SpaceX, which has contracts with NASA and other federal agencies, had long been something of a financial mystery. Last month, the company revealed a full picture of its finances for the first time in an I.P.O. prospectus. The company reported that it had lost more than $4.9 billion last year, compared with a $791 million profit in 2024, because of increased expenditures on A.I. Revenue was $18.7 billion last year, up 33 percent from the previous year.
Those figures have spooked some potential investors, causing skeptics to say that SpaceX is overvalued at more than $1.7 trillion. They noted that Mr. Musk has a history of overpromising and questioned whether SpaceX’s goals of launching A.I. data centers into orbit or establishing factories on the moon are feasible.
“It really does feel very much a ‘don’t look at the man behind the curtain’ situation,” said Jim Chanos, the founder of the investment firm Chanos and Company, who predicted the 2001 collapse of Enron, the energy company that was found to have engaged in accounting fraud.
This week, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission asking the agency if it had reviewed SpaceX’s claims about its business before its I.P.O., while also raising questions about the provenance of some of its financial projections.
“This is shaping up to be the most rigged I.P.O. in American history,” she said in an interview.
But others said they were excited by SpaceX’s offering, seeing it as a new chance to bet on Mr. Musk, who has a record of disrupting industries. On X, some of the tech mogul’s fans recently reposted a quote that was first attributed to his fellow billionaire Peter Thiel: “Never bet against Elon.”
SpaceX’s underwriters, which include Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, have the option of purchasing an additional 83 million I.P.O. shares from the company to sell to investors. If the underwriters exercise that option, the company would raise more than $86 billion in the offering.
Mike Isaac and Kirsten Grind contributed reporting from San Francisco.
