ARK Invest says a SpaceX initial public offering (IPO) will open the floodgates for Elon Musk to send humans to Mars.
In a new research note posted on X, ARK Invest outlines how a potential SpaceX IPO could serve as the financial engine behind orbital artificial intelligence data centers, while ultimately helping bankroll Musk’s long-stated goal of sending humans to Mars.
The analysis follows recent reporting from The Wall Street Journal that SpaceX is preparing an employee tender implying a valuation of roughly $800 billion, double its prior tender earlier this year, alongside a separate Bloomberg report that the company is exploring an IPO at a valuation approaching $1.5 trillion in 2026.
ARK believes that the IPO is not just a liquidity event, but a strategic funding mechanism tied directly to Musk’s long-term infrastructure ambitions.
“An IPO would help fund the space-based data center effort, and the data centers could generate cash flow to fund SpaceX’s Mars ambitions.”
Last week, Musk said solar-powered AI satellites could harness power directly from the sun as terrestrial energy constraints tighten. He also said that SpaceX could deploy the system, which could be up and running in just a few years.
ARK Invest highlights that Musk’s companies are converging on realizing data centers running workloads in space.
“With this strategy, Elon companies could converge, accelerating one another’s growth: SpaceX’s rockets, satellites, and data centers and Tesla’s AI chips feeding xAI’s demand for data centers and chips…
Sun-synchronous satellites could tap continuous power from the sun and lasers could link them in a global distributed compute layer operating 24/7. As AI hyperscalers face power shortages—including five-year grid queues and multi-year timelines for behind-the-meter buildouts—space is emerging as the next frontier for scalable compute.”
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