SpaceX has unveiled plans for a highly anticipated $1.75tn (£1.3tn) flotation next month, as Elon Musk seeks investor backing for his quest to make life "multiplanetary." The sprawling business encompasses rocket launches, Starlink satellite broadband, xAI artificial intelligence, and the social media platform X (formerly Twitter). Details were laid out in a flotation prospectus. Here are the main takeaways.
1. SpaceX is Loss-Making
The entire business lost $4.9bn in 2025 on revenues of $18.7bn. Revenue is growing, however, rising by a third from 2024. Losses have widened since the start of the year, with a $4.3bn loss in the first quarter compared to $528m in the same period last year. The company is split into three segments: space (rocket launches, including Nasa clients), connectivity (Starlink), and AI (xAI and X platform). Connectivity generates the most revenue at $11.4bn, followed by space at $4.1bn and AI at $3.2bn. Starlink was the only profitable segment in the first three months of this year. The AI unit is heavily loss-making, losing $6.4bn last year due to higher computing expenses for building and operating AI models like Grok. Capital expenditure was $20.7bn, with xAI accounting for $12.7bn primarily for massive datacentres, including the Colossus datacentre.
2. Mars Ambitions
The prospectus includes extraterrestrial aspirations not found in typical flotation documents. The "future markets" section lists space tourism, energy production and manufacturing on the moon and Mars, and asteroid mining. It acknowledges these markets "do not exist today." The document states, "While we believe these industries will develop over time, the manner in which they emerge... may differ materially from our current expectations." A more immediate ambition is datacentres in space, or "orbital compute," powered by solar energy, with a launch expected as soon as 2028.
3. Musk Will Have 85% Control
The world's richest person and CEO of SpaceX will control just over 85% of voting power, making it extremely difficult to unseat him. This control derives from majority ownership of class B stock, which carries 10 votes per share, compared to class A stock held by others.
4. Musk is in Line to Get Even Richer
Musk, already worth about $676bn, stands to make a vast sum from SpaceX. He has been granted 1bn class B shares that vest if SpaceX achieves "establishment of a permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants." Additionally, he must meet market cap targets up to $7.5tn. Another 302m B shares granted in March vest upon hitting targets including space-based datacentres delivering 100 terawatts of compute per year. Musk's base salary remains $54,000 per year, unchanged since 2019.
