaceX is its government and defence customers. It is already a major launch provider of satellites for NASA, the US Department of Defence, and allied governments, and an emerging secure communications infrastructure provider through Starlink government services.
Investors will expect these contracts to scale and stabilise post-IPO. Long-term government agreements are a source of predictable revenue and a stabilising factor in contrast to commercial volatility, as well as of strategic importance. While they can enhance the company’s competitive position, they are subject to political and regulatory risks.