Good morning. Two quick thoughts about what’s been popping up in our algorithmic feeds lately.
1.) Perhaps the reason the Billie Jean robot video is so captivating is because it’s an uncomfortable metaphor for everyone’s fears about AI. (Or maybe it’s just that we all feel, deep down, like its final pose.)
2.) Boy, it really felt like Jeff Bezos had a lot to get off his chest this week, eh?
Today’s tech news below. —Andrew Nusca
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SpaceX has finally filed its IPO prospectus
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has, at long last, filed its prospectus for what’s expected to be the largest initial public stock offering ever.
In an S-1 filing brimming with glossy color photos of rockets and space, the company disclosed plans Wednesday to list its shares on the Nasdaq under the ticker “SPCX.”
The IPO prospectus provided the first official look at the financials behind the much-hyped rocket maker that’s been around since 2002, as well as at several other businesses that Musk has folded into the company including xAI, the social media platform X, and the Starlink satellite communications business.
Starlink appears to be SpaceX’s primary financial engine, accounting for more than two-thirds of the revenue and earning $1.2 billion in profit in the most recent quarter. SpaceX’s space and AI divisions both lost money during the quarter.
Overall, SpaceX is growing at a steady clip—full year revenue of $18.7 billion in 2025 increased roughly 33% from $14.1 billion in 2024—but its losses are also accelerating. As of March 31, SpaceX has racked up an “accumulated deficit” of $41.3 billion, with a $4.27 billion net loss in Q1 of this year, compared to $528 million in the year ago quarter.
The filing also made clear that Musk—founder, CEO, chief technical officer, and board chair—has complete control of the company, with 85% of the voting power thanks to special Class B shares. He controls the election of all SpaceX directors and is free to engage in businesses that compete directly with rocketmaker.
According to the Wall Street Journal, SpaceX is seeking to raise $80 billion in the IPO, valuing the company at $1.7 trillion. That would be well above the previous IPO record holder, oil giant Saudi Aramco, which raised $26 billion in 2019. —Allie Garfinkle and Alexei Oreskovic
Nvidia tells investors that AI is ready to go mainstream
Another quarter, another blockbuster Nvidia earnings report.
The Silicon Valley chipmaker turned AI revolution leader revealed Q1 revenues of $81.6 billion, up 85% from the same period last year and comfortably above Wall Street’s estimate of $78.9 billion.
Profit, minus a few items, rose to $1.87 a share, above its projection of $1.77. The company also announced an $80 billion share buyback program.
But the most novel aspect of Nvidia’s latest quarterly report was the company’s attempt to address continued investor skepticism that it could maintain its extraordinary momentum amid so much AI chip competition.
Nvidia emphasized its work to diversify its sales and rely less on the hyperscalers that contributed to the company’s $75.2 billion (up 92% from last year!) in quarterly data center revenue.
Instead, Nvidia says it will pursue governments, private enterprises, and “physical AI” applications that it hopes will bring ambitious AI to the masses—and represent a bigger slice of its revenue than today.
Still, life is good: Nvidia is on track to log annual revenues of $370 billion, more than 20 times the size of the almost $17 billion it recorded in fiscal 2021.
Despite the strong quarterly results—not to mention a forecast that also beat analyst expectations—Nvidia shares dropped about 1% in after-hours trading Wednesday. —AN
OpenAI may file for an IPO as soon as Friday
Not content to let Elon Musk’s ventures have all the IPO fun, Sam Altman-led OpenAI is reportedly preparing for an imminent initial public offering.
How soon is now, you ask? According to the Wall Street Journal, a draft IPO prospectus could be confidentially filed with regulators as soon as Friday, with a goal to go public in September.
It remains a treacherous road for the ChatGPT-maker, which was valued in March at $852 billion. Though Altman and company successfully vanquished co-founder Musk in court this week, concerns abound about OpenAI’s ability to fend off IPO-bound rival Anthropic, grow its revenue enough to cover its spending commitments, and course-correct after reportedly missing several internal success metrics.
Still, OpenAI has managed to accomplish quite a bit en route to an IPO. It converted its corporate structure from a nonprofit to a public benefit corporation. It renegotiated its agreement with Microsoft, its largest single corporate investor. It secured enough compute (so far) to fuel its growth ambitions. It even managed to retain its controversial CEO despite his leadership style enduring withering criticism in the courtroom.
It’s gonna be a wild year for tech IPOs. Stay tuned. —AN
More tech
—Anthropic expects to generate $10.9 billion in revenue—plus operating profit!—in Q2.
—Intuit will lay off 17% of its workforce, or about 3,000 employees worldwide.
—Samsung and its labor union reach a preliminary pay deal. The South Korean union suspended its strike and put the deal to a vote.
—Meta: No more companywide layoffs this year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg says.
—Nvidia “largely conceded” the Chinese chip market to Huawei in the wake of U.S.-China trade tensions, CEO Jensen Huang says.
—Ubisoft logs a record operating loss of €1.3 billion for the year and predicts sales will slump by up to 9% through 2027.
—GitHub confirms that roughly 3,800 internal repositories were breached after an employee installed a malicious extension.
