Musk Is Said to Revisit SpaceX I.P.O., With an Eye on Data Centers in Orbit

Elon Musk is once again weighing a public offering for SpaceX, a company he has long kept private, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke to The Wall Street Journal. The discussions mark a notable shift for the rocket maker, which had previously suggested it would not pursue an initial public offering until it had established a presence on Mars - a milestone that remains distant.

A new rationale: AI infrastructure above Earth

People inside the company have framed the renewed IPO interest around a costly new ambition: building AI data centers in orbit. The idea has gained traction across parts of the tech industry as energy-hungry terrestrial facilities draw increasing scrutiny for their land use, power demand and water consumption. Google has publicly signaled interest in the concept, with test launches slated for 2027, and Musk is said to want to move faster - a race that would likely require the kind of fresh capital an IPO can provide.

"Our TPUs are headed to space!" - Sundar Pichai, in a November 2025 post describing "Project Suncatcher."

Sources told the Journal that Musk is aiming to complete an offering by July, and that SpaceX is expected to choose banks to lead the stock sale in the near future. The plan is also being interpreted as a potential tailwind for xAI, Musk's artificial intelligence company, which competes with rivals including OpenAI and Google. If SpaceX were to succeed in deploying orbital data centers, industry observers say xAI could benefit from preferential access given Musk's leadership across both firms.

Other executives have floated similar ideas. Blue Origin chief executive Jeff Bezos has suggested that orbit-based data centers could make practical sense, while OpenAI's Sam Altman has been reported to be exploring options involving a rocket company called Stoke Space. Still, significant engineering constraints remain, including:

• Latency challenges for certain computing workloads
• Heat dissipation in space, where convection is limited
• Radiation exposure and reliability of sensitive components
• The complexity and cost of launching and assembling infrastructure in orbit

The Journal reported that SpaceX achieved an unspecified breakthrough last year, though the company has not provided details publicly. For now, an IPO would represent more than a liquidity event for employees and early investors: it would be a bet that the next phase of the AI arms race could be powered not only by chips and electricity on Earth, but by industrial-scale computing placed above it.

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