SpaceX has been the most valuable private company in the world for years. Everyone knew an IPO was coming eventually. And now it’s here — S-1 filed May 20, formal marketing started June 4, institutional investor roadshow running from June 8, pricing expected June 11, and trading expected June 12 under the ticker SPCX on the Nasdaq. The confirmed share price is $135 — a fixed price announced before the roadshow, breaking with decades of Wall Street convention. At that price, SpaceX is valued at $1.77 trillion. Saudi Aramco’s $29.4 billion record from 2020 won’t even be close.

But the headline numbers tell only part of the story. The S-1 — the formal registration document SpaceX filed with the SEC — is the first time the world has had audited, certified financials on a company that’s operated in near-total privacy for 24 years. And it reveals a company that is three very different businesses stitched together, with one profitable engine subsidising two expensive bets.

What SpaceX Actually Is in 2026

Most people know SpaceX as the rocket company. Falcon 9, Starship, NASA contracts, Elon Musk’s Mars ambitions. That’s real — SpaceX operates the world’s most active launch programme and has genuinely revolutionised reusable rocketry. But launch is now a minority of the business.

There are three businesses inside SpaceX’s S-1, and they have completely different financial profiles.

Business 1: Starlink — The Cash Engine

Starlink is the real story. SpaceX’s satellite internet service generated $11.4 billion in revenue in 2025 — 61% of total company revenue — at a remarkable 63% EBITDA margin. It has 10.3 million subscribers across 164 countries, supported by over 9,600 deployed satellites. This is the only part of SpaceX that generates meaningful positive cash flow — roughly $4.4 billion in operating profit in 2025. Everything else runs on Starlink money. By Q1 2026, Starlink’s share of total revenue had risen further to 69%, meaning the profitable segment is carrying an even heavier load.

Business 2: Launch — The Heritage

Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches remain a core revenue stream, serving NASA, commercial satellite operators, and national security customers. Over 95% of SpaceX’s revenue comes from the private sector — Musk has been emphatic about this to counter narratives of government dependency. Starship, the next-generation fully reusable rocket, completed its V3 maiden flight ahead of the IPO. It’s the foundation of the Mars ambition and the orbital data centre vision — but it’s not yet generating revenue at scale. The rocket launch segment lost $657 million in 2025.

Business 3: xAI — The Loss Engine

In February 2026, Musk merged xAI — his Grok AI chatbot operation — into SpaceX at a combined valuation of $1.25 trillion. xAI was valued at approximately $80 billion in the transaction. The AI division posted a deficit of $6.35 billion in 2025 and burned another $2.5 billion in Q1 2026 alone — consuming 60% of SpaceX’s $20 billion capital expenditure in 2025. The S-1 amendment also disclosed that xAI purchased $269 million worth of Tesla Megapacks in April 2026 — an unusual related-party transaction worth flagging.

The Anthropic Deal — And the Bigger IPO Picture

Buried in the S-1 is one of the most interesting disclosures: SpaceX signed Cloud Services Agreements with Anthropic in May 2026 for access to its Colossus and Colossus II AI compute infrastructure at $1.25 billion per month through May 2029. That’s roughly $15 billion per year — up to $45 billion over the full contract term. Either party can terminate on 90 days’ notice, so this is a large, revocable purchase order, not locked-in revenue.

Notably, Anthropic itself filed its IPO prospectus confidentially with the SEC on June 2, 2026 — one day before SpaceX’s roadshow began. OpenAI is preparing to file its own prospectus in the coming weeks. The three largest AI companies in the world are all heading for public markets within weeks of each other. The AI IPO window of 2026 is the biggest capital markets story since the dot-com era.

The Governance Problem

SpaceX has a dual-class share structure. Class A shares — the ones available to the public — carry one vote each. Class B shares, held by insiders, carry ten votes each. Musk holds 93.6% of Class B shares and 12.3% of Class A shares, giving him 85.1% of combined voting power post-IPO.

This means that regardless of what public investors think about any decision Musk makes, they have almost no ability to influence it. SpaceX qualifies as a “controlled company” under Nasdaq rules and opts out of independent board requirements. Musk will serve simultaneously as CEO, CTO, and Chairman post-IPO.

There’s also the compensation package. Musk is eligible for up to one billion additional shares — but only if SpaceX reaches a $7.5 trillion valuation and establishes a permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants.

The Nasdaq-100 Fast-Entry Rule — This Matters

Once SPCX starts trading, it will qualify for Nasdaq’s fast-entry rule — automatically joining the Nasdaq-100 index after only 15 days of trading. This triggers “forced buying”: every ETF and index fund that tracks the Nasdaq-100 will be required to buy SPCX shares, regardless of what they think of the valuation. That’s trillions of dollars in passive money with no choice in the matter. It’s likely to create significant upward price pressure in the first weeks of trading — and potentially creates an overhang when that mechanical demand subsides.

My Take

SpaceX is a genuinely extraordinary company. What it has achieved in rocketry — Falcon 9’s reusability, the launch cadence, Starship’s development pace — is historically significant. Starlink is a real, profitable, fast-growing business that has changed internet access in remote and conflict-affected regions. None of that is hype.

The $1.77 trillion valuation is pricing in a future that doesn’t yet exist. At 94 times trailing revenue, SPCX is priced higher than Tesla was at its own IPO. Starlink at a fair telecom multiple might be worth $200–300 billion. The remaining $1.4–1.5 trillion is a bet on Starship commercialisation, orbital AI data centres, and xAI becoming a major AI platform. When challenged on the price-to-sales ratio exceeding 50x, Musk responded on X with three words: “You shall see.”

The fixed pre-roadshow pricing is a fascinating signal. It either means demand from testing-the-waters meetings was so strong that Musk saw no reason to leave money on the table with a range — or it’s a power move designed to project confidence regardless of where demand actually sits. Given that the roadshow only started today, we’ll know which interpretation is correct by June 11.

The governance structure remains the thing that would make me personally cautious. Buying SPCX is not an investment in SpaceX — it’s an investment in whatever Elon Musk decides to do with SpaceX. The $269 million Tesla Megapack purchase by xAI, disclosed quietly in the S-1 amendment, is exactly the kind of related-party transaction that happens when the same person controls multiple companies with minimal board oversight. None of this means SPCX won’t go up. But understanding what you’re actually buying — and what you’re not — seems worth doing before June 12.

Mr Wangdoo

Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Wangdoo.com. Independent tech journalist covering AI, EVs, gadgets, and emerging tech.