SpaceX boosts IPO ambition with plans to raise $75bn
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Elon Musk’s rocketmaker SpaceX has told investors it hopes to raise roughly $75bn in its initial public offering, raising its ambitions for what was already set to be the largest listing in history.
The Texas-headquartered company had previously signalled it was seeking to raise $50bndwarfing the $29bn Saudi Aramco raised in 2019.
SpaceX executives added a further $25bn to that figure in a meeting with investors on Wednesday, said people familiar with the matter.
Musk is now targeting a valuation of about $1.75tn for his space exploration company, the people added. Only five publicly traded US companies have a higher market capitalisation. The Information previously reported some of the new financial ambitions.
SpaceX has yet to file its draft prospectus for an IPO with US regulators but could do so in the next few days as it aims to make its market debut by June, to coincide with Musk’s birthday and the alignment of Jupiter and Venus.
Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley have been lined up for lead roles on the blockbuster deal.
Bankers involved are toying with the idea of allowing existing shareholders to sell out of their positions on day one, two of the people said. That would do away with rules to prevent insiders cashing out or trading shares, which are typically imposed for 180 days after a company goes public.
A third person said SpaceX is considering a so-called staggered lock-up that would allow initial investors to slowly sell down their stakes over the course of several months. The deal is “too big of an IPO to just unlock”, the person said.
Musk’s influence over the size and timing of the listing has been highly unusual, said one investor close to a banker on the deal. “It’s kind of scary how Elon is setting the price, it’s not being done formally,” they said.
AI start-ups Anthropic and OpenAI — which were last valued at $350bn and $730bn respectively — have all also indicated plans to go public at some point in 2026.
Major stock exchanges have recently proposed changes to their listing rules that would provide fast-track routes on to their indices for large newly public companies.
Nasdaq last month suggested any new listing whose full market value ranked within the top 40 constituents of its flagship Nasdaq 100 could join the index just 15 trading days after going public. Currently, new constituents can only be added at annual index reconstitutions, to replace a deleted member or in the event of a spin-off.
Nasdaq has also proposed removing its 10 per cent minimum free float requirement — the proportion of a company’s shares on offer to the public — meaning “the largest companies would remain eligible, regardless of low float”. SpaceX plans to float less than 5 per cent of its equity.
The New York Stock Exchange earlier this month said it had introduced a “fast entry” rule on to the NYSE 100 for newly listed companies with a market capitalisation greater than the top-50 companies on the index.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
