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SpaceX's $1.5 Trillion IPO Would Be the Biggest Ever · Elon Musk Podcast

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  SpaceX just set a secondary share price of $421.00 per
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  share, valuing Elon Musk's rocket company at roughly $800
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  billion. On October, Sam Altman's Open AI
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  had reached a $500 billion valuation, making it the most
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  valuable private company in the world.
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  SpaceX held that title before Open AI took it.
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  Now Musk is taking it back, and the gap is not even close.
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  The $800 billion figure comes from an internal tender offer
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  where employees and early investors can share sell shares
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  to approved buyers. So what happens when two of the
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  biggest names in tech are racing each other to the top spot on a
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  list that did not exist even 10 years ago?
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  And the rivalry between Musk and Altman started when they Co
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  founded Open AI together in 2015 that was turned into a public
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  valuation war. We're going to cover the new
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  SpaceX numbers, the IPO plans for 2026, why Google is about
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  the book, a massive paper gain from all of this, and what the
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  secondary sale tells us about where private tech valuations
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  are headed. And we'll get right back into
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  this right after the short break.
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  Spacex's 800 dollar, $800 billion valuation was discussed
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  by the company's board at Star Base in Texas.
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  And the company is also preparing for a possible IPO in
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  late 2026. They could raise more than $30
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  billion. If that happens, it would be the
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  largest public offering ever, beating Saudi Aramco's $29
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  billion listing in 2019. Now, here's the key point.
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  This is not a fundraising round. SpaceX has been doing that for
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  years. SpaceX is not raising new
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  capital with this transaction. It is a secondary share sale,
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  which means existing shareholders like employees and
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  early investors can shell sell their stakes to approved buyers.
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  Now, SpaceX runs these tender offers twice a year to give
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  people liquidity. In July, the share price was
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  $212. Now it's 421.
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  They doubled it in six months, and the company told
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  shareholders it's preparing for a 2026 IPO that would fund what
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  the internal memo called an insane flight rate for the
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  Starship rocket, artificial intelligent data centers in
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  space, and a base on the moon. Now, Musk confirmed the IPO
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  plans on X this week, responding to Eric Berger with the words,
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  as usual, Eric is accurate. Now, the target valuation for
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  the IPO is $1.5 trillion. That would put SpaceX in the
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  same range as Meta or Amazon. All right, let's keep going
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  here. The October secondary sale at
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  Open AI valued the company at $500 billion after employees
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  sold about 6.6 billion in stock to investors, including Thrive
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  Capital, SoftBank and Abu Dhabi G or MGX.
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  Now, that deal pushed Open AI past SpaceX, which have been
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  valued at 400 billion, and Musk let Altman hold that lead for
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  about two months. Now.
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  SpaceX is $300 billion ahead now.
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  The Musk and Altman rivalry runs deeper than valuations, though
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  runs deeper than money. They Co founded Open AI together
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  in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab, and Musk left in 2018 and
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  later started his own AI company, XAI.
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  He since sued Open AI multiple times, accusing it of abandoning
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  its original nonprofit mission. After taking billions from
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  Microsoft, Open AI is now restructuring into a for profit
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  company, which would allow it to pursue its own IPO down the
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  road. Alphabet, Google's parent
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  company, is about to book another sizable paper gain money
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  money because of Spacex's new valuation.
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  Alphabet has been an investor in SpaceX since at least 2015 and
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  when it joined Fidelity and a billion dollar funding round for
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  a combined stake of about 10% at the time.
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  In April 2025, Alphabet disclosed an $8 billion
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  unrealized gain tied to its SpaceX investment after a tender
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  offer valued the company at 350 billion.
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  Now, that gain helped push Alphabet's quarterly net income
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  46% higher than the prior year, with SpaceX now valued at more
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  than double that figure. Investors are expecting another
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  accounting boost when Alphabet reports earnings.
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  So what do we know right now? What's going on?
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  Spaces is expected to generate about $15 billion in revenue in
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  2025 and between 2020, 22 billion and 24 billion in 2026.
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  Most of that comes from Starlink, the satellite Internet
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  service that now has thousands of satellites in orbit and
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  serves millions of people. The company already launches
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  more than 80% of global payload weight through its Falcon 9,
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  which is reusable and reliable enough to handle government
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  contracts and commercial customers.
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  And the IPO timeline is not locked in, though SpaceX CFO
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  Brett Johnson said in an internal memo the timing could
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  change and the company may decide not to even move forward
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  with it. Market conditions, regulatory
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  factors and execution on Starship all play into that
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  decision. The company had previously
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  floated the idea of spinning off Starlink for a separate IPO, but
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  the current plan is to list everything the entire company
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  that would give public investors exposure to both the launch
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  business and the satellite Internet business in one
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  offering. And here's the bigger picture.
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  This valuation race isn't just about their egos.
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  Could be between Altman and Elon.
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  It's about how much money is flowing into frontier technology
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  companies. SpaceX wants to make life multi
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  planetary open. EA wants to build artificial
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  general intelligence. Both ideas sounded like science
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  fiction about 10 years ago. Now they're attracting hundreds
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  of billions of dollars in private capital to do those
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  things. AI, robotics, and defense tech
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  startups have hit all time highs of multibillion dollar
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  valuations in this past year, and the SpaceX and Open AI
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  valuations are the most visible examples.
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  But they're part of a broader surge now.
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  The valuation Musk is setting now is designed to level set the
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  company's fair market value before their IPO.
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  If the tender offer succeeds at 421 per share and the IPO
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  proceeds in late 2026, SpaceX would be positioned as one of
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  the largest public companies in the world.
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  Alphabet would see its stake jump even higher in value.
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  Employees who held shares through multiple tender rounds
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  would be sitting on a lot of money, and Musk would have
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  reclaimed the title of running the most valuable private
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  company, at least until the IPO paperwork is filed.
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