(SeaPRwire) – Elon Musk revealed plans on Wednesday to conduct one of the largest initial public offerings ever by taking a space company public, despite its current annual losses amounting to billions of dollars.
According to a filing, SpaceX incurred an operational loss of $2.6 billion last year on revenues of $18.7 billion, and these losses continued into the beginning of this year.
While the prospectus did not specify the exact amount Musk aims to raise, reports suggest it could be around $75 billion. Such an offering would significantly exceed the current record set by Saudi Aramco, the oil giant that raised $26 billion when it went public seven years ago.
SpaceX, officially known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., has stated that the funds will support initiatives to establish human presence on the moon and Mars, as part of its mission to ensure humanity’s survival as an intergalactic species against existential threats that could end civilization.
“We do not want humans to have the same fate as dinosaurs,” the filing explicitly states.
The prospectus reads in parts like a futuristic Hollywood movie, detailing in one section that a portion of Musk’s compensation will be contingent on him maintaining “a permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants.”
Even without achieving this goal, the stock sale alone could potentially make Musk, the founder and a major shareholder of SpaceX since its inception in 2002, the world’s first trillionaire. Forbes currently estimates his net worth at $839 billion.
In addition to developing reusable rockets for space travel, SpaceX operates various other businesses, some of which are successful while others are struggling, presenting numerous uncertainties.
The document indicates that Starlink, the world’s largest satellite internet provider, is a significant revenue generator for the company, producing $4.4 billion in operating income last year. This business utilizes 10,000 satellites in low Earth orbit to deliver internet services to 10 million users across 150 countries and territories.
Among the less successful ventures are two recently acquired Musk entities: his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, and his artificial intelligence company, xAI. These acquisitions have been criticized by some SpaceX investors as financial bailouts due to their substantial financial losses.
The prospectus reported that its AI business experienced an operational loss of $6.4 billion last year.
SpaceX’s core business of manufacturing rockets and managing launches has benefited from substantial government contracts, which raises questions that could potentially impact the company. Given Musk’s close ties to the Trump administration, government ethics experts and watchdog groups have questioned whether he received preferential treatment in securing taxpayer funding and whether this advantage might diminish after President Donald Trump leaves office.
According to USAspending.gov, SpaceX has secured contracts totaling $6 billion from NASA, the Department of Defense, and other government agencies over the past five years. The company noted in its filing that one-fifth of its revenue last year was derived from the federal government.
Musk was a leading donor to Trump’s presidential campaign and continues to be a significant supporter, despite their occasionally strained relationship following Musk’s involvement in a government cost-cutting initiative known as DOGE early last year.
Similar to many corporate executives, Musk’s compensation is expected to extend beyond his annual salary, which was $54,080 in 2025 and has remained unchanged since 2019, according to the filing.
The prospectus outlines that his stock grants will be divided into 15 nearly equal tranches of 67 million shares each, and these will vest only as the company achieves predetermined market capitalization milestones. In addition to the Martian colony, SpaceX’s stock market value would need to reach $7.5 trillion for him to receive the full award.
He stands to receive additional stock awards if SpaceX successfully deploys massive, football-field-sized data centers in space.
The document reveals that Musk will wield significant control over the company.
It states that he and certain other shareholders will receive shares in a special class that grants them 10 votes per share. These shareholders will have the authority, among other things, to elect a majority of the company’s board of directors.
“This will limit or preclude your ability to influence corporate matters and the election of our directors,” SpaceX warned prospective investors.
SpaceX will be permitted to present its offering to investors, a process known on Wall Street as a “road show,” 15 days after making its prospectus public. In this instance, that date falls on June 4.
___
Associated Press writer Alex Veiga in Los Angeles contributed.
This article is provided by a third-party content provider. SeaPRwire (https://www.seaprwire.com/) makes no warranties or representations regarding its content.
Category: Top News, Daily News
SeaPRwire provides global press release distribution services for companies and organizations, covering more than 6,500 media outlets, 86,000 editors and journalists, and over 3.5 million end-user desktop and mobile apps. SeaPRwire supports multilingual press release distribution in English, Japanese, German, Korean, French, Russian, Indonesian, Malay, Vietnamese, Chinese, and more.
