Billionaire or engineer? How SpaceX changed the game in space

December 2024 brought news that shook Wall Street: SpaceX valued at $800 billion in the latest share sale round. The company is preparing for a massive IPO in 2026, expected to raise over $30 billion. If the plans succeed, SpaceX’s total market capitalization could reach $1.5 trillion – a level only the largest corporations in the world aspire to.

For Elon Musk, this is a breakthrough moment. His personal wealth is approaching the magic barrier of one trillion dollars, making him the first trillionaire in history. But the story of SpaceX is not about wealth – it’s about how an individual questioning fundamental industry dogmas can transform an entire sector.

From a Joke to a Technological Breakthrough

23 years ago, no one would have given a cent to Musk’s idea that a private company could compete with Boeing or Lockheed Martin. When in 2001, a PayPal programmer with over $100 million in cash announced he would build rockets and go to Mars, the space industry responded with a smile full of pity.

Reality quickly proved brutal. The first three Falcon 1 launches (2006-2008) ended in spectacular failures. In August 2008, the third attempt again ended in disaster – the first and second stages collided over the Pacific. SpaceX engineers didn’t sleep that night; their insomnia before the next attempt became a symbol of the team’s desperation. The media mocked the pretentious American new rich, and Musk’s childhood idols – astronauts Armstrong and Cernan – publicly expressed doubts about his project.

On September 28, 2008, everything changed. After 9 minutes of flight, Falcon 1 successfully placed a payload into orbit for the first time. It was not only a technical success – it was an existential victory for a company on the brink of bankruptcy. Two months later, NASA awarded SpaceX a contract worth $1.6 billion. SpaceX survived.

The First Principles Approach Instead of Convention

But the real revolution at SpaceX was not the change everyone expected. Musk insisted on a seemingly absurd goal: rockets must be reusable. Almost all internal engineers protested – “no one picks up paper cups after one use.” But Musk saw it differently: if airplanes were discarded after each flight, no one would fly. Rockets must return.

Instead of following industry conventions – expensive advanced materials, laboratory precision – Musk returned to basic laws of physics. In 2001, he broke down real production costs in Excel. He discovered that traditional space giants artificially inflate prices by dozens of times. Why does a screw cost a thousand times more than the raw material?

Reusable rockets were the first proof of this logic. On December 21, 2015, the first stage of Falcon 9 landed vertically in Florida – as if the boundary of possibility had been moved. The entire industry consensus vanished in an instant.

The next step is Starship. Engineers proposed carbon fiber – expensive, complex, uncertain. Musk went back to the numbers: stainless steel costs $3 per kilogram (the same as pots in a home kitchen), and carbon fiber $135. Sure, steel is heavier – but it has a melting point of 1400°C. When including insulation systems, the weight is similar, and costs are 40 times lower.

This obsession with reducing costs while maximizing efficiency became SpaceX’s DNA.

Starlink: Revenue Instead of Spectacle

SpaceX’s valuation is not rising because of rocket launches – it’s rising because of Starlink. This constellation of thousands of satellites in low orbit has become the smallest internet network in the world. From data transmission capabilities to ships in the middle of the Pacific to signal delivery in war zones – Starlink has turned “space” from a spectacle into infrastructure.

By November 2025, Starlink had gained 7.65 million active subscribers, with the actual number of users exceeding 24.5 million. North America accounts for 43% of subscriptions, while emerging markets (Korea, Southeast Asia) generate 40% of new users.

This is what forced Wall Street to assign SpaceX such an astonishing valuation. Projected revenues for 2025 are $15 billion, and for 2026, $22-24 billion. Over 80% will come from Starlink – recurring, predictable revenue generating an economic unit similar to telecom giants.

SpaceX has ceased to be a contractor for hire – it has become an infrastructural monopoly with a deep moat of competition.

IPO as Fuel for Mars

If SpaceX raises $30 billion, it will beat Saudi Aramco’s 2019 record ($29 billion). This will be the largest IPO in history. A potential valuation of $1.5 trillion would place SpaceX in the top twenty largest companies in the world.

For factory engineers in Boca Chica and Hawthorne – those who slept on the factory floors and survived stressful periods – this means transforming into millionaires and billionaires.

But for Musk, an IPO is not “cashing out.” In 2022, he called the stock market “an invitation to suffering.” What has changed? Astronomical ambitions require astronomical funds. According to Musk’s schedule, within two years Starship must land on Mars; within four years, humans will set foot on Martian soil. The ultimate vision – building a self-sustaining city with 1,000 Starships within 20 years – requires hundreds of billions of dollars.

Musk has repeatedly stated that the only purpose of accumulating wealth is to make humanity a multi-planetary species. Hundreds of billions from the IPO are a fee Earth pays for the future.

The stakes of this IPO are not jubilees or yachts – it’s steel, fuel, and oxygen that will pave the way to a new planet.