According to a Financial Times report on June 4, Goldman Sachs has outlined a central assumption for SpaceX's IPO: the AI division xAI is projected to increase its revenue by approximately 100 times from 2025 to 2030, a cornerstone for the company's targeted $1.78 trillion valuation. SpaceX has kicked off its IPO roadshow, seeking to raise as much as $86 billion, and the growth story is being pitched heavily to investors.
Revenue Trajectory and Business Line Comparisons
The bank forecasts xAI's revenue to surge from $3.2 billion in 2025 to $322 billion in 2030. On a nearer-term view, the AI unit is expected to grow 388% year-over-year in 2026 to $15.6 billion, and hit $34.5 billion in 2027. For SpaceX as a whole, total revenue is seen climbing from $18.7 billion last year to $474 billion by 2030. These AI-driven numbers stand in stark contrast to the more traditional segments: Goldman estimates Starlink will generate $144 billion in revenues in 2030, while the rocket launch business is projected to contribute only $8.3 billion. This disparity underscores that the IPO valuation is overwhelmingly dependent on AI success.
The IPO prospectus shows xAI posted a $6.4 billion loss in 2025, but its total addressable market is set at an eye-popping $26.5 trillion. That TAM is more than 13 times larger than the combined $2 trillion for Starlink internet services and space operations, highlighting the all-in bet SpaceX is making on artificial intelligence.
Must-Win Technological Battles
For Goldman's projections to become reality, Elon Musk's Grok family of models will need to achieve meaningful breakthroughs in coding, cybersecurity, AI agents, and chatbot capabilities—and somehow leapfrog current frontrunners Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI. The viability of this roadmap is likely to be a dominant theme during the IPO roadshow, as investors weigh whether the company can deliver on a growth trajectory that few in the industry have realized. Meeting these technical milestones is non-negotiable if SpaceX is to justify a valuation larger than most nations' GDP.