SpaceX filed for potentially the largest IPO in history. Here is what you need to know.

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]SpaceX officially filed its IPO paperwork with the SEC this week. The actual filing is now public. Ticker SPCX, reportedly targeting a June listing on Nasdaq with a target valuation of roughly $1.75 trillion, looking to raise up to $75 billion. For context, that would make it nearly three times the size of the previous record, which was Saudi Aramco in 2019. But, here's the interesting thing about this filing. This is not being marketed as a rocket company. It is being marketed as an AI infrastructure, connectivity, and compute platform that also launches rockets. That framing shift explains the entire valuation ambition. The S1 filing shows four businesses in one. Starlink is the only profitable piece, $11.4 billion in revenue last year, $4.4 billion in operating profit, 10.3 million subscribers across 164 countries. Without Starlink, this company is not profitable. The one concern worth noting is that average revenue per subscriber has dropped from $99 per month in 2023 to $66 in Q1 of 2026. More subscribers, but paying less per head. The space business covers rockets, Falcon 9, Starship, and government launches. $4.1 billion in revenue last year, but lost $657 million.

[00:01:20]So, it is still burning cash. XAI is the AI division merged into SpaceX in February 2026. Grok, Colossus data centers. SpaceX directed roughly 60% of its capital spending in 2025 here, about $20 billion. And XAI only grew revenue 22% last year. For comparison, Anthropic is expected to exceed $10 billion in revenue in a single quarter in 2026. X, formerly known as Twitter, rounds out the four businesses. The next thing I'm going to talk about is what surprised everyone. Anthropic signed a cloud services agreement with SpaceX for access to its Colossus data centers at $1.25 billion per month through May of 2029. That is roughly $15 billion per year and up to $45 billion over the full term. Either party can terminate on 90 days notice, so the full amount is not guaranteed. But, the deal is a very powerful signal about how desperate the compute shortage is right now. Anthropic is paying a rival AI company billions of dollars to access infrastructure it cannot build fast enough on its own.

[00:02:28]Here are some of the concerns I have.

[00:02:30]SpaceX lost $4.9 billion in 2025 on $18.7 billion in revenue. In Q1 2026 alone, the company lost nearly $4.3 billion, more than $37 billion lost since founding. Elon Musk controls 85% of total voting power through class B shares that carry 10 votes each. After the IPO, that number drops but stays above 50%. Public shareholders will have very limited influence over company leadership. Major pension funds have already called this the most management-favorable governance structure ever brought to US public markets at this scale. Once SPC-X begins trading, it could qualify quickly for Nasdaq 100 inclusion under Nasdaq fast entry rules, which would trigger buying from index funds. So, what I am actually doing? Well, I'm not buying SpaceX at IPO. And here is the reasoning. The $1.75 trillion valuation is pricing in Starlink, AI infrastructure, launch economic, government contracts, and enormous future compute optionality. That is a lot of speculation baked into a company that lost nearly $5 billion last year.

[00:03:38]The most important thing to understand about this IPO is Starlink is the business that actually makes money today. The AI division is the bet on the future, and you cannot buy just Starlink. You have to buy whole package including the $20 AI bet that is currently losing money and the government structure that gives you very little say in how any of it is run. And if SPCE X does qualify for Nasdaq 100 inclusion, your existing VOO and QQQM positions will automatically give you SpaceX exposure without buying a single share. The index funds you already own will add it for you.