Before that, SpaceX could file publicly for the IPO as early as Wednesday, with a roadshow kicking off on June 4, the report said. The prior timeline put the IPO near the end of June.
Since its founding in 2002, SpaceX has taken over the market. It claimed more than 80% of global rocket launches last year and has over 10,000 Starlink satellites in orbit, providing space-based internet connections to businesses and militaries.
SpaceX is a top launch provider for NASA and the Pentagon, which is also looking to the company to help develop President Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile-defense shield.
SpaceX seeks to achieve this via super-voting Class B shares, mandatory arbitration, and stricter rules on shareholder proposals.
Some changes are tied to ambitious milestones, such as awarding Musk as many as 200 million class B shares if the company reaches a $7.5 trillion valuation and builds a colony on Mars with 1 million human inhabitants.
Another would give Musk 60 million more shares if the valuation hits $6.6 trillion and SpaceX deploys a network of space-based data centers with 100 terawatts of computing capacity.
SpaceX didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, investors stand to reap a massive windfall and don’t seem to be pushing back against the governance changes.
“I am not saying our investment process is to just give him money for anything he wants,” a venture capitalist who backed X, xAI and SpaceX told the FT. “But to be honest that wouldn’t have been a bad strategy: never bet against Elon.”
Another investor pointed out Musk’s compensation is directly tied to SpaceX’s accomplishments. While the CEO is notorious for setting and missing highly ambitious goals, many have come to fruition eventually.
“We could all argue whether one should make that much money,” the SpaceX investor told the FT. “But the reality is, if he creates these gigantic companies, I’m personally totally fine with it.”
In fact, SpaceX grew its revenue by more than 30% last year to $18.7 billion, but swung to a loss of $4.9 billion as xAI’s losses deepened to $6.4 billion. Starlink more than doubled its profit to $4.4 billion.
The business could become more complex as it reached an agreement last month for the right to acquire AI coding start-up Cursor for $60 billion. SpaceX is also competing for a NASA contract to land humans on the moon later this decade.
The SpaceX IPO comes as Musk appears to have repaired his relationship with Trump after a dramatic falling out last year over the president’s tax-and-spending bill.
Musk accompanied Trump on his visit to China this week, along with several other top CEOs, and the billionaire recently made some political contributions to Republicans ahead of the midterms elections in November.
