SpaceX IPO: Musk raises $75 billion and keeps almost all the power
SpaceX is targeting June 12, 2026 for its Nasdaq debut under the ticker SPCX, with share pricing set for June 11. The company is seeking to raise roughly $75 billion at a valuation of $1.75 to $2 trillion — which would make it the largest IPO in history, dwarfing Saudi Aramco's $29 billion raise in 2019. The accelerated timeline, confirmed by Reuters, came after the SEC reviewed the confidential S-1 filing faster than expected.
The business behind the hype
SpaceX is not purely a rockets-and-vision story. Starlink, its satellite internet service, had 9.2 million subscribers and over $10 billion in revenue by the end of 2025, with projections pointing toward $24 billion by end-2026. Government contracts account for roughly 35% of total revenue. In February 2026, SpaceX merged with Elon Musk's AI company xAI in an all-stock deal valued at around $250 billion, rebranding the combined entity as SpaceXAI. These are the primary pillars propping up the multi-trillion-dollar valuation.
Musk's rules, not yours
The governance structure is where this IPO breaks from convention. Per a Globe and Mail analysis of the filing, Musk retains 78–79% of voting power through Class B supervoting shares. He can only be removed by other Class B holders — meaning public shareholders have virtually no mechanism to challenge his decisions. The company layers on mandatory arbitration clauses, Texas state law jurisdiction, and stricter-than-usual thresholds for shareholder proposals, all of which erode the protections investors typically expect.
This structure goes further than what Meta or Google offered at their own public debuts. S&P; 500 index funds and passive trackers will face pressure to buy SPCX simply because of the company's size, regardless of governance quality. The question now being asked on Wall Street is whether Anthropic and OpenAI — both eyeing future listings — will copy the same playbook.
What buyers are actually signing up for
The trade-off is explicit: a stake in the most successful private space company ever built, in exchange for zero meaningful influence over its strategy. Musk has consistently used legal structures to insulate his companies from shareholder activism — Tesla's proxy fights over the SolarCity acquisition and his own pay package are the clearest recent examples. SpaceX's structure is designed to prevent exactly those scenarios.
A 180-day employee lockup expires in December 2026, creating a potential overhang of shares entering the market just months after listing. Fortune notes that investor appetite remains strong despite governance concerns — demand for the "multiplanetary" narrative is, for now, overriding the usual due-diligence instincts. Whether that holds past the lockup expiry is a different question entirely.