SpaceX’s expected IPO in 2026 has quickly become the topic of internet chatter, and analysts are weighing in on why going public is a good move, especially for Starlink — and why now
After two decades of operating SpaceX as a private company, Elon Musk confirmed in December that reports of it going public in 2026 are “accurate”. According to several sources, SpaceX, through its initial public offering, is targeting to hit a whopping $1.5 trillion valuation — almost 2x its current $800 billion valuation — and in line with that, raise over $30 million of funding. That’s historic, as some analysts are calling it “the biggest IPO” on record.
The whys and wherefores
The IPO fever is certainly back in town with some of the biggest, most consequential IPOs expected to happen in 2026. Discord, Anthropic, OpenAI, Reliance Jio — all have been put down as potentials for public listing this year.
SpaceX’s IPO however was long coming. Musk backer and billionaire investor Ron Baron predicted it back in 2023. Speaking to CNBC’s Andrew Sorkin, he said, “We think that by the time they go public with SpaceX, with Starlink … in 2027 or so, four years, the company will be worth $250 billion to $300 billion.”
Except that the IPO could come a year too soon — and he’s way off about the company valuation.
While many have set mid-of-2026 as the potential timeline, others are ahead. Investor and venture capitalist, James Altucher, predicts the IPO to happen as soon as January, 30th. In a video presentation, Altucher provides a comparative view of just how big the SpaceX IPO could turn out to be.
“Just to put things into perspective for you, a company like Amazon went public in 1997 at a value of just $438 million…That means Elon’s Starlink IPO could be more than 228 times bigger than Amazon’s IPO!”, he said. “It could also be 55 times bigger than Apple’s IPO, 128 times bigger than Microsoft’s IPO, and 177 times bigger than Nvidia’s IPO, to name just a few.”
Analysts’ take on the rationale too seem to vary slightly. Some say that surging revenues from Starlink and rapid expansion of the Starshield defense business makes 2026 a great year to go public, while others question Musk’s decision to consider an IPO despite intentions to keep the company private and limit external scrutiny.
Tim Farrar, tech consultant at TMF Associates refuses to believe that the move is intended to raise capital as SpaceX already has access to ample funds through private markets. More so, it is a strategic pivot to recoup losses from Tesla’s business, he says.
In an interview with Via Satellite, he said, “I don’t think that it’s just about raising the money. I think a big part of it is — What is going to be the public center of Elon Musk’s universe going forward? It has been centered around Tesla for the last decade. Even though Tesla is very valuable right now, there are a lot of headwinds for that company. It seems to me, this is a good time for Musk to pivot from Tesla being the center of that public universe to SpaceX being the center of that public universe. A $1.5 trillion IPO valuation — curiously enough, that’s about the valuation that Tesla has right now.
There’s another theory that’s going around. As an Ars Technica article explains, Musk sees the interplay of AI, robotics, and smart IoT — industries in which he is deeply involved through Tesla, xAI, and SpaceX — and the emergence of space data centers, as a strategic opening. In this thriving space, Starlink, the world’s most dominant satellite service provider, could play a dominant role in delivering next-generation connectivity for terrestrial and space-based data centers.
And what would that next-gen technology look like? In a tweet, Musk himself wrote, “Satellites with localized AI compute, where just the results are beamed back from low-latency, sun-synchronous orbit, will be the lowest cost way to generate AI bitstreams in <3 years.”
He continues, “1 megaton/year of satellites with 100kW per satellite yields 100GW of AI added per year with no operating or maintenance cost, connecting via high-bandwidth lasers to the Starlink constellation.”
But Musk’s vision goes even beyond space-based data centers with bottomless supply of solar energy. “The level beyond that is constructing satellite factories on the Moon and using a mass driver (electromagnetic railgun) to accelerate AI satellites to lunar escape velocity without the need for rockets. That scales to >100TW/year of AI and enables non-trivial progress towards becoming a Kardashev II civilization,” he wrote.
Further, during a surprise appearance at the World Economic Forum 2026 in Davos, Musk said, “I think the limiting factor for AI deployment is fundamentally electrical power…It’s clear that we’re very soon, maybe even later this year, we’ll be producing more chips than we can turn on…So net effect is that the lowest cost place to put AI will be space. And that’ll be true within two years, maybe three — three at the latest.”
Launch plans for next-gen D2D in 2027
Amid all the talk, SpaceX is planning to bring to market a second-generation cellular Starlink system in 2027. In a recent FCC filing, the company has proposed a new generation of direct-to-device (D2D) service for the next year. Referring to the recent spectrum Starlink purchased from EchoStar for $17 billion, SpaceX executives wrote, “SpaceX has also invested in spectrum that will enable it to launch a greatly enhanced second generation direct-to-device system in 2027.”
Starlink’s current direct-to-device connectivity is available via T-Mobile. The next-generation service is expected to provide a sharper edge against competitors like Verizon, AT&T — and AST SpaceMobile which also announced the upcoming launch of its BlueBird 7 satellite scheduled for February.
