SpaceX’s long-anticipated IPO filing has transformed the secretive rocket firm into an open book, revealing soaring losses, a colossal AI-centric business plan, and a sci‑fi vision for an off‑world economy that many on Wall Street say will require an extraordinary leap of faith.

February–May: Merging Musk’s empire and opening the books

In February, Elon Musk merged his AI startup xAI — which also owns social network X — into SpaceX in a $1.25 trillion all‑stock deal, setting the stage for a combined public offering.

On May 20, SpaceX publicly filed its S‑1, disclosing 2025 revenues of $18.67 billion but a net loss of $4.94 billion, largely driven by AI spending.¹ The filing also exposed xAI’s finances, including a $6.4 billion operating loss on $3.2 billion in 2025 revenue, with plans to scale its Grok model to “multiple trillions of parameters,” implying even higher future compute costs.²

Pitching a $28.5 trillion future

SpaceX’s prospectus argues it has “identified the largest TAM in human history,” projecting a $28.5 trillion total addressable market, of which $26.5 trillion is tied to AI compute rather than rockets or Starlink.¹ Axios notes this implies capturing roughly a quarter of global GDP and quotes one economist who calls the figure “farcical,” even by the loose standards of IPO market sizing.³

Much of the upside is tied to “AI compute satellites” and orbital data centers starting as early as 2028, moving data‑center power and cooling into space to exploit near‑constant solar energy.⁴ Business Insider describes the filing as reading more like a “sci‑fi manifesto,” complete with references to Kardashev‑scale civilizations and future markets that “literally don’t exist at the moment.”⁵

Risks, contradictions, and legal scrutiny

Behind the cosmic rhetoric, the S‑1 catalogs 36 pages of risks. Business Insider reports that SpaceX warns investors its Grok chatbot’s NSFW “spicy” modes pose “heightened risks” of generating “potential nonconsensual or exploitative imagery,” and that the company faces multiple lawsuits and investigations over sexualized images, including those involving minors.⁶

The filing also reveals that xAI powers data centers with dozens of mobile natural‑gas turbines near Memphis, drawing an NAACP lawsuit and an EPA finding of federal violations — even as SpaceX commits to buying $2.8 billion more turbines over three years.⁷ Commentators note the clash with Tesla’s long‑standing pledge to move the world toward a “solar electric economy,” pointing out that the IPO pitch talks up space‑based solar while largely sidelining Tesla’s terrestrial solar business.⁸

Regulators are circling elsewhere too. Weeks after Cursor engineers began working inside xAI offices under a compute‑sharing partnership, xAI’s general counsel warned staff to limit contact with Cursor to avoid “gun‑jumping” antitrust violations ahead of a potential $60 billion acquisition option tied to the IPO.⁹

Dependence on Musk — and investor skepticism

The S‑1 makes clear the company is “highly dependent” on Musk’s leadership and deeply intertwined with his other ventures. The Verge highlights extensive related‑party dealings — from $131 million in Cybertruck purchases to nearly $700 million in Tesla Megapacks for data‑center storage — and flags the risk that Musk’s competing priorities and cross‑ownership could create conflicts for shareholders.¹⁰

Financially, Axios concludes SpaceX “isn’t the behemoth everyone thought,” noting the rocket-and-satellite business is unprofitable overall, with Starlink as the only consistently profitable unit and the AI/X division generating just $818 million in Q1 2026.¹¹ TechCrunch’s analysis of the S‑1 says the valuation math “requires a little faith,” given losses up 700% and a triple‑digit price‑to‑sales multiple.¹²

Competing narratives: unhinged or inevitable?

Supporters see a coherent bet that AI and space infrastructure will fuse. Ars Technica reports SpaceX now explicitly describes its launch and satellite businesses as supporting a far larger AI compute market, betting that vertically integrated rockets, chips, and orbital data centers can eventually outcompete terrestrial rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic.¹³

Critics argue the company is overextended. One breakdown of the 277‑page filing, amplified by Meta AI chief scientist Yann LeCun on X, brands it “a trainwreck,” citing surging losses, decelerating revenue, and a 107x price‑to‑sales multiple.Yann LeCun (ylecun)¹⁴

Against that skepticism, Musk has used X to rally enthusiasm, praising an “epic first Starship V3 launch & landing” as “a goal for humanity” and touting SpaceX’s progress on an in‑house AI training stack that aims to push hardware closer to “bare metal.”Elon Musk (elonmusk)¹⁵Elon Musk (elonmusk)¹⁶

As the expected June listing under ticker “SPCX” approaches, investors must decide whether SpaceX is a rational, if risky, way to buy into a future of orbital AI and off‑world industry — or a sci‑fi story whose numbers don’t yet add up.