Google's early investment in SpaceX could turn into a 12-figure sum - Bloomberg

Google owned 6.11% of Elon Musk's space company SpaceX at the end of 2025, according to disclosure documents* the startup filed with the state of Alaska. This was brought to the attention of Bloomberg.

At the $2 trillion valuation that SpaceX expects to exceed in its initial public offering, a stake of that size would be worth $122 billion, the agency calculated. But Google's stake was likely diluted after SpaceX's merger with AI startup xAI in February. So now, according to Bloomberg's calculations, Google owns about 5% of SpaceX, which at an IPO valuation of $2 trillion would correspond to $100 billion.

Google's stake in SpaceX is now worth more than a significant portion of public companies, including some popular players in the technology sector, MarketWatch noted. For example, Seagate, Marvell and Spotify, as well as CrowdStrike, Northrop Grumman and Adobe have a market capitalization of less than $120 billion, the publication cited FactSet data.

Google and Fidelity declined to comment, and SpaceX did not respond to Bloomberg's inquiries.

Google first invested in SpaceX in 2015, joining with Fidelity Investments in a $1 billion funding round that valued Musk's startup at $10 billion. In total, investors in that funding round were entitled to a 10% stake in the company. It is unknown what Fidelity's current stake is, Bloomberg notes. Since 2015, a representative from Alphabet - Google's president of global partnerships and corporate development Donald Harrison - has served on SpaceX's board of directors.

Google has disclosed that it owns a stake in SpaceX before, but its exact size has not been disclosed, according to Bloomberg. Both Musk and Google have reduced their stakes in the company over time due to dilution and secondary stock sales. In 2020, when SpaceX first disclosed its largest shareholders, Google owned 7.64% of the company and Musk owned 47.11%. Founders Fund Venture Fund, which became SpaceX's first institutional investor in 2008, owned 7.77%. The last time Founders Fund reported owning SpaceX securities was in December 2023 - then the stake was 5.76%. It has since fallen below the disclosure threshold of 5%. A representative of the fund declined to comment to Bloomberg.

Although, aside from Google and Musk's stakes, no other ownership details were disclosed in the document, PitchBook senior research analyst Franco Granda believes SpaceX's IPO will make huge money for many of the startup's investors and employees who have long remained loyal to the company. The risk is that their new fortunes could lead to attrition if they have the opportunity to lock in profits or want to start their own businesses, he said.

"One of the big questions for me here is what happens to middle management, even though SpaceX is a very compact company, as well as some of the senior management, who after the IPO will no longer need to do anything to support themselves," Granda told Bloomberg. - The venture capital market has an opportunity to capitalize on that."

*To access the data, click on Corporations in the link search, enter SPACE EXPLORATION TECHNOLOGIES CORP in the Entity Name line, click on Search and then click on 10143028.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor