alt Hacker NewsSpaceX files to go public
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SpaceX has reduced the cost of getting a ton of mass into orbit by a factor of 10 and with their new system (Starship) it's poised further reduce that to 100x. They launch, land and re-use their rockets so often now that what was considered impossible 15 years ago is now routine. They currently put more things into space than the rest of the world combined and by a huge margin. They also have the most advanced internet infrastructure in the world and are poised to replace legacy ISPs and even mobile carriers in the coming decade. Oh, and they're doing all this while making a profit ($16B last year) despite their massive R&D spending and even with the money sink that is xAI their profits will be higher this year. It's hard to say that this isn't one of the most innovative and fast moving companies in the world. $1.75T maybe seems excessive, but less so than a lot of other companies out there.
> Money raised from a public offering would most likely help SpaceX finance its long-term goals of launching artificial intelligence data centers into orbit, creating a colony on the moon and getting humans to Mars. These are expensive and unproven endeavors that may take years and billions of dollars to achieve.
Oh my god. When a journalist writes like any of this is remotely plausible within “years” and “billions” of dollars it really downplays the near impossibility of these events happening.
Patrick Boyle (fund manager, professor, youtuber) recently discussed this IPO on his channel. Informative and entertaining.
I'm genuinely waiting to see at what the valuation lands at. The gap between what SpaceX charges per launch and what everyone else charges is so wide that the moat basically is the rocket. Hard to compare against anything even now.
I wonder how many here are aware that SpaceX (not Musk) now owns X Corp. (nee Twitter), via its ownership of xAI.
Smells like great fiduciary responsibility!
How will they make money? From governments? With Elon's beliefs, few will be able to afford the vacation trips to space, except a few and they can already do this if they wanted, but haven't in droves.
If anything this just proves that the Overview Effect (traveling to space changes you) is just BS, Bezos and the others never changed.
The thing i'm not looking forward to is SpaceX will now be beholden to Wall Street. With Startship testing being so public, there's a whole cottage industry of youtubers watching their every move, there's going to be lots of ups and downs on the stock price.
SpaceX does internal sales of stock twice a year, so there will not be pressure from existing stockholders to sell. But there will be buyers. SpaceX is/was a great brand (before it became SpaceTwitter).
It's going to have a big impact on short-term volatility, but it's going to take a big drop in prices in a month. But I think it's a company that needs to be invested in the long run.
It is insane to think that this year multiple "startups" are going to IPO at valuations greater than that of the largest company in the world in ~2018. We have printed so much money in that period that these numbers have completely lost touch with reality.
I love space and they are an amazing company that I have been following for almost 2 decades, but I wouldn't touch that IPO with a 10 foot pool.
But the auto inclusion in Fortune 500 is basically cheating.
Bloomberg link if you can't read the NYT: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-01/spacex-is...
I feel the global instability could easily be very disruptive to SpaceX. Just imagine if Russia gets vindictive and starts destroying these satellites or blowing up their satellites to create orbital debris that could knock satellites out of orbit. A really bad solar storm could be devastating.
Just saying there are some decent risks, and pricing it at 1.75T IPO seems risky enough. I would not take that gamble.
In June? That is why Trump is talking about an Iran ceasefire. Replenish the weapons, flip some companies to the public, then start the war again. Bonus points for disrupting EU energy supplies for longer.
Donald Trump Jr., who already profited from groq, is invested via 1789 capital:
https://www.reuters.com/investigations/trump-linked-venture-...
Not to mention that the PayPal mafia is now playing ball with respect to Epstein (Tracey was on all-in downplaying the whole thing), so Musk himself will be in good graces again.
Man, did I parse that badly. "Space(X files) to go public."
I'm a little disappointed now.
Now or never. If the stock market goes bust because of the war then most IPO windows will close or will result in a much lower subscription rate. You can expect a flurry of these in the next few weeks.
Rabble rabble... debt... rabble rabble... xAI burning revenue...
> In the United States, SpaceX accounts for five of every six launches into space, according to Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.
That's why.
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[All: please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN. You don't have to like $Company or $Person, but when the banned accounts are posting more thoughtfully than the rest, that's...a bad sign.]
With $1.75t valuation & ~$16b in revenues, that's just over 100* revenues. SpaceX recently announced $8b in EBITDA, but I don't think it's a healthy metric for such a hardware-heavy business. Or, like Charlie Munger calls it, BS earnings.
Even if you give SpaceX the benefit of the doubt and assume they'll eventually settle at the profit rates Apple, Google, etc. have (~25%, check it), it'll be $4b in annual profits holding up $1.8t in market cap or roughly 450 PE ratio.
And that's if we give them the same great odds for profitability as America's most successful and profitable firms.
In summary, in the short-term the stock might very likely shoot up to $3t, but in the long-term, it doesn't look very healthy.
I'm a SpaceX investor, and from reading the comments here, I think most people here are missing why SpaceX has an outrageously high valuation.
SpaceX's valuation only makes sense if you buy into their mission of creating a civilization on Mars, and that the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation is the vehicle that creates this future. If SpaceX achieves this, it would be the most valuable company ever created. It would be worth $10s of trillions.
I personally believe SpaceX has a 70% chance of achieving its Mars ambitions. So I find the current $1.75 trillion valuation very logical, if not a little underpriced.
If you believe there's a SpaceX won't achieve these ambitions, which I'd assume most people in this thread belong to, then you'd assign a <1% chance of this happening. Then you'd value the company based on it's financials, at a more realistic $200B. You'd explain the 8x valuation gap though a mixture of financial engineering and Elon grifting, both of which I agree are happening.
The current $1.75 trillion valuation comes from the ratio of people in camp A to camp B.
You don't have to believe. If you have a 401k you will be an investor 15 days after launch.
The IPO will go great, because the company will float a fairly small issuance. The big shareholders will not immediately sell. They will hold on and maybe even buy to support the price.
Then, after 15 days, it will enter the indexes and everyone's 401k will start auto-buying this stock.
You might say this is an obvious flaw in how the indexes work if they start immediately accept a brand new IPOed stock with limited float. You'd be right, which is why they won't list for a year.
At least they wouldn't until Elon got them to change their rules: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-30/nasdaq-cl...