SpaceX and Elon Musk file Wall Street's biggest-ever IPO

SpaceX, the aerospace company owned by Elon Musk, has officially disclosed plans to list on the United States stock exchange. The Initial Public Offering (IPO) is projected to be the largest in Wall Street history and is scheduled to begin trading next month under the ticker SPCX.

The go-public plan also unveils how SpaceX’s finances have been kept private until now. According to the latest filing, the company is valued at US$1.25 trillion (about Rp20,000 trillion). It posted revenue of US$18.6 billion last year, but still reported a net loss of US$4.9 billion.

The trend continued into the first quarter of this year, with SpaceX recording sales of US$4.7 billion and a net loss of US$4.3 billion. The balance sheet shows assets of US$102 billion, including rockets and advanced equipment, offset by liabilities of US$60.5 billion.

The move is expected to lift Elon Musk’s wealth to levels never seen before. As the majority shareholder, Musk’s stake in SpaceX is worth more than US$600 billion.

Last year, the Tesla boss set a record as the first person whose net worth exceeded US$500 billion. With SpaceX going public, Musk’s net worth is expected to surpass US$1 trillion, making him the world’s first trillionaire.

Behind SpaceX’s dominance in launch services and Starlink satellite internet, the company also faces major challenges. The IPO documents reveal allocations of more than half a billion dollars for legal costs related to various lawsuits.

These include claims of patent infringement, music copyright violations, data leaks, and non-compliance with EU moderation of content on the X platform (formerly Twitter), which is now under SpaceX’s umbrella.

There are also lawsuits related to xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence company that plans to merge into SpaceX. The xAI chatbot, Grok, is facing legal action over alleged use of the platform to produce sexual deepfakes harmful to women and children.

Despite the controversy, this AI line recently signed a major collaboration with a competitor, Anthropic (the developer of Claude). Anthropic has committed to paying US$15 billion per year to access xAI’s data centres in the southern United States.

This IPO move also marks Musk’s revival after recently losing a lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman, and comes amid heightened scrutiny of worker safety at SpaceX facilities ahead of the forthcoming Starship launch.