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Elon Musk’s SpaceX is preparing to enter the stock market, a move that could make it one of the world’s most valuable publicly traded companies.

The private aerospace and satellite company, known for building rockets, space technology, and Starlink internet satellites, filed a confidential registration for an initial public offering (IPO) with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday. This step would allow SpaceX shares to be publicly traded.

Analysts project the company’s valuation could exceed $1 trillion (£751 billion) when it goes public, positioning its market debut among the largest in financial history. Musk’s stake in the company could also place him on track to become the first trillionaire.

The BBC has reached out to SpaceX for comment.

Reports from Bloomberg, Reuters, and the New York Times indicate SpaceX is targeting a public launch in June.

A confidential filing with the SEC permits a company to request regulatory feedback without immediately disclosing financial details to the public. The next stage typically involves “roadshows,” where executives meet institutional investors to encourage share purchases.

By selling stock to the public, SpaceX aims to raise at least $50 billion, according to the reports.

Earlier this year, SpaceX acquired xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence company, through an all-stock merger. Following that deal, SpaceX is believed to have become the world’s most valuable private company, with an internal valuation of $1.25 trillion.

Musk’s businesses have become increasingly interconnected in recent years. Last year, xAI, known for its chatbot Grok, acquired X, the social media platform formerly called Twitter, which Musk bought in 2022.

Investors saw this consolidation as a signal that SpaceX was preparing for a public offering.

“By bringing xAI under SpaceX, Musk could show potential investors that he was consolidating costs and able to easily share resources between his companies,” Emily Zheng, a senior analyst at Pitchbook, told the BBC.

With its expansive goals, SpaceX requires significant funding, which going public can provide, Zheng added. The company faces enormous expenses for “compute, infrastructure, and energy” needed to scale operations.

Earlier this year, Musk’s electric vehicle company, Tesla, revealed it had invested over $2 billion in xAI. Musk has said a large portion of Tesla’s manufacturing will pivot toward building robots that use xAI technologies like Grok, which is already integrated into some Tesla vehicles as an AI assistant.

SpaceX is also expected to collaborate with Tesla and xAI on a massive chipmaking project Musk announced last month, called Terafab.

“Tesla, xAI and SpaceX have all done amazing things that people did not think could be done before,” Musk said during a March presentation on Terafab.

Founded in 2002, SpaceX was created to lower the cost of space launches by building reusable rockets. Its first NASA contract came in 2006.

Today, the company continues to focus on rockets and the operation of Starlink, which provides global internet connectivity. Musk frequently speaks about even more ambitious goals, including space-based AI data centers and a self-sustaining city on Mars—plans many experts consider extremely challenging to achieve.