Feb 3 (Reuters) – Elon Musk’s SpaceX has acquired his artificial intelligence startup xAI in a deal that unifies the billionaire’s AI and space ambitions by combining the rocket-and-satellite company with the maker of the Grok chatbot.
The deal, which reportedly values SpaceX at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion, comes as the rocket company plans a blockbuster initial public offering this year that could take place as soon as June, Reuters has reported.
If xAI raises more than $25.6 billion, it would eclipse the world’s largest IPO to date, which was oil major Saudi Aramco’s listing in 2019.
Analysts expect the potential landmark listing to reinvigorate the IPO market and push more high-profile private startups such as ChatGPT maker OpenAI and rival Anthropic to the public markets, ending a years-long downturn.
Here is an overview of the biggest IPOs globally, ranked by deal size:
Company Offer date Sector Deal size
Saudi Aramco 12/05/19 Energy $25.6 billion
Alibaba 09/18/14 Technology $21.8 billion
SoftBank Corp 12/10/18 Communication $21.3 billion
Services
NTT Mobile 10/22/98 Communication $18.1 billion
Services
Visa 03/18/08 Financials $17.9 billion
AIA 10/21/10 Financials $17.8 billion
ENEL SpA 11/01/99 Utilities $16.5 billion
Meta 05/17/12 Technology $16 billion
General Motors 11/17/10 Consumer $15.8 billion
Discretionary
ICBC – H 10/20/06 Financials $13.96 billion
Source: Renaissance Capital
(Compiled by Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
