Body

SpaceX has revealed plans for an initial public offering that could become one of the biggest-ever public share sales, even as the company reported deep operating losses. In a filing discussed by The Associated Press, SpaceX said it lost $2.6 billion from operations last year on $18.7 billion in revenue, and the losses were continuing into the start of this year.

The prospectus did not put a specific dollar figure on how much SpaceX is seeking to raise, but The Associated Press reported that various estimates put the potential proceeds at around $75 billion. If the offering reached that scale, it would surpass the fundraising record set by Saudi Aramco’s IPO seven years earlier, which raised $26 billion.

SpaceX said the money would help finance projects it described as aimed at putting people on the moon and Mars. The filing also included language casting the effort as part of a broader push to keep humans from facing extinction-level threats, stating, “We do not want humans to have the same fate as dinosaurs,” according to the prospectus.

The filing portrays parts of Musk’s compensation as heavily milestone-driven, with shares tied to long-range goals. It describes stock awards in which Musk’s grants would be split into 15 nearly equal amounts—67 million shares each—with vesting conditioned on the company reaching preset market-cap goals, and it requires achieving a “permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants” for a portion of the compensation tied to those plans.

SpaceX’s disclosure also points to large swings in which parts of the business are already producing cash flow and which remain loss-making. The filing shows that Starlink, the satellite internet unit, generated $4.4 billion in operating income last year and uses 10,000 low-orbit satellites to provide service to 10 million people across 150 countries and territories.

At the same time, the prospectus describes several areas that were struggling, including SpaceX’s artificial intelligence business. The filing says the AI unit lost $6.4 billion in operations last year, and it also references recent acquisitions that some investors criticized as financially motivated “bailouts,” including Musk’s social media platform X and the AI firm xAI.

The filing also emphasizes the role of government spending and outlines potential governance risks for public investors. SpaceX has said it won contracts worth $6 billion from NASA and the Defense Department and other government agencies in the past five years, according to USAspending.gov, and the company noted that a fifth of its revenue last year came from the federal government. The Associated Press reported that government ethics lawyers and watchdogs have asked whether Musk received special treatment because of his close relation to the Trump administration.

Musk’s compensation and control structure are also described as a point of investor focus. The filing says Musk and certain other shareholders would receive a special class of stock with 10 votes per share, and it warns that “This will limit or preclude your ability to influence corporate matters and the election of our directors,” according to SpaceX’s warning to prospective investors.

SpaceX’s path to marketing the offering follows a standard Wall Street timeline. The company could begin a “road show” 15 days after making its prospectus public, which The Associated Press reported would place it around June 4, while the company continues to present the IPO as a route to funding long-term space ambitions.