SpaceX vs OpenAI: A Spot of IPO Bother

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Now, what with the market feeling rather chipper after a 2025 that wasn’t entirely devoid of initial public offerings, a certain amount of excitement is bubbling amongst the financial chaps. It appears a couple of firms, both brimming with rather ambitious ideas, are considering joining the public fray in 2026. These aren’t your run-of-the-mill widget manufacturers, you understand. We’re talking about SpaceX, the rocket-building blokes, and OpenAI, the purveyors of that most intelligent of digital companions, ChatGPT.

Both, it’s whispered, could potentially be IPOs of positively colossal proportions. The question, then, isn’t if one will be a bit of a winner, but which one will be the absolute, unadulterated champion. Let’s have a bit of a look-see, shall we?

SpaceX

SpaceX, launched back in 2002 by that energetic fellow Elon Musk, has taken it upon itself to build rockets – not just any rockets, mind you, but reusable ones! A dashedly clever idea, really, cutting down on costs and speeding things up. Their ultimate aim, so they say, is to pop off to the moon and beyond. A bit ambitious, perhaps, but one can’t fault the chaps for having a go.

They’ve also been busy flinging satellites into low-Earth orbit – a veritable cloud of them, in fact. The Starlink constellation, as it’s known, is intended to bring high-speed internet to even the most remote corners of the globe. As of mid-December, they had a rather impressive 9,357 of the things circling the planet, with plans for a staggering 42,000 eventually. Rather a lot of satellites, wouldn’t you say?

Mr. Musk has indicated that reports of a 2026 IPO are, shall we say, “accurate.” The rumour mill suggests they might be looking to raise over $30 billion, valuing the company at a princely $1.5 trillion. They recently had a bit of a share sale, valuing them at a still-substantial $800 billion. Revenue projections for 2025 are around $15.5 billion, and Starlink is attracting new users at a rate of 20,000 a day. A healthy clip, that.

OpenAI (ChatGPT)

Now, OpenAI’s ChatGPT is a rather different kettle of fish altogether. It’s a software program, you see, powered by those large language models everyone is talking about. It can converse with people in a remarkably human-like fashion, answering questions with a speed and accuracy that is, frankly, a bit unnerving. It can even create content – images, code, the whole shebang.

It’s been dubbed the fastest-growing consumer application of all time, boasting 800 million active weekly users as of last October. Whether OpenAI will actually go public this year is less certain, but many believe it’s a distinct possibility.

The Wall Street Journal suggests they could raise as much as $100 billion, valuing the company at $830 billion. Some whispers even put the potential valuation as high as $1 trillion. It’s clear that OpenAI needs a substantial influx of capital to achieve its ambitions. Artificial intelligence is a data-hungry beast, requiring vast new infrastructure – data centers, power supplies, the works. They’ve already secured data center capacity worth a staggering $1.4 trillion. Mr. Altman anticipates a $20 billion annualized revenue run rate sometime in 2025. A tidy sum, wouldn’t you agree?

Which IPO to Favor?

Regardless of which company an investor chooses, they’ll be paying a rather hefty premium. However, valuation may be less of a concern with these two, given that investors seem rather unconcerned with such matters when dealing with game-changing technologies and AI companies they believe will usher in a whole new economic era.

My guess is that by the time retail investors can get their hands on shares, the prices will have been driven up by so much hype that they’ll trade at astronomical valuations, well above what’s currently being discussed. A bit of a frolic, really.

Retail investors should keep a close eye on the lock-up provisions in both IPOs, which dictate how long insiders and early investors must hold their shares before selling. I wouldn’t recommend rushing in on the first day of listing. A wiser course of action would be to wait until the lock-up periods expire, allowing insiders to cash in their chips and potentially providing a more realistic valuation.

However, if pressed to choose, I’d lean towards OpenAI at this juncture. Its growth has been nothing short of phenomenal, and it’s only charging $20 a month for its premium version. SpaceX, while admirable, faces significant execution risk, given that its business operates in the rather challenging environment of space. A frontier fraught with difficulties, what?

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2026-01-19 00:33