Looks like SpaceX is going public this year at an astronomical valuation.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech. I'm Megan McCarty Carino.

Elon Musk's rocket company SpaceX reportedly took a first step towards a highly anticipated initial public offering this week.

We're digging into it on today's Marketplace Techbytes week in review.

Plus, big tech operations in the Middle East from companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft could be targeted by Iran. And California Governor Gavin Newsom issued a new AI executive order

with a not-so-thinly veiled message to the Trump administration. But first, back to that SpaceX IPO.

The company made a confidential filing with the Securities

and Exchange Commission that potentially puts it on track to go public at a more than $2 trillion

valuation in June. We spoke with Peresht of A, senior writer at Wired, to learn more.

SpaceX needs money to take on these wild ambitions that Elon Musk has, including

data centers in space, a colony on Mars, trying to get its starship, a rocket, which is

sort of the bigger version that it's been trying to successfully launch and has, you know, not succeeded about a

dozen times. It needs to finally get that. There's a lot of business riding on getting that

into the air successfully. And so, you know, there's a need for cash. The company has generated

significant profits, but now Elon Musk is investing that into his AI company, into building a chip factory.

Those are all expensive ventures.

Right.

So importantly, we should remind folks that SpaceX is not just SpaceX.

This business entity also includes XAI was folded in, which also had folded

in already, the social media platform X. So this is really like a mega, mega IPO.

Certainly. I mean, the bulk of the business is still SpaceX, and it's still serving space

launches for Elon Musk Starlink business,

...