Elon Musk can't hear you over the sound of his $1.75 trillion IPO

Equity

TechCrunch

Entrepreneurship, Business News, News, Business, Technology

4.2 • 372 Ratings

🗓️ 22 May 2026

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The SpaceX S-1 is finally here, and the story it tells goes way further than rockets. The filing runs to 36 pages of risk factors alone, and the numbers inside match the ambition: a $28 trillion total addressable market, a pay package tied to establishing a Mars colony, and a valuation target that would make it the largest IPO in American history. On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into what the filing actually says, what it leaves out, and whether any of this math connects to reality. Listen to the full episode to hear about: Why NanoCo turned down a $20 million buyout to raise a $12 million seed instead Anthropic’s acquisition of SDK startup Stainless, and why taking a tool off the table matters as much as the $300 million price tag What happened when commencement speakers started talking up AI in front of graduating classes, and why the students weren't having it Google’s I/O announcements claiming search as you know it is over, and what the AI makeover could mean for the open web Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Some follow the noise.
0:03.0	Bloomberg follows the money, whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion
0:07.7	dollar swings.
0:09.0	There's a money side to every story.
0:11.4	Get the money side of the story.
0:13.6	Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com.
0:18.2	Hello and welcome back to Equity TechCrunch's flagship podcast about the business of
0:23.6	startups. Today is Friday, May 22nd. I'm Kirsten Koresak, tech editor over at TechCrunch,
0:29.3	and I'm joined, as always, by our weekend editor Anthony Haugh and senior reporter Sean O'Kane.
0:35.3	This week, what was really remarkable is that the Open AI
0:41.1	Elon Musk trial was not the biggest news of the week somehow. Didn't think that was going to happen.
0:47.7	Right. But we should still talk about the news, at least a little bit, the fact that Elon Musk did
0:52.0	lose the trial, although he sort of seems to be trying to declare a moral
0:55.7	victory, partly because he lost on what is arguably, you could call it a technicality, which is
1:01.5	just the statute of limitations, that the jury said his whatever damage he may or may not have
1:06.6	suffered. It happened kind of too long ago and he waited too long to file the lawsuit.
1:11.1	You know, you can do a lot with two hours. You can go see a movie. You can maybe go on an
1:15.6	extended run. You'd get a good nap in. Or you can apparently have your entire jury deliberations
1:21.1	and turn around and come back and say, actually, yeah, this is, we're throwing this out.
1:26.2	Goodbye. You can tell Elon Musk no in two hours, which I find pretty remarkable these days.
1:31.7	As we'll get to it later in the show, it gets harder and harder to say no to this guy.
1:36.1	It is getting harder and harder.
	...

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