Elon Musk effectively confirmed SpaceX will soon go public while saying he would not participate in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) again — a dual signal of his pivot back to business after a turbulent political chapter.
The remarks came within hours of each other on Tuesday, as Musk endorsed a journalist’s IPO analysis on X and opened up about his government experience in a podcast interview.
SpaceX IPO Confirmed
When space journalist Eric Berger posted his analysis titled “Here’s why I think SpaceX is going public soon,” Musk replied: “As usual, Eric is accurate.” Berger is widely regarded as the most reliable reporter covering SpaceX.
Berger, senior space editor at Ars Technica, is widely regarded as the most reliable reporter covering SpaceX. His analysis, backed by Musk’s endorsement, signals a major shift for a company that has historically stayed private to avoid quarterly earnings pressures while pursuing long-term projects such as Starship development and Mars exploration.
A SpaceX IPO would be one of the most anticipated public offerings in years. SpaceX carries a private market valuation exceeding $200 billion, placing it among the world’s most valuable private companies alongside OpenAI and Stripe. For retail investors, SpaceX has long been the “white whale” — a company everyone wants to own, but few can access.
Private company shares are typically restricted to accredited investors and venture capital funds, leaving ordinary investors on the sidelines. This scarcity has fueled demand for alternative access routes, including tokenization.
In June, Robinhood made headlines by offering tokenized SpaceX shares to European users through its EU crypto app. The platform allocated $500,000 worth of SpaceX tokens as part of a promotional giveaway, alongside $1 million in OpenAI tokens. The tokens trade on Arbitrum, an Ethereum layer-2 network.
“They Wouldn’t Have Been Burning the Cars”
Meanwhile, in a podcast interview released Tuesday with former DOGE spokeswoman Katie Miller — wife of President Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller — Musk was asked if he would do DOGE again.
“No, I don’t think so,” he replied. “I think instead of doing DOGE, I would’ve basically worked on my companies, essentially. And they wouldn’t have been burning the cars.”
The comment referenced vandalism incidents reported at Tesla dealerships and charging stations while Musk was at the helm of DOGE. Working out of a small bureau in the executive office building, Musk led DOGE for several months after Trump returned to office, taking a hatchet to the US federal workforce and agencies.
Musk described his government stint as only “a little bit successful” and “somewhat successful,” a notably modest assessment. “We stopped a lot of funding that really just made no sense, that was entirely wasteful,” he said.
The actual savings from DOGE have been hard to quantify. While the DOGE website currently posts cuts of $214 billion, independent observers insist the figures fall short of actual savings.
Musk broke spectacularly with Trump in June over the White House’s flagship tax and spending bill, which he called “utterly insane and destructive.”
