Elon Musk reportedly hopes that astrology will ensure the success of SpaceX\u2019s planned initial public offering in June, when, unusually, Jupiter and Venus will align \u2013 supposedly unleashing a potent mixture of love, wealth and expansion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The signs are that this will be a record-breaking IPO. Musk hopes to raise an unprecedented $50bn by selling shares to the public, dwarfing the \ufeffrecord $29bn that Saudi Aramco pocketed \ufefffrom its IPO in 2019. The oil giant was valued at a record-breaking $1.7tn; SpaceX is \ufeffforecast to be worth \ufeff$1.5tn, though there is still time for its valuation to rocket into first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A successful flotation will also break venture capital records. Peter Thiel\u2019s Founders Fund invested early in SpaceX, taking a $20m stake in 2008\ufeff as the company\u2019s first institutional backer. Subsequent investments have taken its total backing \ufeffto $671m \u2013 a stake valued in the middle of last year at \ufeffmore than $18bn, when SpaceX\u2019s total valuation was estimated at $400bn. It could be worth four times that in the IPO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Such a huge gain could make\ufeff Founders Fund, which also backed companies including Facebook, Palantir, Airbnb, Spotify and Stripe, the best-performing \ufeffcapital venture firm ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Musk deserves much credit for building SpaceX from a personal vision, when no other entrepreneur was serious about the space business. It almost didn\u2019t survive, avoiding bankruptcy more than once only \ufeffafter Musk had gambled everything he had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This gets less fanfare in Silicon Valley, but is also a great example of how the private sector can help the government get \ufeffmore bang for taxpayer bucks. If only Musk had tried to replicate this during his disastrous \ufefftime wielding the axe on federal jobs and spending while running America\u2019s department of government efficiency (Doge).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Elon Musk reportedly hopes that astrology will ensure the success of SpaceX\u2019s planned initial public offering in June, when, unusually, Jupiter and Venus will align…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,16,4,161,36,281],"tags":[437,357,328,153],"class_list":["post-3765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-finance","category-international","category-science","category-technology","category-travel","tag-elon","tag-elon-musk","tag-space","tag-spacex"],"yoast_head":"\n