Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk is in for a ride. The valuation of his space exploration company has reportedly skyrocketed to over $100 billion (Rs. 75,30,000 crores) following a secondary-share sale last week. SpaceX investors sold up to $755 million (Rs. 5,685 crores) in privately held stock at the price of $560 (Rs. 42,171) a share, CNBC reported. It meant the company did not have to raise capital as only existing shares were sold. The latest valuation of SpaceX shares at $560 apiece is a 33 percent rise in February, when SpaceX sold each share at $410.99 (Rs. 30,950). February from a fundraising round gave the company a valuation of $74 billion (Rs. 55.72 lakh crores).
With the jump, SpaceX is now the world’s second most valuable private company, trailing only TikTok parent Bytedance, which is worth $140 billion (Rs. 105,00,000 crores), according to CB Insights.
“SpaceX has an agreement with new and existing investors to sell up to $755 million in stock from insiders at $560 a share, according to multiple people familiar with the deal — increasing the company’s valuation to $100.3 billion,” the CNBC report said.
Founded in 2002, the California-based company launches satellites into orbit and transports astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Recently, it sent an all-civilian spacecraft into orbit and after spending three days in zero-gravity, the crew returned safely to Earth.
The company is undertaking two other notable projects – launching Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit to provide high-speed Internet connectivity to even the remotest areas of the planet, and the Starship rocket, which aims to land humans on the lunar surface, Mars, and beyond. Launched in 2019, the Starlink project has begun beta testing with 100,000 users. As of August, the stacking of the Starship rocket has been completed.
The jump in SpaceX’s valuation has come as another feather in the cap of Elon Musk, whose electric vehicle-making company, Tesla, has had a very successful run during the past year. All these ventures that have taken off have made Musk one of the richest people in the world. Musk recently tweeted that he wants to venture into the aviation industry by building electric supersonic jets, but added that any more workload may cause his brain to explode.