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SpaceX, going public in massive IPO, was born in Hawthorne

April 2, 2026

SpaceX is going public. According to unnamed insiders, multi-billionaire Elon Musk has confidentially filed to allow public investors to own part of the major corporation. Selling a portion of the company, valued at over $1.75 trillion, would allow Musk to increase costs and public transparency – something that is very important to the City of Hawthorne.

The private aerospace company was formerly headquartered in Hawthorne, but still has a significant presence in the city after its headquarters were moved to Texas. And, Musk choosing Hawthorne for SpaceX has been a major boon for a city that once faced major financial deficits.

SpaceX first came to Hawthorne in 2008, establishing 1-million-square-foot headquarters, and has since become the largest employer in the, accounting for almost 20% of total employment in the city with over 7,000 employees in 2025, according to a City of Hawthorne employment report.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk looks the winning team WARR Hyperloop, as the last of 4 teams of students comprised of over 600 competitors from more than 40 countries around the world compete in Hawthorne, California, to showcase their pods at SpaceXÍs third Hyperloop Pod Competition Sunday. The winning team was WARR Hyperloop, as they hit speeds of 284 mph today.
(Photo by Gene Blevins for the Los Angeles DailyNews/SCNG)

7–22-18. Hawthorne, CA. Team EPFLoop from Switzerland get their pd ready, as the last of 4 teams of students comprised of over 600 competitors from more than 40 countries around the world compete in Hawthorne, California, to showcase their pods at SpaceXÕs third Hyperloop Pod Competition Sunday. The winning team was WARR Hyperloop, as they hit speeds of 284 mph today.
(Photo by Gene Blevins for the Los Angeles DailyNews/SCNG)

7–22-18. Hawthorne, CA. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk talks and looks over the competition as the last of 4 teams of students comprised of over 600 competitors from more than 40 countries around the world compete in Hawthorne, California, to showcase their pods at SpaceXÍs third Hyperloop Pod Competition Sunday. The winning team was WARR Hyperloop, as they hit speeds of 284 mph today.
(Photo by Gene Blevins for the Los Angeles DailyNews/SCNG)

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Even though it has relocated its upper-level administration, the company still manufactures some of its flagship rockets in the facility.

“SpaceX has been an integral part of our community,” Hawthorne Mayor Alex Vargas told the Daily Breeze, “contributing to our local economy and helping to establish Hawthorne as a hub of technological innovation.”

And, Vargas said he hopes SpaceX filing for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) will only increase the benefits to the City of Hawthorne.

“As the home of SpaceX, the City of Hawthorne is very happy for SpaceX, its workers and everyone else who will benefit from this initial IPO, which also includes our city’s residents,” he said in a written statement. “ It is hoped that this endeavor will also add to the existing great partnership that the City has with SpaceX now and for the feasible future.”

SpaceX also attracted numerous other businesses to Hawthorne, with breweries and retail popping up near the facility on Crenshaw Boulevard.

Los Angeles Ale Works, for example, opened in 2017 within eyeshot of the Hawthorne Arts Complex. Two brews — Space XPA and Space XPA Full Thrust — were named in honor of nearby SpaceX headquarters.

And since then, multiple hotels were developed to provide lodging for SpaceX visitors.

From 2016 to 2019, SpaceX also held an incredibly aggressive hyperloop competition for college students around the world.

Musk introduced the Hyperloop concept in a 2013 white paper, in which he described it as an environmentally friendly mass-transit system that could reach supersonic speeds beyond 700 mph. He proposed it as an electric train with the ability to levitate on a pocket of air inside a depressurized tube.

To promote the hyperloop and challenge the next generation of engineers, Musk had a prototype of a hyperloop built in the parking lot at the Hawthorne headquarters and created a competition where young engineers build a pod to travel through the hyperloop. Whichever pod is able to reach the fastest speed wins.

In 2022, however, SpaceX shelved their hyperloop research and promptly removed the prototype from the Hawthorne headquarters.

Most recently, a 2025 protest drew hundreds of people to the SpaceX headquarters, protesting the Department of Government Efficiency, along with decisions taken by the Trump Administration (DOGE).

Protesters waved signs in outrage about the hundreds of thousands of federal employees dismissed due to DOGE.

“I’m here to protest Elon Musk’s takeover of the government,” Nancy Polikoff, 73, from Marina Del Rey told the Daily Breeze. “It’s already affected people I know that have lost their jobs. I also think his entire purpose is self dealing, so he’s going to make sure the agencies that regulate his businesses shut down and he’s going to tamper with government contracts to make sure they all come out in his favor.”

Musk has since left his position in the federal government, distancing himself from President Donald Trump.

Additionally, in July 2024, Musk abruptly announced that the company would be moving its headquarters to Texas with no clear plan as to what would happen to its Hawthorne headquarters at the time.

Musk said his reason to relocate was frustration over a new law in California related to transgender children in public schools.

The decision was in response to Gov. Gavin Newsom signing a new state law, which prohibits school districts from requiring staff to notify parents of their child’s gender identification change.

Before this, in 2019, SpaceX laid off close to 600 employees from its Hawthorne facility. The company had announced in January of 2019 that it would be laying off 10% of its staff nationwide.

“To continue delivering for our customers and to succeed in developing interplanetary spacecraft and a global space-based Internet, SpaceX must become a leaner company,” SpaceX said in a Jan. 2019 statement. “This action is taken only due to the extraordinarily difficult challenges ahead and would not otherwise be necessary.”

This begs the question as to whether selling SpaceX shares is necessary for the company to be profitable. Going public will make SpaceX the biggest company to ever file for an IPO.

A listing for SpaceX would raise as much as $75 billion, Bloomberg News has reported. At that size, it would dwarf the current record holder, Saudi Aramco’s $29 billion debut in 2019.

This will also be the first time in history that the public can invest in aerospace and be a part of any type of rocket launching.

The company submitted its draft IPO registration to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, according to reporting by Bloomberg, asking not to be identified as the information isn’t public. The filing puts it on track for a June listing, which would make the Hawthorne-based SpaceX the first of what could be a trio of mega-IPOs, ahead of OpenAI and Anthropic PBC.

The company is considering a dual-class share structure in the listing that would potentially give insiders such as Musk extra voting power to dominate decision making. The IPO is expected to have a large retail component, with SpaceX potentially allocating as much as 30% of the offering to small investors, a person familiar with the matter has said.

This will also create transparency into which people are making decisions about the aerospace company because any individual or company with a 10% share or more must be public information.

SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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