SpaceX IPO price set at $US135 in record $US75bn float

At $US135 (about $208) a share, SpaceX’s IPO price puts Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite company on course for a record $US75 billion (about $115 billion) float. Reuters reported that the company plans to sell about 555.6 million shares as its roadshow opens.

That is the shift from filing-watch to market test.

Public investors now have a fixed number to argue over after years in which SpaceX was priced through private rounds, tender offers and secondary-market trading. CNBC reported that the offer would imply a valuation of about $US1.75 trillion (about $2.7 trillion), a level that would put SpaceX near the top tier of listed technology and infrastructure groups if the debut holds.

For Australian founders and venture investors, the float is not mainly a Musk story. It is a test of how public markets value infrastructure-heavy technology businesses at AI-era scale. SpaceX spans launch services, Starlink satellite broadband and AI-linked data-centre demand through xAI, which makes the deal a comparison point for deep-tech companies well beyond the usual software exit.

The amended S-1 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission also shows what investors are being asked to fund. SpaceX is pitching launch cadence and Starlink subscriptions, but the prospectus points to manufacturing plants, launch sites, spectrum obligations, network capacity and computing infrastructure.

“availability of power and water at economically feasible prices”
SpaceX S-1/A filing

One risk section is unusually plain. SpaceX says it and xAI depend on power and water at workable prices, and adds that “significant water resources may be required for cooling large-scale data center operations”. TechCrunch highlighted the water-access language earlier this week as one of the less obvious constraints attached to the float.

The proceeds would change the comparison set, too. A $US75 billion raise would put SpaceX above Saudi Aramco’s 2019 listing by proceeds and far beyond the software IPOs that usually frame startup-market discussion. The deal reads more like sovereign-scale infrastructure financing than a conventional venture-backed exit.

No automatic read-through for Australia follows from that. Local deep-tech and space companies still face a thinner pool of late-stage capital than their US peers. A successful SpaceX listing would, however, give superannuation funds, sovereign investors and crossover funds a fresh public-market marker for businesses with long development cycles and heavy physical assets.

The risks remain material. SpaceX’s filing points to launch failures, supply-chain pressure, regulatory approvals and resource availability, while its valuation depends on investors accepting that Starlink and future AI infrastructure can justify a multiple far above most industrial peers.

Trading will decide whether public investors treat SpaceX as a scarce growth asset or demand a discount for the capital intensity behind it. Either way, the $US135 price turns the IPO from a long-running private-market rumour into a live benchmark for the next wave of ambitious technology listings.