Online Reporter
SAN FRANCISCO.—Elon Musk could become the world’s first TRILLIONAIRE after SpaceX revealed its plans to go public in the US, allowing people to trade shares in the firm on the stock market.
SpaceX makes rockets, offers a satellite internet service called Starlink, and also owns Musk’s controversial artificial intelligence (AI) firm xAI.
The initial public offering (IPO) on the US stock market is set to be the largest in Wall Street history and could start next month under the ticker symbol SPCX.Because of the shares he will own in SpaceX, the IPO could make billionaire Musk, who is already the world’s richest person, a trillionaire.
SpaceX values itself at US$1.25tn, and Musk’s majority ownership of the company means his share could be worth more than US$600bn.
Last year, Musk, who is also the boss of electric vehicle maker Tesla, became the first person to achieve a net worth that topped US$500bn.
This means the SpaceX listing could take his total net worth to over US$1tn.
The filing offers a long-anticipated look at the financial state of SpaceX.
Last year, Space Exploration Technologies – as it’s officially known— brought in US$18.6bn in revenue but had a net loss US$4.9bn.
In the first three months of this year, it achieved US$4.7bn in sales but made a net loss of US$4.3bn.
Meanwhile, its balance sheet shows it has US$102bn in assets, such as rockets and other equipment, but also carries US$60.5bn of debt.
Ruth Foxe-Blader, managing partner at US venture capital firm Citrine Venture Partners, told the BBC “it’s not shocking for a project like this to be loss making, even at the point of IPO”.
She said the planned flotation had been expected but was “extremely exciting”.
“SpaceX is just an absolutely sprawling, enormous project with so many different selling points, and so many points that really point to the future.”
SpaceX flagged more than half a billion dollars in expected legal costs stemming from a long list of claims.
Some of these come from “multiple lawsuits” alleging that Grok, the chatbot made by xAI, is being used to create sexualised deepfakes of real women and girls.
Musk has said he intends to dissolve xAI and pursue his AI ambitions under SpaceX.
SpaceX also owns X, the social media app previously known as Twitter which Musk purchased in 2022.
Other ongoing cases against SpaceX listed in the IPO include patent infringement claims, claims of noncompliance with EU content moderation, music copyright infringement claims, and data breach claims.
AI rivals
Also revealed in the filing on Wednesday were the financial terms of the deal that SpaceX recently struck with an AI competitor, Anthropic, the developer of Claude.
Anthropic will pay US$15bn a year to access data centres in the American South for Musk’s xAI which was recently acquired by SpaceX.
While Musk’s AI ambitions have struggled amid a spate of controversies, SpaceX’s rocket business and Starlink are considered leaders in the industry – both possess a comfortable lead over the competition.
Meanwhile, an Australian court has upheld a fine against Elon Musk’s X Corp after it admitted to failing to comply with child safety measures, resolving a three-year legal battle.
The country’s internet regulator eSafety had first issued the fine in 2023, after the social media giant did not respond adequately to a request to supply information on how it was tackling the exploitation of children online.
But X had argued that it did not have to comply with the request because it had come before Twitter, as it was then known, merged with X Corp and that Twitter was no longer a company.
Yesterday, it admitted wrongdoing and has been ordered to pay a A$650,000 (US$463,000) fine.
Justice Michael Wheelahan raised the initial fine of A$610,00 and also ordered the US company to pay A$100,000 towards the regulator’s legal costs.
“A penalty near the maximum is appropriate in the case of the respondent, which is a substantial corporation so that it operates as a real deterrent and is not simply a cost of doing business,” Wheelahan said.— BBC
derick.khumalo