Spacex files for ipo this week, eyes $75b record haul

The smell of kerosene still lingers in my notebook from last month's Starlink factory tour; this morning that same factory could become Wall Street's hottest ticket. SpaceX will drop its S-1 filing within days, aiming to shatter Saudi Aramco's 2019 record with a $75 billion raise, three people with direct knowledge tell me.

Word inside Hawthorne is that Elon Musk's inner circle debated the timing until 3 a.m. Pacific yesterday. The math is brutal: $1.75 trillion valuation or bust. That's nearly double the GDP of Portugal, pinned to a company whose main revenue stream is still disposable rockets.

Starlink carries the valuation, falcon 9 carries the risk

Morgan Stanley's aerospace desk has been quietly sounding out family offices since March, whispering that 60% of the target raise would funnel straight into expanding the satellite-internet constellation. The pitch deck, which I glimpsed on a venture partner's phone in Palo Alto, shows monthly cash burn tripling once the Gen 2 satellites launch. Translation: SpaceX needs your retirement money to keep burning aluminum in low-Earth orbit.

Yet the same prospectus lists gross margins of 54% on launch services—numbers that smell like cooked books to anyone who has priced out a Merlin engine. The trick: every government payload is booked as