Elon Musk is going all-in on an unproven technology
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Briefing | Out of this world<br>Elon Musk is going all-in on an unproven technology<br>What lies behind the world’s biggest public offering<br>Share
Photograph: Reuters
May 21st 2026|13 min read
IT IS A launch of a more bureaucratic sort than normal for SpaceX, but still characteristically spectacular. On May 20th, after America’s financial markets had closed, Elon Musk, the rocketry firm’s founder and the world’s richest man, lit the blue touch paper on the biggest initial public offering ever. Documents filed with American regulators pave the way for SpaceX, which has conquered space but is spending a fortune on artificial intelligence (ai), to make its debut on the NASDAQ exchange in June.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline “Out of this world”
From the May 23rd 2026 edition<br>Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents<br>⇒Explore the edition
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