A look at the upcoming historic SpaceX IPO

The upcoming SpaceX initial public offering (IPO) will be the largest in history to date, and if you invest in U.S. tech-heavy index funds you are likely to become a shareholder. But what is truly unprecedented in its scope, and could change history in ways we can’t yet comprehend, is how the company will be structured. One person, Elon Musk, will retain absolute voting control of this new ‘public’ mega-conglomerate.

In an information and social media-inundated world, where people doom-scroll and don’t absorb important information as readily as they used to, take a few seconds to digest what our story lede just stated. As we’ll detail below, Musk will have absolute control, without any investor recourse, over one of the most valued public companies of our day. A question to ponder is: will Elon Musk have as much influence and power as the President of the United States with little accountability? Let’s get into the details.

The IPO

SpaceX officially filed its preliminary prospectus (Form S-1) on May 20, 2026 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a targeted June 12, 2026 debut as a dual-listed company on the Nasdaq and the newly created Nasdaq Texas exchanges under the ticker symbol SPCX. The company is seeking to raise up to $75 billion (all figures in U.S. dollars) at a very large targeted valuation of between $1.75 trillion and $2.0 trillion. To put that in perspective, the capital raise is roughly two and a half times larger than Saudi Aramco’s 2019 IPO, making it the biggest stock market debut ever. Goldman Sachs has been tapped as the lead underwriter, joined by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase.

One of the most unique things about SpaceX’s plan to go public is how many shares they are setting aside for the everyday investor. Instead of handing almost everything over to Wall Street firms, SpaceX is reserving up to 30% of its available stock specifically for everyday investors. That is roughly three times more than the 5% to 10% usually offered to the general public when large companies debut on the stock market.

Elon Musk has cultivated and engaged a loyal fan base through X, so from a strategic standpoint, leaning on this audience serves two purposes. First, the upcoming IPO is so large that traditional Wall Street funds might demand a larger discount to buy up all the shares. By opening the door to everyday investors, SpaceX can try and sell everything at the price it wants. Second, regular investors don’t often team up to launch costly legal battles or public relations campaigns against management. By spreading ownership across the large fan base rather than a few powerful hedge funds, Musk creates a buffer against activist investors who might try to interfere with how he runs his empire. Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen has publicly noted that welcoming everyday investors remains central to the company’s long-term public market strategy. It’s a strategy Musk learned from Tesla after it went public.

What will SpaceX do with the funds raised? And what are the current finances?

The filing states the IPO proceeds will be used to fuel the company’s aggressive growth strategy. Specifically, SpaceX plans to fund the expansion of its artificial intelligence computing infrastructure, enhance its launch vehicles and infrastructure, and increase the scale and capacity of its satellite constellations.

The financial numbers reveal a company in transition. In 2025, the combined SpaceX conglomerate generated $18.67 billion in revenue, but posted a net loss of $4.94 billion. This loss is largely attributed to its recent acquisition of Musk’s AI company, xAI, which brought heavy cash burn onto the balance sheet to build out AI infrastructure.

This trend has continued into the first quarter of 2026, with SpaceX reporting $4.69 billion in revenue alongside a $4.28 billion net loss. Despite the overall losses, its Starlink satellite internet service remains a highly profitable financial engine, generating over $4.4 billion in operating profit last year.

Share structure and unprecedented control

When the company goes public, everyday investors will purchase Class A common stock, which carries one vote per share. Meanwhile, Musk and a select group of insiders hold Class B common stock, which grants 10 votes per share.

According to the official filing, Musk owns 12.3% of the Class A shares and 93.6% of the Class B shares. Because of the heavy weight of the Class B shares, this translates to Musk holding a combined 85.1% of the total corporate voting power. This dominance allows him to single-handedly dictate the outcome of any matter requiring shareholder approval, including the election of the board of directors and major corporate acquisitions.

Furthermore, as the SEC S-1 notes, Musk will serve as the CEO, chief technology officer, and chairman of the board. The company’s charter dictates that he can only be removed from his executive roles by a vote of the super-voting Class B shares, effectively meaning he cannot be fired without his own written consent.

To further insulate this setup from legal challenges, SpaceX reincorporated from Delaware to Texas in 2024 to take advantage of the state’s newly amended corporate codes. Under these Texas rules, a shareholder must own 3% of the company’s outstanding stock just to file a lawsuit against it. At the projected valuation, that means an investor would need over $50 billion in shares just to have the right to sue. On top of that, SpaceX has embedded mandatory, binding arbitration clauses into its bylaws, requiring shareholders to waive their rights to a jury trial or class-action lawsuits.

This structure has raised alarms with corporate governance advocates and institutional investors. A coalition of fiduciaries leading large public pension funds in New York and California recently sent a formal letter to the company, protesting what they called “the most management-favourable governance structure ever brought to the US public market at this scale”.

Reuters also reported comments from Bruce Herbert, CEO of Newground Social Investment. As a known shareholder rights campaigner who has clashed with Musk at Tesla before, Herbert echoed the frustration among corporate watchdogs. “‘It closes the voting door, the courthouse door, and the proposal door simultaneously,’ he told Reuters. ‘It’s unprecedented in terms of creating a total lack of accountability.'”

The Tesla connection and Texas empire

The impending IPO highlights a more permanent blurring of the lines across Elon Musk’s corporate portfolio. Just months before finalizing the public offering plans, Tesla invested $2.0 billion into Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI. When SpaceX absorbed xAI weeks later, that capital converted into SpaceX equity. This follows several years of Musk consolidating his empire in the business-friendly confines of Texas.

Musk has officially moved the headquarters of Tesla, X (formerly Twitter), and his tunnelling venture, The Boring Company, from California to the Austin area. Furthermore, Neuralink operates a massive research and manufacturing hub just a short drive away.

Musk also recently launched the ambitious megaproject known as TeraFab. It began with the ‘Research Fab,’ a large semiconductor pilot plant located on the Gigafactory Texas campus. Built through a partnership between Tesla and SpaceX (which now houses both xAI and the Starlink satellite subsidiary), TeraFab aims to vertically integrate the production of custom silicon chips. Once Tesla perfects the chip-making recipes at the Research Fab, SpaceX will step in to handle high-volume manufacturing.

A Sci-Fi compensation plan

Now let’s talk about Musk’s out-of-this-world compensation plan, which features milestones that sound like pure science fiction.

In January 2026, the SpaceX board approved a strictly all-or-nothing package where Musk earns a nominal base salary of just $54,080. But the real payout is tied entirely to lofty achievements: he will be granted 60.4 million super-voting Class B restricted shares if the company reaches a $6.6 trillion valuation and deploys orbital data centres capable of generating 100 terawatts of computing power. An even larger tranche of up to 200 million shares will unlock only if SpaceX hits a $7.5 trillion market value and successfully establishes a permanent human settlement on Mars with at least one million people.

The roadshow and valuation

The institutional roadshow is scheduled to begin on June 4, setting the stage for a debate over the company’s final valuation. While SpaceX is targeting a valuation between $1.75 trillion and $2.0 trillion, a research report from Morningstar this morning estimates that the actual fair value is closer to $780 billion.

Morningstar analysts argue in part that the massive investments required for the proposed orbital data centres pose a “material threat of value destruction to the company.” They cautioned that while the concept has potential, the project “requires some unproven engineering to succeed” and that its “viability, timelines, and financial outcomes remain highly uncertain.”

Ultimately, at the end of the day, Musk’s huge loyal fan base and the everyday investor might just have the final say on what SpaceX is truly worth.