SpaceX’s worth is nearing $US150 billion after signing a share sale agreement with new and existing investors this week.
As per the agreement, the investors will sell up to $US750 million in stock from insiders at $US81 a share, CNBC reported based on a copy of the purchase offer that was sent out by SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen on Thursday and obtained by the news organization. The new share price is about a 5% increase from its previous secondary sale at $US77 each, putting the company at a valuation of around $US140 billion, according to CNBC. The company, which has not made an initial public offering (IPO), typically conducts secondary stock-selling rounds for employees and shareholders biannually.
SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk previously estimated that the company would spend around $US2 billion on the development of its Starship rocket this year. The rocket launched for the first time in April for a less than ideal test flight, which saw the heavy-lift launch vehicle self-destruct after a few of its engines failed mid-flight.
The company is still eager to see its Starship rocket reach orbit in 2023. That would still need the approval of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which has grounded Starship pending an ongoing investigation into its botched flight. The administration is also facing a lawsuit filed by a coalition of conservation and Texas-local non-profit groups over the FAA’s approval of SpaceX’s Starship activities in Boca Chica. SpaceX, however, recently filed to dismiss the lawsuit, denying all the allegations against the company.
Musk, however, does not anticipate that SpaceX would need to raise funding for Starship, Starlink, or any of its other programs, the CEO said during an audio chat on Twitter Spaces in late April.
SpaceX typically conducts secondary rounds of sale twice a year, allowing shareholders a chance to sell their stock. The company, however, hasn’t announced a new capital fundraising round. “To my knowledge, we do not need to raise incremental funding for SpaceX,” Musk said during the April call.
The company is under a $US2.89 billion contract to use Starship in landing humans on the Moon by late 2025 as part of NASA’s Artemis 3 mission, and then again for Artemis 4 in 2028 under a separate $1.15 billion contract. NASA’s Associate Administrator Jim Free recently expressed worry that Starship would delay the Artemis 3 mission to 2026. “With the difficulties that SpaceX has had, I think that’s really concerning,” Free said during a meeting in June.
Despite those difficulties, SpaceX remains the most valuable company in the U.S. The company is way ahead of its competition in the spaceflight industry, flying its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket for a record-breaking 60 launches in 2022 and placing thousands of Starlink broadband internet satellites in orbit. The company is also banking on its Starship to deliver its upgraded next-generation Starlink satellites to orbit to meet growing demand for its broadband network.
SpaceX seems optimistic about its future even before its Starship rocket reaches orbit, cashing in on the potential of the megarocket.