Countdown to launch: SpaceX’s record-breaking IPO

On Monday, SpaceX unveiled the AI1, its first-generation orbital data center (an unusual move for a company actively in a pre-IPO quiet period). In a video posted to X, Musk said, “The AI satellite is much simpler than a Starlink satellite,” referring to its design.

When Elon Musk announced SpaceX would acquire xAI, he said the deal was all about putting data centers in space.

“Global electricity demand for AI simply cannot be met with terrestrial solutions,” he wrote. “Space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale.”

SpaceX isn’t the first company to float the idea. For years, a number of VC-backed companies have been developing space-based data center technology. In October, one of these startups, Starcloud, launched a satellite equipped with an Nvidia H100 and trained an open-source large language model.

SpaceX’s IPO could launch into choppy waters on Friday.

All major US stock indexes were down on Wednesday following a one-two punch of news. First, President Trump announced that the US would hit Iran “very hard” after a US helicopter was downed on Monday.

Then the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that inflation in May rose to 4.2% — its highest level in three years.

Subsequently, the Nasdaq, where SpaceX will debut, sunk by nearly 2%.

SpaceX’s S-1 provides the clearest financial picture to date of the inner workings on xAI, the AI frontier lab Elon Musk set up in 2023 and maker of the Grok large language model.

There’s long been speculation about large language model developers like OpenAI and Anthropic having very high burn rates as they’ve secured multi-billion-dollar commitments for chips and compute capacity.

In February, SpaceX announced it was acquiring xAI, with Musk justifying the acquisition as a key step in the company’s quest to put AI data centers into space. The space company’s S-1 has since revealed:

• In 2025 xAI lost $6.36 billion on $3.2 billion in revenue.
• Spending was on track to far surpass 2025’s total.
• Anthropic, a rival, had entered into an agreement to purchase compute access for over $1 billion a month.

“The financials look reckless,” said PitchBook analyst Harrison Rolfes when asked for his thoughts.

Read about the xAI details from SpaceX’s S-1 here.

SpaceX publicly filed its S-1 in late May. Here are PitchBook senior analyst Franco Granda’s main takeaways from the 300-page document:

• The company positions itself as “AI-first” despite its AI business segment accounting for less than 20% of 2025 revenue.
• With total debt well over $25 billion, SpaceX’s balance sheet is disconnected from the prices paid by secondary investors for company stock.
• Anthropic is paying SpaceX $1.25 billion per month for access to AI data centers, validating the company’s infrastructure startegy.
• Starlink, the company’s satellite internet service, has margins akin to SaaS.

Read the full report here.

OpenAI announced it has confidentially filed its S-1, setting off the race for the mega AI IPO. A week earlier, Anthropic announced it had done the same.

Details for both IPOs are scant, but they are most certainly watching how SpaceX performs and the market’s appetite for such large listings.

The ChatGPT-maker’s CEO, Sam Altman, was recently cleared in a long legal fight with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who claimed Altman tried to swindle him and steal the company. Read more about the AI IPO race here.