SpaceX's IPO paperwork has landed. Here's our first look inside the finances of Elon Musk's rocket company.

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Elon Musk at a SpaceX building in Texas, May 2025

Elon Musk's rocket company, SpaceX, which recently acquired his AI startup, xAI, has released its public S-1 filing ahead of a planned IPO. Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images
  • The SpaceX IPO filing everyone has been waiting for is officially here.
  • The rocket company's S-1 paperwork, which pulls back the curtain on SpaceX's finances, is a required step ahead of an IPO.
  • It also offers insight into xAI, Elon Musk's AI startup that SpaceX acquired earlier this year.

Houston, we have the SpaceX filing everyone has been waiting for.

The S-1 paperwork, one of the most hotly anticipated financial filings of the year, gives the public its first look at the inner workings of Elon Musk's rocket company and AI venture xAI.

The filing reveals that SpaceX posted a $4.9 billion loss in 2025 on revenue of $18.7 billion.

The SpaceX IPO is expected to be one of the largest in US history and comes after the Starship maker announced its acquisition of xAI, Musk's AI startup, in February. SpaceX applied to be listed on the Nasdaq and Nasdaq Texas stock exchanges under the ticker "SPCX."

The S-1 is a required step for companies looking to go public in the US, giving potential investors a chance to examine SpaceX's finances, key shareholders, overall vision, and the risks facing its business.

Business Insider's reporters are poring over the filing's many pages and will update this story with key details.

SpaceX shoots for the moon

Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with the mission of reaching and settling Mars.

Since then, the company has pioneered the use of reusable rockets and has become the world's most prolific rocket launcher.

SpaceX has struck deals with NASA to resupply (and eventually deorbit) the ISS, and is set to play a critical role in the agency's efforts to return humanity to the moon.

The Austin-based company also operates a booming telecommunications business through Starlink, which provides global internet coverage through a network of low-orbit satellites.

In recent months, Musk has shifted SpaceX's focus toward building solar-powered orbital data centers, which the billionaire has said will be necessary to train powerful AI models and eventually turn humanity into a multi-planetary civilization.

The company is also collaborating with Tesla to build a sprawling "Terafab" that would manufacture specialist chips for space-based data centers and humanoid robots.

Investors will not just be backing Musk's vision for rockets and satellites. Following the merger with xAI, SpaceX's portfolio includes the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, and the AI chatbot Grok.

xAI has been a big expense for the company. In 2025, capital expenditures for its AI segment were $12.7 billion, more than three times the spending in its space and connectivity segments.

That said, the company believes the AI segment also has the most potential, accounting for most of its $28.5 billion total addressable market, which the company says is the "largest actionable total addressable market ("TAM") in human history."

The document also lays out the company's sizable risks for public investors to take into account.

Those include US and international investigations and inquiries into the company, particularly around Grok's creation of explicit images of children. And, as the document said, "space is inherently hostile."

Musk's moneymaker

There's the potential for Musk, already the world's richest man, to win big from the company's Mars-shot.

In January, the company approved a compensation plan that would grant its founder 1 billion shares if certain goals were hit, including various market capitalization milestones and the "establishment of a permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants."

Musk's 2025 compensation was quite modest in comparison. He earned a base salary of $54,080. The company's president, Gwynne Shotwell, earned $85.8 million in a mix of cash, options, and stock awards.

This is a developing story…

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Steven Tweedie

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