SpaceX’s S-1 filing reveals a potential $737 billion pay package for Musk tied to Mars colony milestones. On Wednesday, SpaceX filed its S-1 formal paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission that opens the door to a public market debut.
The filing did not include a share price or valuation estimate; They come later in the IPO process. What it revealed was stranger and more consequential.
5 big revelations from SpaceX’s S-1 filing
The S-1 is a compensation structure that has no precedent in corporate history, making it the most important part of this filing. If the two performance milestones are achieved, Musk will receive approximately $737 billion in equity.
The big prize, about $583 billion, includes one billion shares that vest only if SpaceX reaches a $7.5 trillion market capitalization and establishes a permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants. The shares will be distributed in 15 different tranches.
The second award of approximately 302 million shares, valued at approximately $154 billion, is tied to SpaceX operating orbital data centers providing 100 terawatts of compute annually, as well as a separate $6.6 trillion market cap milestone.
One of the most directly relevant revelations in the filing refers to a significant business deal between two of today’s most influential AI companies.
AI security company Anthropic will pay SpaceX $1.25 billion monthly from May 2026 to May 2029 in exchange for computing capacity. The total contract value is approximately $15 billion.
In the first quarter of 2026, SpaceX’s AI division, including AI’s Grok, spent $7.72 billion. Meanwhile, the space division involved with the Super Heavy Rocket and Starship project spent $1.05 billion in the same quarter.
This continued in 2025, where the AI ​​division spent $12.73 billion compared to $3.83 billion by the space division.
