Space Exploration Technologies Corp.

In 2001, Elon Musk flew to Moscow to buy refurbished ICBMs to send a greenhouse to Mars — a publicity stunt to reignite public interest in space. The Russians refused to sell. On the flight home, Musk opened a spreadsheet and began calculating the cost of building rockets from scratch. He concluded it was cheaper than buying them. SpaceX was incorporated on May 6, 2002 with $100 million of Musk's own money from the PayPal acquisition.

SpaceX's first rocket, Falcon 1, exploded 33 seconds after launch on March 24, 2006. The second launch in 2007 also failed. The third launch in August 2008 failed as well — this time destroying three satellites and a memorial payload containing the ashes of James Doohan, who played Scotty in Star Trek. Musk had now spent nearly his entire fortune. Tesla was also on the verge of bankruptcy. He reportedly borrowed money from friends to pay rent.

By September 2008, SpaceX had enough money for exactly one more launch attempt. If it failed, the company was finished. The fourth Falcon 1 launch on September 28, 2008 was successful — the first privately developed liquid-fuelled rocket to reach orbit. Musk broke down in tears at the launch site. Six weeks later, SpaceX won a $1.6 billion NASA contract to resupply the International Space Station.

On December 21, 2015, SpaceX landed the first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket vertically back at the launch site — something that had never been done before. The achievement cut launch costs dramatically by making rockets reusable. Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin had landed a smaller rocket three weeks earlier, prompting a brief public dispute between Musk and Bezos over who had achieved the milestone first.

SpaceX went public in June 2026 at a valuation exceeding $1.75 trillion — making it one of the most valuable companies ever to list on a public exchange. Starlink, the satellite internet division, had grown to over 4 million subscribers across 100 countries. The IPO was the most anticipated market event since Facebook's listing in 2012. On its first day of trading, the stock rose over 19%.