Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk on Thursday dismissed hopes for a SpaceX initial public offering (IPO), citing intense pressure for short-term results at publicly listed companies.
What Happened: “The legal load and pressure for short-term results for a public company are very high,” Musk wrote. The CEO was responding to an X user who said that he is glad that SpaceX is privately owned given Musk’s recent legal struggles over his $56 billion pay package at his publicly-listed company Tesla.
Musk’s 2018 compensation package at Tesla worth as much as $56 billion at the time of award was rescinded by a Delaware court earlier this year after deeming it "an unfathomable sum."
The company’s board subsequently put the package for a shareholder vote for the second time, the results of which were announced at the company’s annual shareholder meeting earlier this month. The proposal was passed after it received 72% of all votes cast, only marginally lower than the 73% it received in 2018.
While the shareholder vote does not by itself reinstate the package, it provides Musk leverage in the ongoing legal battle. Last week, Bloomberg reported that lawyers for Musk are now seeking to delay a hearing scheduled for July 8 on the award of billions of dollars in fees to the lawyers who challenged his pay package in light of the recent shareholder vote.
Tesla attornies reportedly said in a filing that the shareholder vote to re-approve the CEO's package “impacts significantly what remains to be decided in this litigation.”
Why It Matters: SpaceX, meanwhile, is privately held, making its financials harder to access. Bloomberg on Thursday reported, citing courses, that the company is planning to sell insider shares at $112 each, increasing the company's value to approximately $210 billion. SpaceX obtained a valuation of $180 billion through a tender offer in December.
Back in 2012, Musk said that SpaceX would go public at some point as he believed it should ultimately be owned primarily by the public. However, years later, in Sept. 2020, Musk that SpaceX would probably IPO just Starlink when its revenue growth is ‘smooth and predictable.'
“Public market does *not* like erratic cash flow haha,” Musk then wrote while adding that retail investors will get top priority in the eventuality of an IPO.
Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet division, achieved a breakeven cash flow in November 2023.
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