How PayPal money helped Elon Musk build SpaceX, now eyeing biggest IPO in history

More than two decades after Elon Musk used money from the sale of PayPal to start a small private rocket company, SpaceX is now preparing for what could become the biggest IPO in stock market history. According to Reuters and multiple reports, SpaceX is targeting a public listing as early as next month at a valuation of nearly $1.75 trillion. The company is looking to raise around $75 billion through the IPO, which would make it one of the largest stock market debuts globally.

SpaceX has earlier confidentially filed for an IPO and is aiming for a Nasdaq listing around June 12.

The planned IPO marks a remarkable journey for a company that began in 2002 when Musk used proceeds from the sale of PayPal to launch SpaceX at a time when private space exploration was widely considered unrealistic and financially dangerous.

The company’s early years were filled with failures. Its first rocket, Falcon 1, failed during launch in 2006. Several attempts went wrong before SpaceX finally achieved a breakthrough in September 2008 when Falcon 1 successfully reached Earth’s orbit. That mission became historic because it marked the first privately developed liquid-fuel rocket to enter orbit.

Just months later, NASA awarded SpaceX its first major contract to transport cargo and supplies to the International Space Station. The deal gave the company financial credibility and helped it survive during a period when Musk later admitted SpaceX was close to running out of money.

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Over the next decade, SpaceX steadily transformed the global space industry. In 2012, a Dragon capsule launched by a Falcon 9 rocket became the first privately built spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station.

The company’s biggest breakthrough came in December 2015 when it successfully landed a Falcon 9 rocket vertically after launch. The achievement dramatically changed the economics of space launches because rockets could now potentially be reused instead of being discarded after every mission.

That single development helped SpaceX sharply reduce launch costs and dominate the commercial rocket market.

The company later launched Falcon Heavy in 2018, carrying Musk’s Tesla Roadster into space in one of the most publicised rocket launches in recent years.

SpaceX also expanded beyond rockets. In 2019, it started deploying Starlink satellites to build a global satellite internet business. Starlink has since become one of the company’s largest revenue drivers, offering internet connectivity across multiple countries through thousands of satellites orbiting Earth.

SpaceX’s relationship with NASA also deepened. The company completed the first operational crew mission under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program in 2020 and later won contracts linked to NASA’s Artemis moon mission.

At the same time, SpaceX pushed aggressively into deep-space ambitions through Starship, its next-generation heavy rocket designed for missions to the moon and eventually Mars.

But Starship’s development has been turbulent. Several launches and tests have ended in explosions, including major failures in 2023 and 2025. NASA officials also said earlier this year that the Starship programme has suffered at least two years of delays since being selected as a lunar lander.

Despite those setbacks, investor appetite for SpaceX remains extremely strong because the company is now seen as much more than a rocket manufacturer. It operates across satellite internet, launch services, defence technology, AI-linked infrastructure and future space transportation.

According to The Information, BlackRock has discussed investing between $5 billion and $10 billion in the IPO through its actively managed funds. Earlier this year, SpaceX also acquired Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI in a deal reportedly valued at $250 billion, combining Musk’s AI and space businesses under a broader technology strategy.

The IPO comes at a time when global investors are aggressively chasing companies linked to artificial intelligence, defence, semiconductors and strategic technology infrastructure.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)

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