NEW YORK—Elon Musk announced plans Wednesday for one of the biggest stock sales ever by taking SpaceX public.
A filing shows that his SpaceX lost $2.6 billion from operations last year on $18.7 billion in revenue, and the losses kept piling up at the start of this year, too.
The prospectus did not put a dollar figure on the amount Musk hopes to raise, but various reports have put it at $75 billion or so. An offering of that size would easily surpass the current title holder, Saudi Aramco, the oil giant that went public seven years ago and raised $26 billion.
SpaceX, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., has said the money will help finance projects to put people on the moon and Mars in its quest to make humans an intergalactic species as they face existential threats that could wipe out civilization.
“We do not want humans to have the same fate as dinosaurs,” the filing states.
The prospectus reads in part like a Hollywood fantasy version of the future, detailing in one section how part of Musk’s compensation will be granted only if he maintains “a permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants.”
Short of that, the stock sale alone could make Musk, a major owner who founded SpaceX in 2002, the world’s first trillionaire. Forbes currently puts his net worth at $839 billion.
In addition to making reusable rockets to hurl astronauts into orbit, SpaceX has other businesses.
The document shows that Starlink, the world’s largest satellite communications company, is a big source of cash for the company, generating $4.4 billion in operating income last year. The business uses 10,000 satellites in low orbit to provide internet service to 10 million people in 150 countries and territories.
The prospectus says stock grants for him would be sliced into 15 nearly equal amounts—67 million shares each—and would vest only as the company achieves preset market cap goals. In addition to the Martian colony, SpaceX’s stock market value would have to reach $7.5 trillion for him to receive the full award.
He would get even more stock awards if SpaceX manages to get giant data centers the size of football fields in space.
The document shows Musk will be able to exert big control over the business.
It says he and certain other shareholders will receive shares in a special class of stock that gives them 10 votes for each share they hold. Those shareholders will be able, among other things, to elect a majority of the company’s board of directors.
“This will limit or preclude your ability to influence corporate matters and the election of our directors,” SpaceX said in a warning to prospective investors.
SpaceX will be able to pitch the offering to investors—in what’s known in Wall Street parlance as a “road show”—15 days after making its prospectus public. In this case, that works out to June 4.