SpaceX live updates: IPO filing sets stage for record offering
Quick Take
SpaceX has filed for an IPO, aiming to list on Nasdaq as SPCX.
Key Points
- IPO filing marks a significant milestone for SpaceX.
- Company aims to raise substantial capital through public offering.
- Listing under ticker SPCX is expected to attract investors.
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What to Know
- SpaceX's official IPO filing sets up a likely Nasdaq debut next month.
- Goldman Sachs is lead left on the prospectus, followed by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase.
- SpaceX was valued at $1.25 trillion in February after merging with xAI, Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup, meaning new investors will be buying in at a historically high price.
- The IPO is likely to be the first of three potential mega offerings this year, with OpenAI and Anthropic both eyeing the public market.
- Follow-up filings from SpaceX will lay out the expected per-share pricing range and likely more detail on the top shareholders.
Elon Musk's SpaceX is officially headed for the public market in what's likely to be a record IPO that will put the world's richest person at the helm of two separate trillion-dollar publicly traded companies.
In a prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, SpaceX said it plans to list under ticker symbol SPCX on the Nasdaq. SpaceX confidentially filed with the SEC in April, and CNBC reported last week that the company is aiming to kick off a roadshow to market the deal on June 8.
Founded by Musk in 2002 to develop and operate reusable rockets, SpaceX has turned into NASA's biggest launch partner after the agency ended its space shuttle program in 2011. In addition to its massive aerospace and defense contracts, SpaceX also operates the Starlink satellite internet service and a constellation of around 10,000 satellites, as well as artificial intelligence unit xAI, which previously acquired X, the social network formerly known as Twitter.
CNBC's reporters are covering SpaceX's IPO from bureaus in San Francisco and Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
SpaceX revenue jumped 15% to $4.69 billion in first quarter
SpaceX said revenue increased 15% to $4.69 billion in the first quarter from $4.07 billion a year earlier. Revenue for all of last year jumped 33% to $18.67 billion.
The company recorded a net loss in the latest quarter of $4.28 billion after losing $4.94 billion in 2025.
—Lora Kolodny
Musk controls 85% of SpaceX voting power
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attends a state banquet for President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 14, 2026.
Brendan Smialowski | Afp | Getty Images
Elon Musk controls 85% of SpaceX voting power, with 849.5 million Class A shares and 5.57 billion Class B shares, according to Wednesday's prospectus.
Other than Musk, no person or entity has a stake larger than 5%.
— Jordan Novet
SpaceX merger with xAI created a trillion-dollar plus company
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Elon Musk merged SpaceX with xAI in February, creating a combined entity that he valued at the time at $1.25 trillion.
Tesla, Musk's electric vehicle company, has a market cap of about $1.6 trillion, and was previously the main source of his liquid wealth.
In a statement announcing the SpaceX-xAI merger, Musk said the deal was meant to create "the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world's foremost real-time information and free speech platform."
But by April, Musk acknowledged that xAI, and the tech underlying its AI chatbot and image generator Grok, "was not built right first time around," and needed to be "rebuilt from the foundations up."
Grok was supposed to be xAI's answer to ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, but has remained more of a niche player. Grok drew lawsuits and investigations in the U.S. and Europe after it enabled the widespread creation and sharing of nonconsensual explicit, deepfakes, which were based on photos and videos of real women and children.
As part of the SpaceX overhaul of xAI's business and technology, the company struck a deal last month to acquire Cursor for $60 billion, or pay a $10 billion breakup fee. That transaction is expected to move ahead after SpaceX shares begin trading.
SpaceX is also acting as a so-called neocloud, renting out xAI's compute capacity at its Colossus 1 data center in Memphis to Anthropic.
—Lora Kolodny
SpaceX's company town: Starbase, Texas
New construction rises above the SpaceX production facility as preparations continue for the 12th test flight of the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy booster at Starbase in Texas, U.S., May 16, 2026.
Steve Nesius | Reuters
SpaceX is based in Texas, along the Gulf Coast. In 2024, Musk said he was moving SpaceX's headquarters from Southern California to Boca Chica, Texas, where the company built and launched its rockets.
Last year, SpaceX was successful in converting Boca Chica into an official company town named Starbase through an election. Around 500 people, including SpaceX employees, lived in the community at the time, according to the Texas Tribune.
Starbase's official website describes the town as the "gateway to Mars," and "a launch site unlike any place on Earth, with humanity's future in space unfolding in plain view for the public."
Bobby Peden, who has spent roughly 13 years working for Musk's rocket maker, is the town's inaugural mayor after getting elected last May.
SpaceX is planning for a 12th test flight of its massive Starship rocket that will launch from a new pad at the Starbase facility as early as May 21.
"Development, manufacturing, testing, and launch of Starship currently takes place at Starbase, home to SpaceX headquarters and one of the world's first commercial spaceports designed for orbital missions," the prospectus says.
SpaceX is currently being investigated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration after an unidentified worker died at a Starbase facility on May 15, as the San Antonio Express-News reported Monday.
-- Lora Kolodny
— Originally published at cnbc.com
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