Topline
SpaceX filed plans to take the company public in paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission, offering rare insight into the finances of the aerospace giant owned by Elon Musk, whose compensation plan—and massive voting power—to establish a colony on Mars worried one analyst.
A new filing offers rare insight into the finances of Elon Musk’s aerospace giant.
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Key Facts
SpaceX, indicating plans to “make life multiplanetary,” disclosed on Wednesday that nearly 1 billion Class B shares would be awarded to Musk after the company achieves several market value milestones and after SpaceX establishes a “permanent human colony” of at least 1 million residents.
Musk controls 85% of SpaceX’s shareholder voting power with nearly 850 million Class A shares and 5.57 billion Class B shares, and no other person or entity has a larger stake than 5%, according to SpaceX’s filing.
Jay Ritter, a finance professor at the University of Florida and director of its market research program, the IPO Initiative, told Forbes he was concerned that SpaceX would rely on Starlink profits to send people to Mars at “enormous cost,” and that “enormous” subsidies would be required to maintain a Mars colony.
“If [Musk] continues to have a great desire to colonize Mars, there is little that shareholders can do about it” because of Musk’s voting control, Ritter said, even as Musk has a duty to maximize shareholder value.
Musk’s Trillionaire Status
Musk is the world’s wealthiest person with an estimated net worth of $807.7 billion as of Thursday, and Forbes estimates Musk’s SpaceX stock at nearly 40%. SpaceX’s stock debut will all but guarantee Musk becoming the first person with a fortune of $1 trillion, as the company is expected to be valued between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion in what’s projected to be the largest-ever IPO. If SpaceX is valued at $1.5 trillion, that would value Musk’s estimated stake at about $600 billion, increasing his net worth to just over $1.4 trillion. With a $2 trillion valuation, Musk’s stake would be valued at roughly $800 billion, potentially pushing his fortune above $1.6 trillion.
Spacex Reveals Revenue Loss—and Heavy Reliance On Starlink
SpaceX disclosed a net loss of $4.28 billion through its latest quarter after losing $4.94 billion in 2025. Starlink, the company’s satellite internet business, accounted for 69% of SpaceX’s first-quarter revenue at $4.69 billion. Connectivity, which includes SpaceX’s Starlink business, is the only profitable part of the company after its space unit lost $619 million and its AI arm lost $2.5 billion.
Spacex’s Monthly Billion-Dollar Payout From Anthropic
Anthropic will pay SpaceX $1.25 billion each month through May 2025 as part of a compute deal announced by the companies earlier this month. Anthropic will access more than 300 megawatts of compute capacity and “expressed interest” in helping SpaceX develop multiple gigawatts of capacity in space. SpaceX also disclosed plans to deploy data centers in space as early as 2028.
Spacex Spends More On Ai Than Space
SpaceX’s spending through its latest quarter totaled $10.1 billion, more than doubling from the previous year, with a majority of those costs ($7.7 billion) coming from AI. Capital expenditures for SpaceX’s space business totaled just over $1 billion and $1.3 billion for its connectivity business. In 2025, SpaceX spent $12.7 billion on AI, compared to $3.8 billion on space.
Big Number
$28.5 trillion. That’s how SpaceX values its addressable market, or the total amount of money it could make if it held all possible demand for the products or services it targets. SpaceX valued a $870 billion market for its broadband business, $740 billion for Starlink’s mobile unit, $600 billion for X’s digital advertising, $2.4 trillion for AI infrastructure and a $22.7 trillion market for enterprise applications.