Elon Musk's SpaceX has begun a secondary stock sale that could value the company up to $800 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
SpaceX has also told some investors that it will consider going public, possibly around the end of next year, the report said.
A higher price would make Mr. Musk's aerospace and defense contractor more valuable than ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which completed a stock sale in October at a valuation of $500 billion.
SpaceX is investing heavily in reusable rockets, launch facilities and satellites, while competing for government contracts with upstart space companies such as Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. SpaceX is far ahead of the curve, operating the world's largest network of satellites in low Earth orbit through its Starlink satellite internet service under the same brand name.
SpaceX's IPO will also include its Starlink business, which the company previously considered spinning out.
Musk recently discussed whether SpaceX would go public during the period. teslaLast month's annual general meeting. Musk, the CEO of both companies, said he doesn't like running publicly traded businesses, in part because they can create “spurious litigation” and “make it very difficult to operate effectively.”
But Musk said during the meeting that he would “try to find some way for Tesla shareholders to participate in SpaceX,” adding: “Maybe at some point SpaceX should become a public company despite all the downsides.”
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