SpaceX wants $75 billion and a record IPO

SpaceX is going after a $75 billion initial public offering, and that is not just big, it would be the largest IPO ever if it goes through as planned. In the filing the company submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Elon Musk’s rocket company said it wants to offer 555,555,555 shares of common stock at $135 per share. That is the number to watch: the size alone would put SpaceX in a different league from basically every public listing in modern history, and the proposed offer would be more than twice the previous IPO record set by Aramco, which raised $29 billion in 2019.

The part that makes this even more interesting is that SpaceX is trying to do this while Musk keeps major control of the company. Under the proposed offering size, Musk, who serves as CEO, CTO, and chairman of the board, would hold around 82% of the voting power of SpaceX’s common stock, according to the filing. In plain English, the company is not only aiming for a giant market debut, it is also trying to preserve the founder’s grip on the voting structure. For anyone who watches governance, that is a very clear signal: capital markets can be used to raise enormous amounts of money without automatically handing control to the public market.

The updated filing also matters because of timing. It came a week after SpaceX’s initial S-1, which gave an uncommon look into the finances and mission of one of the world’s most valuable private companies. An S-1 is the required registration statement companies file ahead of an IPO, so the updated document is not just a press-friendly headline machine. It is the paper trail that moves a company from private-market mythology into public-market scrutiny. SpaceX is expected to make its stock-market debut this month, which means the filing is landing right as the market begins to judge whether the story, the numbers, and the structure all hold together.

For executives and boards, the relevant takeaway is not just that SpaceX is large. It is that the company is attempting to turn private-market leverage into public-market scale without surrendering the founder control that has defined it. Musk’s roles as CEO, CTO, and chairman of the board show how concentrated that control remains, and the filing’s voting-power math makes the point even more forcefully. That kind of structure can matter a lot after an IPO, because once a company becomes public, investors are often buying into a future where they have economic exposure but limited say over direction. SpaceX appears to be making that tradeoff explicit from the start.

The benchmark comparison also helps explain why this filing is generating so much attention. Aramco’s $29 billion listing in 2019 has stood as the IPO record, and SpaceX’s target would more than double it. That does not just set up a bigger deal, it reshapes the conversation around what the public markets can absorb for a company with major strategic importance and intense investor demand. For founders, the message is simple: the ceiling for a premium private company can be very high if the business is considered scarce, important, and hard to replicate. For competitors, the message is less fun: the bar for what qualifies as a truly huge exit just moved again.

SpaceX is also not the only heavy hitter making moves. The company is one of several blockbuster tech IPOs that are being closely watched, including OpenAI and Anthropic, which filed its own S-1 this week. That cluster matters because it suggests the market is entering a period where some of the most valuable private companies are testing whether public investors will pay up for scale, narrative, and category leadership at the same time. If SpaceX can pull this off, it will not just be a milestone for Musk’s company. It will be a live case study in how far a founder-led, deeply strategic, highly valued private company can push the IPO playbook while keeping the steering wheel very much in the founder’s hands.