SpaceX files for stock market debut that could make Elon Musk a trillionaire
Elon Musk's SpaceX has revealed its plans to go public in the US, allowing people to trade shares in the firm on the stock market.
SpaceX files for stock market debut that could make Elon Musk a trillionaire">
Elon Musk's SpaceX has revealed its plans to go public in the US, allowing people to trade shares in the firm on the stock market. The initial public offering (IPO) on the US stock market is set to be the largest in Wall Street history and could start next month under the ticker symbol SPCX. Because of the shares he will own in SpaceX, the IPO could make billionaire Musk, who is already the world's richest person, a trillionaire.
SpaceX values itself at $1.25tn, and Musk's majority ownership of the company means his share could be worth more than $600bn. The filing offers a long-anticipated look at the financial state of SpaceX. Last year, Space Exploration Technologies - as it's officially known - brought in $18.6bn (£13.8bn) in revenue but had a net loss $4.9bn.
In the first three months of this year, it achieved $4.7bn in sales but made a net loss of $4.3bn. Ruth Foxe-Blader, managing partner at US venture capital firm Citrine Venture Partners, told the BBC "it's not shocking for a project like this to be loss making, even at the point of IPO". She said the planned flotation had been expected but was "extremely exciting".
"SpaceX is just an absolutely sprawling, enormous project with so many different selling points, and so many points that really point to the future." SpaceX flagged more than half a billion dollars in expected legal costs stemming from a long list of claims. Some of these come from "multiple lawsuits" alleging that Grok, the chatbot made by xAI, is being used to create sexualized deepfakes of real women and girls. Musk has said he intends to dissolve xAI and pursue his AI ambitions under SpaceX.
The IPO filing comes just days after Musk lost a high-profile legal battle against rival AI company OpenAI and its boss, Sam Altman . Musk had accused Altman of breaching a non-profit contract by shifting the ChatGPT-maker to a for-profits after Musk had donated millions of dollars.
Source: BBC Technology