SpaceX secretly files for IPO of giant public company worth $1.75 trillion, reports say

SpaceX, the technology conglomerate founded by Elon Musk, has reportedly filed a confidential disclosure with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of its initial public offering. SpaceX could seek a valuation of $1.75 trillion, Bloomberg reported, citing anonymous sources.

Under SEC rules, private companies can privately file IPO registration statements and receive private feedback from the SEC 15 days before they begin selling stock to the public. The company also brought together an unusual number of 21 banks to manage the mega IPO, internally code-named “Project Apex,” Reuters reported on Tuesday.

The company expects to raise $75 billion, making it the largest IPO in history, far surpassing the $29 billion floated by oil giant Saudi Aramco in 2019. SpaceX raised an estimated $10 billion as a private company.

Founded in 2002, SpaceX is the world’s leading space company, flying reusable rockets and spacecraft and operating the 10,000-satellite communications network Starlink. Mr. Musk brought Silicon Valley culture to the stagnant world of space contracting, disrupting the sector and creating a new industry of private technology and a boom in space startups.

In February, SpaceX acquired Musk’s xAI at a valuation of $1.25 trillion. The conglomerate now includes xAI, Musk’s frontier generative AI lab, and X, the social network formerly known as Twitter.

Mr. Musk had long said SpaceX would not go public until its spacecraft reached Mars, but voracious cash demands have changed the equation even as the company has reset its ambitions to reach the moon. In recent months, Mr. Musk has said his company will build a network of as many as 1 million data center satellites in space that will be built and launched from Earth’s closest neighbor.

SpaceX will need billions of dollars to build Starship, a fully reusable heavy-lift rocket. This is central to the company’s future business plans and central to NASA’s hopes of putting China on the moon. Purchase spectrum and replenish obsolete Starlink satellites. You then pay for the compute needed to build and operate your xAI deep learning models.