 "Superstition of a trillionaire? Elon Musk eyes to time SpaceX IPO to planetary alignment, birthday")
Billionaire Elon Musk keeping up a superstition has proposed a timing SpaceX’s IPO to coincide it with a rare planetary alignment and his own birthday, as he considers it as an auspicious date for the largest listing in history.
He is targeting mid-June for the IPO when Jupiter and Venus will appear very close together, known as a conjunction for the first time in three years, said five people familiar with the matter.
SpaceX is exploring a plan to raise up to $50bn at a valuation of about $1.5tn, according to people familiar with the matter. If it goes ahead, the offering would be the biggest IPO ever, dwarfing Saudi Aramco’s $29bn listing in 2019. The figures are still preliminary and could change.
FT reported the company was lining up Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley for lead roles on the blockbuster deal.
On June 8 and 9 Jupiter and Venus will be “within a little more than 1 degree of each other in the sky, about the width of a thumb held at arm’s length”, according to non-profit organisation The Planetary Society. A few days later, Mercury will also align diagonally with the two planets.
Another reason to suggest that month is Musk’s birthday, which is on June 28, the people said. Musk already has a history of cracking jokes about business decisions. In 2018, he tweeted about taking Tesla private at $420 a share.
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View AllMusk has a history of cracking jokes about business decisions. In 2018, he tweeted about taking Tesla private at $420 a share. Many interpreted the price as a reference to 4/20, or April 20, a day celebrated by marijuana smokers.
Any IPO would also hinge on market conditions and investor sentiment, which have grown increasingly volatile amid US President Donald Trump’s repeated tariff threats and his efforts to sway the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate decisions, the people said.
Bret Johnsen, chief financial officer, has been holding talks and Zoom calls with existing private investors since mid-December to explore a mid-2026 IPO, the people said.
SpaceX has told investors that it is developing the technology to deploy data centres in space — connected by its network of 9,400 Starlink satellites — which Musk believes is essential if his conglomerate of companies is to be competitive in AI against rivals such as Google and OpenAI.
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