Musk to Seize Total Control of SpaceX IPO With Absolute 85% Voting Power

Wall Street is bracing for a historic shake-up as the world's most dominant private space enterprise quietly takes its first major step toward the public markets. Speculation is reaching a fever pitch following a pivotal regulatory move in the US that lays bare the jaw-dropping scale of the company's financial empire.

Yet, while ordinary investors scramble for a piece of the action, a hidden structural twist ensures that the ultimate power over its multiplanetary future remains firmly in a single pair of hands.

A Historic Listing Steps into the Spotlight

SpaceX finally unveiled its highly anticipated stock market debut on Wednesday, lifting the veil on the balance sheets and executive inner workings of a massive, globally famous firm that has long operated in deep shadow.

For the first time, the public gets a clear look inside Elon Musk's aerospace empire, which is set to list under the ticker 'SPCX.' The newly released data pulls back the curtain on everything from its leadership lineup and operational inner workings to its actual revenue, margins, and running costs.

However, the company left out two massive pieces of the puzzle: how much cash it hopes to bring in and what its total valuation will be. Wall Street already expects this to be the biggest market debut in history, potentially dwarfing the previous record by three times, but the exact numbers remain a mystery for now.

Investors will have to wait for those specific figures until just before the stock market launch. For now, the company has put forward a fascinating 277-page document detailing one of the most daring, and perhaps overly optimistic, commercial ventures on the planet.

A Mountain of Running Costs and Grand Ambitions

Deep within the filing, the company maps out a grand vision, stating its goal is 'to build the systems and technologies necessary to make life multiplanetary, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars.'

Turning that vision into reality means the company will keep churning out and launching its satellite fleet at a rapid pace to scale up the Starlink network. Looking further ahead, the firm plans to 'harness the Sun to power a truth-seeking artificial intelligence that advances scientific discovery, and ultimately to build a base on the Moon and cities on other planets.'

Pulling off a feat of that scale requires a staggering amount of cash. Funding these massive ambitions is exactly why the company is turning to the public markets to raise money from investors.

Even with its rapid growth, the company's grand plans are vastly outpaced by its incoming cash. Revenue did climb by a third over the past year to hit $18.7 billion (£13.9 billion), but the business remains firmly in the red. Aside from a brief $791 million (£590 million) profit in 2024, it plunged deep into a $4.9 billion (£3.6 billion) deficit in 2025, following a similar $4.6 billion (£3.4 billion) loss the year before that.

The financial bleeding shows no sign of stopping this year, with the company confirming it has already dropped $4.3 billion (£3.2 billion) in the first quarter of 2026 alone, despite bringing in $4.7 billion (£3.5 billion) in revenue.

While building rockets carries a heavy price tag, funding a massive artificial intelligence infrastructure is proving just as draining. Out of its total $20.7 billion (£15.4 billion) layout last year, the company funnelled the vast majority—$12.7 billion (£9.5 billion) —straight into AI development, compared to $4.2 billion (£3.1 billion) spent on Starlink and $3.8 billion (£2.8 billion) on its core rocket and space programmes.

This level of spending is nearly twice the $11.2 billion (£8.3 billion) the company went through in 2024, and it makes the $4.4 billion (£3.3 billion) spent back in 2023 look tiny. The cash is burning even faster now, with a massive $10.1 billion (£7.5 billion) already out the door in just the first three months of this year—and $7.7 billion (£5.7 billion) of that total was swallowed up entirely by AI projects.

The Colossal Multi-Trillion-Dollar Prize on the Horizon

However, the business does not plan on staying in the red indefinitely. Management pointed to a staggering potential revenue pool that could reach $28.5 trillion (£21.2 trillion), a target they described as 'the largest actionable total addressable market in human history.'

Breaking that down, the company sees a $370 billion (£276 billion) opening for 'space-enabled solutions' and a $1.6 trillion (£1.2 trillion) market for connectivity, which combines $870 billion (£648 billion) for broadband with $740 billion (£551 billion) for mobile via its low-Earth-orbit Starlink network. The grand prize, though, is a colossal $26.5 trillion (£19.7 trillion) slice of the AI market.

That AI calculation includes a $2.4 trillion (£1.8 trillion) plan to launch data centres into orbit alongside $760 billion (£566 billion) in future user subscriptions. On top of that, the company sees a $600 billion (£447 billion) opportunity in digital advertising, backed by a massive $22.7 trillion (£16.9 trillion) market for what it describes as 'enterprise applications.'

The Inner Circle Steering the Corporate Ship

Musk will not be steering the ship entirely by himself. The documentation sheds light on the company's boardroom lineup for the first time, confirming that while Musk takes the role of chairman, President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell sits right beside him as a director.

The rest of the seats are held by a mix of long-time insiders and heavy-hitting tech figures. Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen is on the roster, alongside venture capitalists Randy Glein, Steve Jurvetson, Luke Nosek, and Ira Ehrenpreis—who already pulls double duty on Tesla's board. Rounding out the group are private equity boss Antonio Gracias and Google executive Donald Harrison.

Voting Power and Astronomical Paydays

A stock market launch on this scale promises to pull in an enormous mountain of cash for the world's most dominant private space corporation. At the same time, the listing could officially crown Musk as the world's very first trillionaire.

The billionaire still owns a massive piece of the business. By holding a 12.3% stake in common stock alongside a dominant 93.6% of the company's Class B shares—which carry 10 votes apiece—Musk commands 85.1% of the total voting control.

This setup virtually guarantees he will stay firmly in the driving seat long after the initial public offering is over. Meanwhile, Antonio Gracias holds the position of second-largest investor through his firm, Valor Entities, with a 7.3% stake in the common shares.

The billionaire has never drawn a major paycheck for his role, with the newly released public records revealing he has taken home the same $54,080 (£40,276) annual salary since 2019.

Instead, his real payday is tied to an astronomical incentive package. SpaceX confirmed that Musk stands to unlock 15 separate payouts of 66,666,665 shares each, but only if the business hits consecutive $500 billion (£372 billion) valuation milestones all the way up to a staggering $7.5 trillion (£5.6 trillion) —and successfully sets up a permanent Mars colony of at least a million people. He will only see those shares if he meets both criteria while remaining at the helm of the firm.

Following the recent xAI merger, the aerospace company also took over parts of Musk's previous pay deal from his artificial intelligence and social media venture. SpaceX chose to scrap that older agreement, replacing it with a new incentive that awards him an additional 302 million shares if the company hits a series of massive valuation targets and successfully deploys space-based data centres capable of pumping out 100 terawatts of computing capacity annually.