Musk’s answer when asked, “Why SpaceX going public now?”
In a JP Morgan public interview today about SpaceX’s upcoming initial public offering (IPO), Elon Musk was asked why the company was going public now, and gave a somewhat long-winded answer that included talking about the Sun as a major source of energy in the future, and then concluded very simply, to laughter: “We are embarking on a massive new growth phase and we need capital for that.”
I have embedded his response below. It is worthwhile watching because he does indicate much of what SpaceX wants to do, which not only involves an additional 100,000 communications satellites as well as a constellation of data satellites, it might also include possible solar power generation for use back on Earth. He also notes the company has been self-funding now for almost a decade.
JUST IN: Elon Musk lays out why SpaceX is going public, in a live conversation with JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon pic.twitter.com/xoDt4fWC2g
— Muskonomy (@muskonomy) June 4, 2026
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“””He also notes the company has been self-funding now for almost a decade.”””
This is one of the items that really irks the Big Government types. Both Trump and Musk make money the old fashioned way. They EARN IT.
Elon is awesome. But revenue and net income of Tesla has been stagnant, if not declining, the last 3 years. Which is not what was predicted 5 and 10 years ago. Back then the talk was of Tesla building factories in Mexico, India. Berlin was going to be huge. Again, Elon is terrific. But is not capable of delegating. The DOGE thing, where his promised $trillions in savings never materialized, showed he was as fallible as everyone else in terms of not being able to master the world of politics.
Steve Richter: Your skepticism, especially regarding Tesla, is smart. However, you are wrong when you say Musk “is not capable of delegating.” It is clearly untrue. Ask Gwenne Shotwell for example.
SpaceX could not have done what it did if he didn’t let his good people free to do their work. He is simply a very good boss. He only gets involved in the most basic decisions, and when things are beginning to go off kilter. Otherwise, he hires the best and lets them do the work.
Gwynne had a very positive article about her in the NY Times today. I do not see a similar executive running Tesla. Elon did such incredible work building Tesla. Without a strong, hard charging executive running that company revenue is not going to increase at the rate the sky high valuation requires.
EV sales could be why Tesla is pivoting to robots. That being said, it is a dual track pivot, as the Tesla EVs are moving toward rolling robots with FSD. Cheers –
EV sales are not falling outside the US. Tesla just had its best May ever on the international stage. On that note, I suspect the reason the established automakers are withdrawing from the market has less to do with EV adoption and more with crappy (yet expensive) vehicles along with the tax breaks those write-offs provide.
Ronaldus Magnus:
Remember, you can’t *earn* a billion dollars.
Why not?? There are more ways to earn money than working 100+ hour weeks plowing the fields or turning wrenches.
Blair Ivey is mocking the left. Last month, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wisely said that an individual “can’t earn a billion dollars.” Considering the pushback, it may not have been so wise after all.
She may not be able to earn a billion dollars, but projecting her inabilities onto the abled does not reflect the reality that some people can earn far, far more than she is capable of earning.
Musk is keeping a super majority in voting rights.
This sale will never pose a risk to the board of directors taking over.
I now I am going to try to buy some.
I am too. I wonder what the stock name will be.
I believe SPCX
Bob & Saville-
There were tons of people who bought into Virgin last week because they thought SpaceX had ALREADY IPOd.
SPCE had a very up week!
Then Branson swooped in and diluted even further on that action to capitalize and leave investors holding the bag.
That man can’t wake up without dipping his hands into pockets!!!
“Sir” Dick Branson is a real piece of work.
To quote Jules in Pulp Fiction: “That’s all you had to say!”
I might look at it after what I expect to be a massive spike.
Crypto going down, Gold going down, liquidating / selloff to by SPACEX?
They’ve also released photos of Starship doing asteroid mining, so if they’re building industry in the Moon, mining asteroids, operating thousands of data centers, communications satellites, and beaming down energy to Earth, all of those are huge markets.
There’s also some irony about possibly beaming down solar energy, given his previous hatred for it.
What on Earth gave you THAT impression?
Every SpaceX facility has a crap-ton oa solar arrays and Elon has posted numerous times on X about solar energy.
I’m specifically referring to space solar power, not solar energy as a whole. I can’t find a great source for this, but here’s him criticizing the idea: https://www.bandmine.com/thesolarenergy/videos/2/9YZVAMh8b0s
He probably won’t utter those words again…seeing that server farms on orbit all but require SSP just to operate. He should say he was wrong and talk up powersats, in the hopes Greenies might buy his stock.
Musk never objected to the scale of SBSP, but to their overall efficiency. Plus, watt for watt, data transmission is conservatively a hundred times more profitable than beaming energy to Earth.
Why? SpaceX is already oversubscribed for the IPO.
LOL—He may even get Gary Church to embrace “The Big Shiny”
Stockholders are also supporters that provide feedback.
This IPO is selling 555 million shares of SpaceX at a fixed price of $135, The 555 million is a 4.2% increase in the number of ownership shares of the corporation. Meaning there are currently 12.5 billion ownership shares. After the IPO there will be 13.08 billion ownership shares. Currently, SpaceX is not turning a profit. But if it does earn $13 billion profit in 2027 ( compared to $100 billion annual profit of Alphabet ), that $13B profit would be $1 per share of the company. Which is < 1% return on the $135 investment of the new shareholders. Wow!
I think Elon is setting himself up for a world of hurt. This is no longer buyer beware, private equity. Many people have their retirement accounts ( IRA and 401K ) in stock index funds. Grok says the S&P 500 index fund will not be buying SpaceX for the first year. But other large index funds will. "… Analysts estimate $22–27 billion (or more) in forced passive buying from Nasdaq-100, CRSP/Vanguard total market, and Russell funds in the first few weeks/months after the IPO. …”
Steve Richter,
Possibly, but SpaceX has a cool $2.2 billion/month revenue now from renting AI hardware, which will put its AI section in the black, it’s making money hand over fist with Starlink, Falcon 9 is very successful, and the company plans to have operational Starship flights in the second half of this year. There’s a lot of upside for them over the long term.
The number I have seen is $1.25B per month. With Elon saying there is a 6 month firm commitment from Anthropic. Yeah, great for SpaceX. But it also shows that Anthropic is better at AI than SpaceX is. Grok is super impressive. Customers, however, prefer what Anthropic is selling.
Google is paying SpaceX $920 million per month: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/05/google-to-pay-spacex-920-million-a-month-for-xai-compute-capacity.html Add that to the Anthropic deal, and it’s about what I said.
I’ve noticed any time anyone points out something SpaceX is doing well, you downplay it immediately, or give it grudging acknowledgement at best. Why is that? You use Grok yourself constantly. I don’t think it’s a big deal if Claude has more users than Grok, so long as SpaceX still makes a mint from AI either way, which it is.
I think there has to be a lot more skepticism and critical thinking on the republican side of the public debate. As it is, Elon is just about the only republican/American doing great things for the country. I actually fear for him. Democrats are going to rip him apart when they take control of Washington.
Critical thinking and skepticism don’t mean rejecting what’s actually happening. I think there are many more, if only one looks at the new wave of defense and space companies over the last ten years (to limit ourselves to just the technology side of matters). IF the Democrats take control of Washington is more accurate. They’re facing significant headwind because their crazies are the face of the party now.
I’m praying the Democratic Party finally goes the way of the Whigs, the crazies are ignored, and a new, decent, America-loving, God-embracing opposition party emerges.
One can hope and pray.
You say “when they (Democrats) take control of Washington” like that is some foreordained inevitability. It isn’t. The Democratic Party is being increasingly revealed to be as much a crime syndicate as a political party. And its leadership is in the process of passing into the hands of genuine wreckers. There is no patent of immortality for political parties. Many have come and gone. The Republican Party was formed because the Whigs were too soft on slavery. A party that hates a majority of the nation’s population and wishes to replace them with pliable parasites from the Third World does not have a selling proposition that is going to appeal to very many going forward.
I’m buying anything my brokerage offers. Not necessarily for the investment potential. I’m emotionally buying to own a tiny sliver of something great, at least for a little while.
Long term, it may be a bad investment. IMO Musk’s politics and his commitment to free speech have made him a dead duck when the progressive-marxists are in power. His wealth will be blamed for all their problems and they will take it or worse.
His goals are also unrealistically grandiose, the potential exists for bad decisions and employment of capital, all to swing for the stars.
Ah, there is Investing, Trading (essentially Gambling) and then there is symbolic investing.
Will the “progressives” in time take over?
THE DEATH OF PROGRESSIVISM
https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/short-the-death-of-progressivism
Time will tell the tale.