Introduction: SpaceX aimes for largest IPO ever with $1.8tn valuation
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of busines, the financial markets and the world economy.
“Rockets are hard,” as Elon Musk pointed out last week after rival Jeff Bezos’s New Glenn rocket exploded during a test in Florida last week. But launching the world’s largest stock market flotation is also a challenge.
Musk’s SpaceX has announced that it plans to IPO at a valuation of $1.78trn, which would be the largest stock market float ever.
Plans filed last night show that SpaceX plans to raise $75bn, although that could rise to $86bn if the banks underwriting the deal take up an option to sell additional shares
If successful, this will rank as the largest IPO in history, overtaking Saudi Aramco’s float in 2019, and put Musk on track to be a trillionaire.
But while SpaceX’s rocket operations, and its ambitions for orbital artificial intelligence data centres, are ambitious, so is its IPO valuation.
The company posted a net loss of $4.94bn in 2025, Reuters points out, with revenue rising 33% to $18.67bn.
That means it is targeting an astrononic valuation of over 90 times its annual revenues (investors would rather value companies as a multiple of its profits….).
Floating on the stock market will give SpaceX access to a fresh source of capital. But it will also allow insiders to cash out some of their profits on SpaceX, by selling their shares to ordinary investors. Index fund trackers and pensions funds will provide some of this ‘exit liquidity’, meaning we could soon all find we have a stake in Musk’s ambitions.
Some analysts have questioned SpaceX’s mega valuation.
Financial data firm Morningstar warned earlier this week that the company is “significantly overvalued.”
Assessing the future value of the space economy is tricky; Morningstar’s discounted cash flow valuation of SpaceX (based on its future cash flows) is $780bn, and they say:
“We think the company has been significantly overvalued and investors will have opportunities to buy the stock at more attractive levels after the IPO.”
The agenda
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8.30am BST: Eurozone construction PMI for May
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9am BST: UK new car sales data for May
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9.30am BST: UK construction PMI for May
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10.30am BST: US ‘Challenger’ jobs cuts data for May
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1.30pm BST: US weekly ‘initial claims’ jobless data
Key events
Jamie Dimon to pitch JPMorgan’s ultra-rich clients on SpaceX IPO
JP Morgan’s CEO is to pitch SpaceX to his bank’s ultra-rich clients.
Jamie Dimon plans to discuss the upcoming SpaceX initial public offering with thousands of the bank’s high-net-worth clients this week, according to Bloomberg, qho report:
Dimon will host a “live interactive discussion” Thursday from JPMorgan’s headquarters, according to invitations seen by Bloomberg.
He will be joined by Mary Callahan Erdoes, the CEO of the bank’s asset and wealth management division, and a pair of SpaceX executives: President Gwynne Shotwell and Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen.
iForex: some investors might baulk at SpaceX’s huge valuation
SpaceX’s $1.75trn is ‘stratospherically high’, warns Michael Hewson, senior market analyst at iForex, which might put some investors off taking part in the IPO:
In what looks set to be one of the most hotly anticipated IPOs in years, SpaceX is set to blast off on 12th June as it looks to raise up to $75bn from investors at $135 a share, which would value the company at an eye-popping $1.75trn.
This eye watering valuation looks set to see the business included in the Nasdaq with many questioning how anyone can justify such a stratospheric valuation at this level of fixed price, even before the book building process has started.
In doing this SpaceX runs the risk that some investors might baulk at the price tag, raising the risk it could come up short, as the investor road show gets underway.
On any normal metric the numbers defy belief given that last year SpaceX lost $4.9bn on the back of total revenues of $18.7bn.
While the increase in revenues of 33% from 2024 was welcome, most of the improvement came from its Starlink service, which contributed about $11.4bn.
On the basis of last year’s revenues of $18.7bn, a $1.7trn valuation would equate to 92 times sales, which for a business that can currently be described as either an aerospace or telecoms business is stratospherically high.
Introduction: SpaceX aimes for largest IPO ever with $1.8tn valuation
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of busines, the financial markets and the world economy.
“Rockets are hard,” as Elon Musk pointed out last week after rival Jeff Bezos’s New Glenn rocket exploded during a test in Florida last week. But launching the world’s largest stock market flotation is also a challenge.
Musk’s SpaceX has announced that it plans to IPO at a valuation of $1.78trn, which would be the largest stock market float ever.
Plans filed last night show that SpaceX plans to raise $75bn, although that could rise to $86bn if the banks underwriting the deal take up an option to sell additional shares
If successful, this will rank as the largest IPO in history, overtaking Saudi Aramco’s float in 2019, and put Musk on track to be a trillionaire.
But while SpaceX’s rocket operations, and its ambitions for orbital artificial intelligence data centres, are ambitious, so is its IPO valuation.
The company posted a net loss of $4.94bn in 2025, Reuters points out, with revenue rising 33% to $18.67bn.
That means it is targeting an astrononic valuation of over 90 times its annual revenues (investors would rather value companies as a multiple of its profits….).
Floating on the stock market will give SpaceX access to a fresh source of capital. But it will also allow insiders to cash out some of their profits on SpaceX, by selling their shares to ordinary investors. Index fund trackers and pensions funds will provide some of this ‘exit liquidity’, meaning we could soon all find we have a stake in Musk’s ambitions.
Some analysts have questioned SpaceX’s mega valuation.
Financial data firm Morningstar warned earlier this week that the company is “significantly overvalued.”
Assessing the future value of the space economy is tricky; Morningstar’s discounted cash flow valuation of SpaceX (based on its future cash flows) is $780bn, and they say:
“We think the company has been significantly overvalued and investors will have opportunities to buy the stock at more attractive levels after the IPO.”
The agenda
-
8.30am BST: Eurozone construction PMI for May
-
9am BST: UK new car sales data for May
-
9.30am BST: UK construction PMI for May
-
10.30am BST: US ‘Challenger’ jobs cuts data for May
-
1.30pm BST: US weekly ‘initial claims’ jobless data
