SpaceX launches 24 satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper on July 16, 2025. Photo: SpaceX

Bloomberg and CNBC reported Wednesday that SpaceX has confidentially filed for its initial public offering (IPO). 

A confidential filing allows a company to submit draft IPO registration to the SEC without public review. It’s intended to protect sensitive information during the SEC review process. According to the SEC, companies still must publicly file a registration statement at least 15 days before a road show. 

SpaceX did not respond to a request to comment. The SEC said it declines to comment on specific companies.

This marks another step toward SpaceX going public, an IPO that could be valued at $1.75 trillion dollars, according to reports. 

A SpaceX IPO this year could be a tipping point in bringing new players to the space investment marketplace, Raphael Roettgen, founding partner of E2MC Ventures, said last week during SATShow Week. 

“In terms of the maturation of the financing ecosystem, it’s going to be a giant catalyst. It’s going to accelerate what’s going on, because any investment banker or analyst who thought they didn’t have to look at the space sector, they have to look at it now or lose their job,” Roettgen said. The same would be true for asset managers on the buy side, he added. 

In February, SpaceX acquired Elon Musk’s AI venture xAI, to further plans of an orbital data center constellation. Funding this type of orbital data center constellation has been cited as part of the rationale for SpaceX to go public, but analysts note the concept comes with many engineering and economic challenges.

The SpaceX and xAI combination raised the valuation of the combined company, but the full scope of the space/AI tie-in remains to be proven, Andrew Cavalier, principal research analyst, ABI Research, said in a recent roundtable on the merger. 

“Raising the valuation of the company is certainly a good thing for investors,” Cavalier said. “However, it is asking investors to put a lot of faith in the SpaceX team and potential fusion of AI and space industries. It will be critical in the coming months for Elon to convince investors of the value and market potential of orbital data centers, and that space, not Earth is the next frontier for AI build-out. I don’t think the verdict is out on this yet.” 

Seraphim Space CEO Mark Boggett commented that a SpaceX IPO will mark the space industry as a “fully-fledged pillar of the public markets.”

“Going public would bring greater scrutiny and shareholder attention, but also the capital to fuel next-generation R&D and ambitious projects, from solar-powered orbital data centers supporting AI, including Elon Musk’s xAI, to expanded transport and energy systems,” Boggett said in a statement. “The scale and momentum of this expansion would create powerful spillover effects across the wider space economy, accelerating growth in areas such as satellite services, in-orbit operations, data and analytics, security, and sustainability.”

Cal Biesecker contributed to this story