SpaceX files for long-awaited public stock offering that could make Elon Musk a trillionaire

By David Goldman, Chris Isidore, CNN

(CNN) — SpaceX revealed its long-awaited plans to go public on Wednesday, shedding light on the finances and leadership of one of the largest, best-known and yet most secretive private companies in history.

Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite company revealed previously undisclosed details, including its board members, sales, profit, expenses and how it does business. It will trade under the ticker symbol SPCX.

One thing it didn’t disclose: How much the company expects to raise and what the company could be worth in what is widely predicted to be the biggest-ever initial public offering – perhaps by a factor of three.

Those details will come later, just before it’s set to go public. In the meantime, SpaceX delivered a compelling 277-page report about one of the world’s most ambitious – if perhaps Pollyannaish – businesses.

Massive expenses

In its prospectus, SpaceX outlined a bold mission: “to build the systems and technologies necessary to make life multiplanetary, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars.”

To accomplish that, SpaceX said it will continue to rapidly manufacture and launch its fleet of satellites to power its Starlink communications technology. And it will “harness the Sun to power a truth-seeking artificial intelligence that advances scientific discovery, and ultimately to build a base on the Moon and cities on other planets.”

To do that, SpaceX will need to spend money. A lot of it. That’s part of the reason it wants to borrow from investors.

Despite the fact that SpaceX is a fast-growing company, its ambitions outstrip its current sales. It brought in $18.7 billion in revenue last year, up 33% from the previous year. But the company doesn’t make money. After turning a $791 million profit in 2024, it swung back to a $4.9 billion loss in 2025. It lost $4.6 billion in 2023.

Those losses will almost certainly continue in 2026: SpaceX said it has already lost $4.3 billion in the first three months of this year on $4.7 billion of revenue.

The rocket business is expensive, but so is building massive amounts of AI infrastructure. SpaceX spent $20.7 billion last year, the bulk of which ($12.7 billion) was for AI. SpaceX spent $4.2 billion on Starlink and $3.8 billion on other space ventures, including rockets.

That capital expenditure nearly doubled the $11.2 billion SpaceX spent in 2024 and dwarfed the $4.4 billion it laid out in 2023.

In the first three months of this year, SpaceX already spent $10.1 billion – $7.7 billion of which was on AI.

An even more massive opportunity

But SpaceX doesn’t expect to be losing money forever. The company outlined a massive potential revenue opportunity that it says could total $28.5 trillion – an opportunity that SpaceX called “the largest actionable total addressable market in human history.”

Included in that market are $370 billion in “space-enabled solutions,” $1.6 trillion in connectivity, which includes $870 billion in broadband and $740 billion in mobile from its low-earth-orbit Starlink satellites and $26.5 trillion in AI.

That AI opportunity includes $2.4 trillion for its plan to launch data centers into space and $760 billion in potential consumer subscriptions. SpaceX also believes it has a $600 billion digital advertising potential and $22.7 trillion in what it calls “enterprise applications.”

Those beyond-wild numbers are typical of Musk’s showmanship. But his company also launches rockets into space and lands boosters upright after they come careening back to earth on floating platforms for reuse, so investors in Musk’s companies have some evidence of his surreal achievements as a basis for hope.

The belief in SpaceX’s AI capabilities led Musk to merge SpaceX with xAI, his artificial intelligence and social media company, in February. That deal valued the combined company at $1.25 trillion at the time.

Who runs SpaceX?

Musk won’t be alone leading the company.

For the first time, the company disclosed who is leading the company’s board. Musk is the SpaceX’s chairman, with President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell serving alongside him as a director. Other board members include CFO Bret Johnsen, venture capitalists Randy Glein, Steve Jurvetson, Luke Nosek and Ira Ehrenpreis – who also serves on Tesla’s board – private equity CEO Antonio Gracias and Google executive Donald Harrison.

The blockbuster IPO could bring in massive amounts of money for what’s now dominant private-sector space company. And it could make Musk the world’s first trillionaire.

He owns a considerable chunk of the company. Between his 12.3% stake in common shares and 93.6% in Class B shares, which count for 10 votes each, Musk controls 85.1% of the company’s voting power – pretty much guaranteeing he’ll maintain control of at least a plurality of the votes after the IPO.

Gracias, through his Valor Entities firm, is the company’s second-largest shareholder, with 7.3% of SpaceX’s common stock.

How much will Musk get paid?

Musk hasn’t been paid much salary for his work: He’s taken the same $54,080 in salary every year since 2019, the company revealed Wednesday.

But SpaceX also said that he will be compensated in 15 tranches of 66,666,665 shares each if the company achieves various stock market valuation milestones in $500 billion increments up to $7.5 trillion – and establishes a permanent human colony on Mars with at least million inhabitants.

Musk will only get those shares if the company achieves both targets – and if he remains employed with the company.

After the xAI merger, SpaceX inherited some of Musk’s compensation plan from his AI and social media company. SpaceX canceled that compensation and said it would instead grant him another 302 million shares if the company reaches several massive valuation milestones and launches data centers capable of delviering 100 terawatts of computing power each year.

Musk founded SpaceX in 2002, initially entirely focused on building rockets and delivering payloads to outer space. It became a telecommunications company in 2021, with its first customers for Starlink, its satellite-based internet service.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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