By
Steve Muchoki
April 19th, 2024
The funding comes at a time when SpaceX focuses on building out its Starlink satellite constellation to offer broadband internet commercially by the end of 2020.
Elon Musk‘s aerospace company SpaceX has released SEC filing according to which it raised $1.9 billion in a new funding round. The biggest fundraising SpaceX has ever had brings its valuation to $46 billion. Speaking of the participants, the largest contribution to the funding was made by brokerage giant Fidelity Investments.
Bloomberg was the first to cover the news last week. According to its information, SpaceX expanded the funding round due to the strong demand that has grown after the launch of astronauts to the International Space Station.
The funding comes at a time when SpaceX focuses on building out its Starlink satellite constellation to offer broadband internet commercially by the end of 2020. On Tuesday, SpaceX launched its eleventh batch of 58 additional Starlink satellites. Now it operates over 600 satellites in low-Earth orbit. This project is prosperous, as nearly 700,000 potential customers in the US alone have shown interest in the satellites. Currently, the company is seeking FCC approval to increase its number of satellites to 5 million.
This year, SpaceX has often been on the news. The most notable one was about the successful launch of its Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station. Since 2011, it is the first time the US astronauts launched on an American rocket from the US soil to the ISS. Besides, the docking of SpaceX Crew Dragon Capsule marked a milestone for reusable rockets the company pioneered to make spaceflight less costly and more frequent.
Morgan Stanley analysts said:
“Led by a string of remarkable feats by SpaceX, we are fielding a pace of incoming investor interest in the space economy on a level that may even exceed the autonomous car frenzy of 2016/2017.”
According to the firm, the “global space economy” will be worth at least $1.1 trillion by 2040.
Elon Musk’s Fortune Growth
SpaceX fundraising not only raises the company’s valuation but also widens Elon Musk’s fortune. Recently, Musk became the world’s fourth-richest person with the estimated fortune of $84.8 billion, following an incredible surge of Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) stock. This year, Musk’s fortune has already grown by $57.2 billion. And this increase has no signs of any slowing. With almost $2 billion raised in the funding round of SpaceX, Elon Musk’s net worth will be much higher than $84 billion he already has.
Having become the fourth-richest person in the world, Musk is remaining behind Facebook’s (NASDAQ: FB) Mark Zuckerberg ($99 billion), Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Bill Gates ($121 billion), and Amazon’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) Jeff Bezos ($188 billion).