This week, SpaceX made its stock market debut in what became the largest initial public offering in history, catapulting CEO Elon Musk to the status of the world’s first trillionaire. Despite its space-focused name, the company has increasingly highlighted the promise of its costly artificial intelligence operations. Rivals OpenAI and Anthropic are expected to follow suit with their own public offerings soon. “SpaceX isn’t just absorbing a massive share of the capital available on public markets,” Sean observed. “It’s also pushing the boundaries of what a public company can look like and how much control one individual can wield. I’m watching closely to see how other tech firms handle their IPOs and whether they’ll try to replicate that model.”

Kirsten pointed out that numerous startups are attempting to capitalize on the momentum generated by SpaceX’s public listing. For instance, some are raising funds for orbital data centers after SpaceX helped popularize the concept. “There’s a ripple effect spreading through the market that’s arguably more fascinating than the headline about Musk becoming a trillionaire,” she said. Below is a condensed and edited preview of their discussion.

Anthony Ha: Let’s step back from the SpaceX IPO itself. Beyond the Elon Musk angle, this could mark the start of a wave of IPOs for AI companies. We’ve heard about Anthropic filing confidentially, and now OpenAI has done the same. How excited are you both about this trend?

Kirsten Korosec: I’ll start by saying I love Julie Bort’s piece, which sums things up perfectly. The headline says it all: “It’s not FAANG anymore, it’s MANGOS.” FAANG stood for Facebook (now Meta), Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google (now Alphabet). Now we’ve shifted to Meta, Anthropic, NVIDIA, Google, OpenAI, and SpaceX. These are still massive tech companies, but there’s a clear change. For one, we’ve got a bunch of AI labs in there, which is a big departure. Netflix, a streaming giant, has been booted out. To me, this signals a major shift in where public market capital is flowing—away from consumer social networks and toward AI labs and cutting-edge deep tech like SpaceX. That’s the most intriguing part, aside from the fact that this summer is going to keep reporters incredibly busy.

Sean O’Kane: I once considered becoming a lawyer, but I hated the idea of all the paperwork. Now, I’m actually looking forward to reading hundreds of pages of SEC filings this summer—talk about a beach read. This is a moment we’ve been anticipating for a while. We’ve spent years wondering if the IPO market would reopen after all the drama in private markets. This is a stress test—take that word however you like—for public markets overall. SpaceX isn’t just gobbling up a huge portion of available capital; it’s also testing the limits of corporate control by a single person. I’m curious to see how much other tech companies will try to emulate that. I keep thinking about how SpaceX is blending the most extreme elements of Google and Meta’s early 2000s IPOs with Amazon’s “lose money forever” approach. Will Anthropic and OpenAI follow suit, or will they take a different path?

Anthony: One thing that stood out to me while reading about OpenAI’s IPO is the timing race. SpaceX is clearly first out of the gate, which has both advantages and drawbacks. It’s also a unique company because it’s positioning itself as an AI firm while having many other ventures. But some analysts suggest OpenAI and Anthropic may both want to go public before the other, since there’s only so much capital and interest to go around. At some point, valuations will have to come back down to earth, so they might be scrambling to be first.

Kirsten: There’s definitely a race between Anthropic and OpenAI. You can even see OpenAI slashing prices, and they’ll certainly compete on the IPO calendar. But that’s short-term thinking. If they’re smart, they’ll focus on the long game. What’s really interesting to me is that while these three companies prepare for their public debuts, a host of other startups are raising money on the coattails of SpaceX’s success or through SPACs. Just today—or as we record this—a company called Quantum Space is doing a SPAC, clearly trying to ride the SpaceX wave. Our reporter Tim Ferholz has covered others that aren’t going public but are building businesses based on the potential of space data centers. So there’s a ripple effect across the market that’s probably more compelling than the headline about Musk becoming a trillionaire.

Sean: The common wisdom in Silicon Valley is that AI is reshaping the economy through its applications. But AI is already transforming the economy just by how people are building it. You’ve got companies rushing to public markets, and I wonder if they’ll regret that haste. Even Ford and General Motors are pivoting unused battery capacity to power data centers. Ford’s stock jumped when it announced a modest energy storage business compared to Tesla. Tim De Chant had a great series this week on GM’s pivot too. The economy is being remade right now—whether that’s sustainable is the big question.

Kirsten: That’s a great point. Five, six, seven years ago, there were all these headlines about “the next Tesla killer.” Automakers and others are still chasing the strategies of Elon Musk’s companies. They haven’t learned their lesson. I wish I could tell every automaker CEO: I get that you have unused batteries and want to pivot, but modeling your business after Tesla or SpaceX doesn’t always work. Maybe look elsewhere.

Sean: So Ford shouldn’t get into space data centers?

Kirsten: No, they shouldn’t. But just wait—it’s going to happen.