Alphabet poised for $100 billion windfall on SpaceX investment

Alphabet early SpaceX bet could yield $100 billion at a $2 trillion IPO, as Elon Musks rocket company eyes a record listing and creates new billionaires.

By Bloomberg

An early investment in SpaceX has positioned Alphabet Inc. for a 12-figure windfall, a new filing shows, underscoring the vast wealth likely to be created by the rocket company’s market debut.

Google LLC owned a 6.11% stake in Elon Musk’s company at the end of 2025, according to a new disclosure the space startup filed this week in Alaska, where firms must report holders with stakes of 5% or more. At a $2 trillion valuation, which SpaceX hopes to exceed in its initial public offering, a holding of that size would be worth $122 billion.

Google’s stake has likely been diluted following the February merger of SpaceX with xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence and social media company. It now likely owns roughly 5% of SpaceX following the transaction, according to Bloomberg calculations, which would be worth $100 billion at a $2 trillion IPO valuation.

While Google has previously disclosed its stake in SpaceX, the precise size hasn’t been reported before.

Google and Musk himself — with a roughly 40% stake — were the only entities required to disclose their holdings in the filing, but several other individuals and firms are also poised to make billions off the listing. SpaceX has filed confidentially to go public, targeting a June listing, and is expected to raise as much as $75 billion in what would make it the biggest-ever IPO, Bloomberg previously reported. If it achieves a market valuation of $2 trillion, a 0.05% stake could turn a shareholder into a billionaire overnight.

The listing would also cement Musk as the world’s first trillionaire and lift the personal fortunes of long-time lieutenants, including President Gwynne Shotwell. Its earliest backers will likely see huge returns on their money, but even those who got in five years ago will still be happy with the outcome, said PitchBook senior research analyst Franco Granda, who covers SpaceX.

“The investors who got in at 2021 will have life-changing returns, if not career-defining,” Granda said. “So even if you missed SpaceX in the 2010s, if you saw it somehow and got in before 2021, you’re likely 20x-ing your returns.”

Founded in 2002, SpaceX hit unicorn status after eight years — a fast pace at the time, especially for an unproven company doing literal rocket science, Granda said.

Google first invested in SpaceX in 2015, joining Fidelity Investments in a $1 billion funding round that valued the company at $10 billion and gave the pair a 10% stake. Fidelity’s current stake is unknown, except for a handful of positions publicly disclosed by individual funds.

Google and Fidelity declined to comment. SpaceX didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Both Musk and Google have seen their ownership shrink over time amid dilution and secondary share sales. In 2020, when SpaceX first disclosed its largest shareholders in Alaska, Google owned 7.64% of the company while Musk owned 47.11%. Venture capital firm Founders Fund, which was the first institutional investor in SpaceX in 2008, owned 7.77%.

Founders Fund was last disclosed as owning 5.76% of the company in December 2023 and has since fallen below the 5% reporting threshold. A spokesperson for the fund declined to comment.

Wealth creation

Alphabet doesn’t disclose its ownership in SpaceX, but it does report unrealized gains from private company stakes in its earnings releases. In the first quarter of 2025, Alphabet reported an $8 billion boost to profits from a company Bloomberg reported to be SpaceX, and it ended the year with $24.1 billion in net gains on equity securities, which it said was largely related to its private holdings. Alphabet is scheduled to release first-quarter earnings on April 29.

SpaceX filed its 2026 biennial report on April 11, and it was posted online this week. The report was due at the beginning of the year and SpaceX faced fees of nearly $250 for the delay — not exactly punitive for a company expected to generate about $20 billion in revenue this year, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.

While no ownership was detailed outside of Google’s and Musk’s positions, PitchBook’s Granda expects the IPO to be a massive payday for many investors and long-term employees who have been loyal to the company. The risk is that their fortunes could mean a talent exodus if they have a chance to cash out or want to start their own venture, he said.

“One of the biggest questions I have for this is what happens to the middle management, even though SpaceX is a very lean company, and some of the upper management that after the IPO will not need to do anything to support themselves,” Granda said. “There’s an opportunity for the venture market to benefit from this.”

Outside of its employee base, some of the company’s directors could be sitting on their own 10-figure fortunes, similar to Nvidia Corp., where three board members have become billionaires as the chipmaker’s stock has surged.

Google has been represented on SpaceX’s board since 2015 by Donald Harrison, the company’s president of global partnerships and corporate development. Luke Nosek, who was a co-founder of PayPal alongside Musk and spearheaded the Founders Fund investment, has been on the board since 2008. He later left to start Gigafund, which has invested another $1 billion into SpaceX since July 2017, according to its website.

Steve Jurvetson, another longtime board member, recently spent more than $175 million on properties on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe.

(Edited by : Anshul )