NEW YORK: Two days after a federal jury dismissed Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in less than two hours, SpaceX publicly filed its S-1 registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The timing was not coincidental. The lawsuit’s resolution cleared the final legal distraction standing between SpaceX and the most anticipated stock market debut in history.
SpaceX filed confidentially with the SEC on April 1 2026. The public S-1 followed on May 20. The company is targeting a Nasdaq listing under the ticker SPCX with trading scheduled to begin as early as June 12 2026. The target valuation stands at $1.75 trillion with some Wall Street analysts projecting final pricing could exceed $2 trillion. The fundraising target has been confirmed at up to $80 billion dwarfing the previous global IPO record held by Saudi Aramco which raised $25.6 billion in 2019.
The Numbers Behind the Valuation
SpaceX’s S-1 reveals a company of extraordinary contrasts. Total consolidated revenue for 2025 reached $18.67 billion a 33% year-on-year increase. However the company swung from a net profit of $791 million in 2024 to a consolidated net loss of $4.94 billion in 2025. In Q1 2026 the net loss reached $4.28 billion on quarterly revenue of $4.69 billion.
The explanation sits inside the financial structure. Starlink SpaceX’s satellite internet business is the cash engine. It generated $11.39 billion in revenue in 2025 with 4.42 billion in operating income and a Starlink subscriber base of 9.2 million at year-end growing to 10.3 million across 164 nations by March 2026. Starlink’s 2026 revenue is projected to reach 22 to 24 billion. Furthermore SpaceX conducted over 122 orbital launches in 2025 maintaining over 80% of global mass-to-orbit market share.
The drain comes from SpaceXAI the division created after the February 2026 all-stock merger with xAI valued at 250 billion. The combined entity was valued at 1.25 trillion at merger. However the AI segment lost 6.36 billion from operations in 2025 on 3.20 billion of revenue. In Q1 2026 alone SpaceX spent $7.70 billion in capital expenditure 76% directly to AI computing infrastructure. xAI was burning approximately $1 billion per month before the merger and has lost 11 of its original co-founders since 2023 leaving Musk as the sole remaining co-founder.
To offset these costs SpaceX signed a deal where Anthropic will pay $15 billion annually to lease computing capacity at SpaceX’s terrestrial Colossus data centres a striking arrangement where a direct competitor funds the infrastructure of a rival.
The offering is led by Goldman Sachs with Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase as joint bookrunners. A notable structural feature is the proposed allocation of up to 30% of IPO shares to retail investors globally roughly three times the typical Wall Street norm bypassing traditional capital gatekeepers to fund Starship’s lunar and Mars ambitions directly.
The Musk-Altman Lawsuit
Musk filed his lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman on February 29 2024 claiming Altman had swindled him into co-founding OpenAI as a non-profit in 2015 before restructuring it into a highly valuable for-profit business backed by Microsoft. Musk demanded $134 billion in damages and Altman’s removal.
OpenAI rejected the claims entirely presenting evidence that Musk was aware of the for-profit plans as early as 2017 and arguing the lawsuit was a competitive effort to slow OpenAI while boosting xAI.
The three-week trial in Oakland, California featured testimony from Musk, Altman, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, former CTO Mira Murati, former board member Natasha McCauley and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Internal details emerged former board members described Altman as deceptive, Brockman’s personal diary revealed early financial ambitions and Musk was reprimanded by the judge for posting insults on social media. He left the trial early for a trip to China.
On May 18 2026 the nine-person federal jury reached a unanimous verdict in less than two hours. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers immediately adopted the advisory verdict and dismissed all claims finding Musk’s lawsuit was filed outside the three-year statute of limitations.
Musk responded on X calling it a “calendar technicality” and vowing an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Legal experts assess the appeal prospects as weak. A Ninth Circuit appeal typically takes 12 to 24 months to resolve. If it somehow succeeded it could disrupt OpenAI’s commercial structure and its partnership with Microsoft.
How the Verdict Unlocked the IPO
The lawsuit had created a specific problem for SpaceX’s capital plans. Musk’s demand that OpenAI redistribute $134 billion from its for-profit arm threatened to disrupt valuation models across the broader AI sector. An active high-profile trial created uncertainty that Wall Street could not price cleanly into an IPO model.
The verdict removed that uncertainty entirely. Two days later SpaceX published its S-1. Moreover the verdict immediately accelerated OpenAI’s own public listing plans. OpenAI is preparing to file confidential draft registration documents with the SEC as early as May 22 2026 targeting a public listing in September 2026 at a valuation exceeding $1 trillion.
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives told CNBC directly “Getting to public markets first is very important given this arms race going on. It sets a valuation, you’re the first one to meet with investors on the road and there’s an advantage.”
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are simultaneously underwriting both the SpaceX and OpenAI listings managing the details of these competing offerings from inside the same institutions. If SpaceX completes its listing successfully Musk would become the first individual to command two publicly traded companies with trillion-dollar valuations simultaneously alongside Tesla.
The India Dimension Investors, Starlink and the Space Race
The SpaceX IPO carries direct implications for Indian investors and India’s own space ambitions.
Indian retail investors can participate in the offering through the Reserve Bank of India’s Liberalised Remittance Scheme which permits remittances of up to $250,000 annually per individual for foreign investments. Domestic platforms including INDmoney, Vested and Stockal facilitate access to US capital markets through digital KYC onboarding. However investors must account for a 20% Tax Collected at Source on LRS remittances exceeding ₹10 lakh within a single financial year claimable during annual income tax filing but requiring upfront liquidity.
In Indian capital markets the SpaceX listing has already begun triggering re-ratings. The Nifty India Defence Index has risen 150% over the past two years. Analysts identify MTAR Technologies, HAL, BEL and Data Patterns as potential proxy beneficiaries as SpaceX diversifies its supply chain under the China Plus One strategy. Indian precision engineering firms are positioned to benefit from this shift.
Starlink’s direct entry into India however remains pending. Despite holding a GMPCS licence and IN-SPACe clearances Starlink’s commercial launch is held up by national security clearances and FDI guidelines. SpaceX insists on 100% ownership of its Indian subsidiary requiring explicit manual government clearance since automatic FDI approval is capped at 74%. TRAI has recommended a 4% adjusted gross revenue levy while DoT favours 5% a gap that remains unresolved. Gujarat signed a Letter of Intent with Starlink in February 2026 to connect government schools and disaster management infrastructure a partial step forward.
On the space sector side the relationship between ISRO and SpaceX combines competition with collaboration. In May 2026 India’s GalaxEye satellite Drishti was launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 demonstrating the practical reality that even sovereign space programmes utilise SpaceX’s launch infrastructure. Lt Gen AK Bhatt, Director General of the Indian Space Association, noted that India’s 2020 space sector reforms were partly inspired by SpaceX’s private space revolution adding that Indian private companies “have the calibre and capability to do linkups and collaborations with Elon Musk’s companies.”
What Comes Next
Valuation scholar Aswath Damodaran’s discounted cash flow analysis estimated SpaceX’s intrinsic value at approximately $1.22 trillion a 30% discount to the $1.75 trillion IPO target. The primary structural risk is the imbalanced financial picture where Starlink’s profits are consumed by SpaceXAI’s capital intensity and Starship development costs. SpaceX’s dual-class share structure ensures Musk retains 85% voting control limiting outside shareholder influence on governance.
The simultaneous public debuts of SpaceX and OpenAI in 2026 represent something larger than two corporate milestones. They signal that the AI and space race has entered its public market phase where access to retail and institutional capital is as strategically important as technical capability. For India the moment offers both a direct investment opportunity and a competitive signal. The country that inspired India’s space reforms is now asking the world’s investors including India’s to fund its next chapter. The launch window opens June 12.
About the Author
