SpaceX has begun marketing a $1.5 billion tender offer for employee and early-investor shares at a valuation of $410 billion, sources familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal Friday. The deal, led by long-time backers Founders Fund, Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz alongside new participation from sovereign wealth funds in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, makes SpaceX the most valuable private company in the world.
The valuation marks a 35% increase from the December 2025 tender, which priced at $304 billion, and reflects accelerating momentum across SpaceX's three core franchises: Starlink subscriber growth, Falcon 9 launch dominance and the Starship V3 vehicle's path to operational service later this year. Annual revenue is now estimated at $19.4 billion, with Starlink alone contributing nearly $13 billion.
Starlink IPO Is Coming
The tender offer is widely viewed as a stepping stone to a partial spinoff or direct listing of Starlink, which Elon Musk has previously suggested could happen in 2027 once the constellation reaches cash-flow self-sufficiency. The satellite broadband business now has 8.4 million active subscribers across 134 countries, including more than 320,000 enterprise and government customers paying premium tier rates.
Bernstein analyst Chris Quilty estimated last week that a standalone Starlink could command a public market valuation between $190 billion and $260 billion based on subscriber and revenue multiples used for cellular operators. The remaining SpaceX entity, comprising Falcon, Starship, Crew Dragon and the planned Mars program, would still rank among the largest private aerospace companies.
Implications for Defense Primes and Telecom
For competitors, the SpaceX valuation is a reminder of how thoroughly the company has reshaped its industries. United Launch Alliance has lost most of its U.S. national security launch market share, Boeing's Starliner program continues to struggle financially, and Amazon's Project Kuiper remains years behind Starlink in subscriber count even after committing more than $24 billion in capex.
Traditional telecom operators face a similar reckoning. T