The race toward public markets among the world's most valuable private technology companies is accelerating, with SpaceX and OpenAI leading the charge and defense-tech firm Anduril emerging as the next IPO giant. SpaceX is expected to pursue a valuation of roughly $1.5 trillion to $1.75 trillion when it lists next month under ticker 'SPCX,' while OpenAI, last privately valued at $852 billion, is widely anticipated to file for its own blockbuster listing at a trillion-dollar-plus valuation. The two companies have drawn intense comparisons, especially after Elon Musk's recent courtroom defeat in his challenge to OpenAI’s restructuring.
SpaceX’s competitive moat stands out. Analysts point to SpaceX’s uniquely defensible business, primarily driven by its Starlink satellite broadband unit. Starlink generated operating margins around 39% in 2025, backed by vertically integrated launch infrastructure and a constellation of roughly 9,600 satellites—nearly 15 times larger than the next-biggest operator. The company has captured more than 80% of the world’s mass to orbit since 2023, leading Roth Capital analyst Rohit Kulkarni to describe its launch-market position as 'monopolistic.' With $18.7 billion in revenue last year, SpaceX’s valuation rests heavily on the success of Starlink, even as its rocket division swung to a loss due to Starship development costs.
OpenAI faces intensifying rivalry. In contrast, OpenAI enters public markets amid growing competition from Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude. While ChatGPT remains popular, analysts note that OpenAI lacks the same market grip. The enormous expense of training and running advanced AI models is expected to consume most of its revenues for years, even as rivals fund AI from profitable advertising and cloud businesses. OpenAI generated about $13.1 billion in revenue in 2025, significantly less than SpaceX, and remains far from the average $260 billion annual revenue of current trillion-dollar S&P 500 companies.
Anduril: the next IPO to watch. Once SpaceX and OpenAI complete their listings, attention will shift to Anthropic—which hit a $900 billion valuation—and then to Anduril, a defense-focused AI company. Anduril’s revenue doubled last year to $2.2 billion, and it recently raised $5 billion at over a $61 billion valuation, more than doubling its value from a year ago. It has already won major contracts, such as a $20 billion counter-drone deal with the U.S. Army, and partners with Palantir on Lattice AI. Although Anduril has not announced IPO plans, its rapid growth and ties to surging defense spending position it strongly for a major public debut down the line.
Despite the hype, historical data urges caution. A Reuters analysis of the 50 largest IPOs over the past five years shows that investors would have earned higher returns buying an S&P 500 index fund three-quarters of the time. With SpaceX potentially trading at a price-to-sales ratio near 100, experts like Jay Ritter warn that richly valued listings often struggle. Wall Street remains split between excitement over AI’s potential and unease that these lofty valuations already price in faultless execution.
