Elon Musk’s SpaceX is reportedly lining up four Wall Street banks to help the company list on the stock market as investors prepare for an expected rush of US tech listings.
SpaceX is considering Bank of America, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley for leading roles in an initial public offering, according to the Financial Times and Reuters.
The US aerospace tech company reportedly held talks last year over a private share sale that values the business at $800bn (£591bn), months after it was valued at $400bn. Reuters has also reported that SpaceX is seeking to raise $25bn from what would be one of the biggest ever global listings if it goes ahead.
Last year Musk, the world’s richest man with a $690bn fortune, said SpaceX’s annual revenue would be $15.5bn, with $1.1bn of that coming from contracts with Nasa, the US space agency. SpaceX generates revenues from deploying reusable rockets for missions such as launching satellites and restocking the International Space Station. It also operates the Starlink broadband service.
Reports of SpaceX’s flotation plans come amid expectations of a bumper year for US tech listings. OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, and AI rival Anthropic are among the startups that are the focus of IPO speculation, with reported valuations of $1tn and $350bn respectively. The potential IPOs have been dubbed “hectocorns” – businesses worth more than $100bn.
Neil Wilson, an analyst at Saxo Capital Markets, said Musk’s ambitions to colonise Mars were the “headline grabber” for SpaceX, but investors will pay more attention to growth plans, such as putting solar farms and datacentres into orbit.
Referring to a potential OpenAI IPO, Wilson added: “SpaceX is going to garner a lot of attention but it’s going to be a real test for these AI IPOs. If OpenAI does IPO then it’s a litmus test for the entire sector – can we really hang our hats on a startup? Do the figures add up?
“The stock market has been riding the AI wave for two years and faces a stern test of resilience with some monster IPOs that will define whether this was a bubble or not.”
Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan declined to comment. Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and SpaceX were approached for comment.
