Why Elon Musk is racing to take SpaceX public

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. SpaceX resisted going public for years. Then came the rise of artificial intelligence.

Elon Musk’s rocket maker became one of the country’s most valuable private companies due in part to its ability to develop risky space businesses outside the scrutiny of public investors. Its executives liked to say the company wouldn’t IPO until its rockets were regularly flying to Mars. That was before the rush to build data centers for AI computing prompted Musk, Jeff Bezos and others to propose putting them in space.

The idea has prompted skepticism from many engineers, given the technical challenges posed by building solar-powered AI data centers that zip around Earth. But it has continued to gain traction and Musk has become obsessed with the idea of SpaceX being the first to do it, people familiar with the matter said. Such a feat would be hard to attempt without the billions of dollars in capital an initial public offering could deliver in one fell swoop.

The billionaire also sees a SpaceX IPO as a way to help his AI company, xAI, catch up to rivals, some of the people said. Musk has a long-running rivalry with OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman, who last year explored buying a rocket company to deploy satellites with AI computing capabilities into space. Two of xAI’s competitors, OpenAI and Anthropic, are eyeing their own IPOs this year, and Musk seems eager for SpaceX to hit the public market first, some of the people said.

SpaceX is expected to select banks to lead the stock offering soon; Musk has told people he wants to complete the IPO by July. Musk’s apparent change of tune on SpaceX’s IPO plans in the middle of last year surprised many. The billionaire has loudly complained about