Will SpaceX's IPO fund life on Mars — and a trillionaire?

Elon Musk has a habit of turning science fiction into reality. From reusable rockets to autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots, the billionaire's ventures often achieve what was once thought impossible. With SpaceX's initial public offering (IPO), he's aiming for even bigger milestones.

The company, which has stayed fiercely private for 24 years, is now preparing to go public. In an S1 filing to US regulators on Wednesday, which runs to hundreds of pages, SpaceX plans to raise roughly $75 billion (€64.5 billion) from new investors, which would value the company at up to $1.75 trillion. Not bad for a firm that is still loss-making and which Musk — already the world's richest man — will effectively still control. Musk wants SpaceX to do more than send astronauts into space . He plans to build the infrastructure to secure the future of human life beyond Earth . The ultimate goal, Musk has said, is to create self-sustaining cities on Mars that could be home to up to a million people. To achieve that, SpaceX plans to use Starship — its giant reusable spacecraft — to make the first uncrewed voyages by 2030. The one-way journey to the Red Planet covers about 140 million miles on average and takes six to nine months. The initial missions will test landing systems and begin setting up basic infrastructure, with crewed voyages to follow a few years later. SpaceX also wants to use resources on celestial bodies much closer to Earth to support humanity's multi-planetary expansion. Musk believes that asteroids, which fly through space on shifting orbits, could one day be mined. The near-zero gravity on asteroids makes it far easier and cheaper to land on them and extract materials.

Key points

• The company, which has stayed fiercely private for 24 years, is now preparing to go public.
• In an S1 filing to US regulators on Wednesday, which runs to hundreds of pages, SpaceX plans to raise roughly $75 billion (€64.5 billion) from new investors, which would value the company at up to…
• Not bad for a firm that is still loss-making and which Musk — already the world's richest man — will effectively still control.
• Musk wants SpaceX to do more than send astronauts into space .
• He plans to build the infrastructure to secure the future of human life beyond Earth .