SpaceX files initial paperwork to sell shares to the public and likely make Musk a trillionaire

NEW YORK — Two people who know about the filing said that Elon Musk's space exploration company has submitted the first paperwork to sell shares to the public. This would be a huge deal that could make its founder the world's first trillionaire.

A SpaceX IPO is sure to be one of the biggest events on Wall Street this year. Several investment banks are ready to help raise tens of billions of dollars to help Musk build a base on the moon, put datacenters the size of several football fields in orbit, and maybe even send a man to Mars one day.

The sources want to stay anonymous because they weren't allowed to discuss about the private registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission in public.

SpaceX didn't answer right away when asked for a response.

SpaceX hasn't said how much money they want to raise, although reports say it might be as much as $75 billion. At such sum, the offer would easily beat the $29 billion that Saudi Aramco made in its IPO in 2019.

Pitchbook, a research firm, says that the offering, which could happen in June, could make all of SpaceX's shares worth $1.5 trillion. This is almost twice as much as the company was worth in December, when some minority shareholders sold their shares before an acquisition that made the company bigger.

Pitchbook says that Musk now owns 42% of SpaceX, but that number will alter when the company goes public and new owners get shares. He is already close to the trillion dollar barrier, thus he is sure to break it. Forbes says that Musk is worth about $823 billion.

SpaceX owns Starlink, the world's biggest satellite communications provider. They also make reusable rockets that can send astronauts and equipment into orbit. The company has recently bought two other Musk businesses: the social networking platform X, which used to be Twitter, and the artificial intelligence startup xAI. This deal was controversial because Musk owned both the seller and the buyer.

SpaceX is the biggest commercial launch company in its field. It sends payloads into space for customers all around the world, but it has also profited from a lot of taxpayer money. This has caused problems with conflicts of interest because Musk gave the most money to President Donald Trump's campaign and still supports him.

USAspending.gov says that in the last five years, SpaceX has gotten $6 billion in contracts from NASA, the Defense Department, and other U.S. government departments.

Among Donald Trump Jr., the president's oldest son, is one of the current owners of SpaceX. He owns shares through 1789 Capital. That venture capital firm made him a partner not long after his father won the presidency for the second time. Since then, they have been buying up federal contractors in order to get taxpayer money.

The White House and Trump himself have said several times that there are no conflicts of interest between his job as president and his family's companies.