SpaceX IPO: The Manufacturing Behind the US$87.5bn IPO

Elon Musk’s SpaceX recently overtook Amazon to become the world’s fifth most valuable company, following the company raising a total of US$85.7bn in the world’s largest initial public offering (IPO).

The record breaking IPO knocked the former largest IPO in history, which was Aramco’s US$29.4bn in 2019, off the top spot. 

Behind Elon's record breaking company lies an ecosystem that designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. It also designs, manufactures and operates Starlink, the world’s largest satellite internet constellation.

SpaceX is also moving into semiconductor manufacturing with the Terafab project, which it sees as essential to support its mission: to build the ‘systems and technologies necessary to make life multiplanetary’, to ‘understand the true nature of the universe’ and to ‘extend the light of consciousness to the stars' as the company described it in an SEC filing. 

SpaceX’s rocket and satellite manufacturing

SpaceX currently manufactures rockets like the Falcon 9, the Falcon Heavy and the Starship. 

Its manufacturing locations are split across various sites in the US. In Hawthrone, California, the company designs and manufactures reusable rockets and spacecraft. It tests engines, vehicle structures and systems at a 4,000 acre site in McGregor, Texas. 

Development, manufacturing, testing and launch of SpaceX's Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket, collectively referred to as Starship takes place at SpaceX’s ‘Starbase’ in Texas. 

The company also operates in other locations including the Kennedy Space Centre and Cape Canaveral Space Force in Florida. 

It is a key contractor to the US government. In 2025, approximately one-fifth of its revenue was attributable to agencies within the US federal government, according to Space X’ S1 form, filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC),

In the filing, the company also says it believes it will be the first and only company to manufacture satellites at the scale of automotive manufacturing.

Semiconductor manufacturing and the Terafab

SpaceX has a key role in Elon’s Terafab project, a chip manufacturing initiative with a long-term goal of producing one terawatt of compute hardware each year. It is a joint venture between SpaceX, Tesla, and xAI.

To support his plans to go to space, Elon is working on inhouse manufacturing processes' with Terafab, which is designed to consolidate every stage of chipmaking under one roof. 

In Space X’ S1 form, the company highlighted several key details about its plans for the future, including manufacturing its own Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) to overcome supply bottlenecks.

The company lists “manufacturing our own GPUs” as an item in a section of the report on substantial capital expenditures. The GPU market is currently split between NVIDIA, AMD and Intel. 

Chipmaking to overcome supply bottlenecks

Elon positions his Terafab project, with Intel announced as a key partner, as a key way of overcoming supply constraints in chipmaking. He sees the AI chips it will make essential to scale enough compute for interplanetary, even intergalactic travel.

In the SEC filing the company highlighted how important it positioned controlling the physical AI stack. It says: “We believe that the key constraints in the continued growth of AI are physical, chip manufacturing, data centre infrastructure and power generation; the future of AI will be determined by the control of the physical stack.”

When speaking about his existing supply chain, including Samsung, TSMC and Micron, at the Terafab announcement in Texas, Elon said: “We will buy all of their chips. I have said these exact words to them.”