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Chapter 1: What is the significance of the upcoming SpaceX IPO?
Welcome back to The Rundown for another week and deep dive. Today, we are talking about SpaceX. The SpaceX IPO is right around the corner and it's setting up to be the biggest in history. SpaceX is looking to raise $75 to $80 billion at a $1.75 trillion valuation, which would instantly make them one of the most valuable publicly traded companies in the world.
But lately, there have been growing concerns about the valuation, especially after SpaceX dropped their financial information in the S1 filing. So in today's episode, we're going to talk about what the S1 revealed and whether the SpaceX IPO can actually live up to the hype. We got a great one for you today. Let's dive in.
Chapter 2: What businesses does SpaceX operate beyond rockets?
Now, before we dive into the numbers, let's talk about all the businesses that are under SpaceX because it's not just a rocket company anymore. SpaceX has three very different businesses that they outlined in their S1. Let's start with the space business first. This is the sexy business. It's the one that gets all the headlines.
See, when Elon Musk founded SpaceX back in 2002, his goal was to reduce the cost of space transportation. And over the last couple decades, SpaceX has pulled that off. SpaceX has reduced the cost of reaching orbit by approximately 95% compared to the space shuttle era. And today, SpaceX is by far the most dominant rocket launch company in the world.
They had 165 successful orbital launches in 2025, accounting for 51% of all global orbital launches. But what's interesting is that while this business does get all the headlines, it only accounts for 22% of SpaceX's total revenue.
But you know what's interesting, despite the space business getting all the headlines, it only made around $4.1 billion in revenue in 2025, which was about 22% of SpaceX's total revenue. And you know, the space business wasn't even profitable in 2025, but we'll dive into the numbers in a bit.
I also want to point out that nearly three out of every four launches that SpaceX did, SpaceX was their own customer. They were launching their satellites for Starlink. And that brings me to SpaceX's next business segment, which is connectivity. This segment includes Starlink, and it's the crown jewel for SpaceX.
See, Starlink provides satellite internet connectivity across the globe, and it's truly an incredible service. I've used it multiple times to get super high speeds on a flight and also in rural areas. Today, Starlink has more than 10 million subscribers in more than 160 countries, and they've roughly doubled their subscriber base two years in a row.
And Starlink is actually what makes the majority of SpaceX's revenue and profit. Revenues for Starlink in 2025 were $11.4 billion, which is about 61% of SpaceX's total revenue. And more importantly, Starlink accounted for most of SpaceX's profit with operating profits coming in at $4.4 billion in 2025.
You know, you could make the case that without Starlink, SpaceX wouldn't be a compelling business story at all. Now let's talk about the third and newest segment for SpaceX, which is AI. Remember, back in February, Elon Musk merged SpaceX with his AI company called XAI, which also includes X, aka Twitter. And what we've learned so far is that XAI was burning through a lot of money.
XAI only did about $3.2 billion in revenue in 2025, but they burned through $12.7 billion in CapEx, likely going towards building out their AI data centers. Now, having all that data center capacity is starting to pay off, but again, we'll talk more about that in a bit. But yeah, hopefully that paints a picture of what SpaceX's business is as they go into their IPO.
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Chapter 3: How does Starlink contribute to SpaceX's revenue?
And with so much money going to these companies, there might not be enough money left for the rest of the stock market. So yeah, like I said, this IPO is going to be historic. It's gonna be memorable. All that being said, I'm happy to watch this IPO from the sidelines.
I guess until the day that SpaceX gets added to the NASDAQ index, then I'll automatically be a SpaceX shareholder along with millions of other people. Well, all right, guys, that's it for today's weekend deep dive. Hope you guys enjoyed that one. Let me know in the comments on what you think. Are you going to buy the SpaceX IPO or are you watching from the sidelines like me?
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By the way, if you want to stay up to date on what's happening with the SpaceX IPO, along with everything else happening in the markets, definitely get subscribed to the podcast. We drop episodes every day throughout the week. Thank you guys again for listening, watching, and commenting. Shout out to Mike for all the work behind the scenes. And we'll see you guys back here tomorrow.