Elon Musk told JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon on Thursday that Earth can support only a fraction of the artificial intelligence computing power that could be built on the Moon, proposing to fire AI data centres into deep space using an electromagnetic railgun as SpaceX prepares to list on Friday in what is anticipated to be the world's largest IPO, targeting a valuation of $1.75 trillion.
Earth vs Moon: the AI computing gap Musk is pitching to Wall Street
Musk's central argument to a room of 350 investors at JPMorgan's Manhattan headquarters was stark in its scale. Terrestrial constraints on energy and infrastructure place a hard ceiling on how much AI computing power can realistically be built on Earth, he said, and the Moon removes those constraints entirely.
"I think we can do probably somewhere around 1 terawatt per year of AI space compute from Earth, but we can do 1,000 terawatts or more from the Moon," Musk said.
He described lunar conditions as structurally advantageous for large-scale AI infrastructure, pointing specifically to the Moon's lower gravity and the absence of an atmosphere.
"Because the Moon has no atmosphere and about one-sixth Earth's gravity, you can use an electromagnetic accelerator," Musk said. "You don't need to use rockets to do AI data centers into deep space from the Moon. You can literally just shoot them like a railgun type of thing."
SpaceX IPO: $75 billion raise, $1.75 trillion valuation, listing today
The remarks were made during a SpaceX investor pitch hosted by JPMorgan at its Manhattan headquarters on Thursday evening, streamed live on Musk's social media platform X. The event is part of a broader Wall Street campaign to build demand ahead of the SpaceX listing, which is expected to price on Friday, 12 June.
SpaceX is targeting a raise of $75 billion at a valuation of $1.75 trillion, in what is widely anticipated to be the largest IPO in history. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are leading a syndicate of 23 banks on the deal.
"The TLDR… we're embarking on a massive new growth phase, and we need capital for that," Musk told Dimon.
He noted that SpaceX has been cash-flow positive since approximately 2014 or 2015, and that earlier private funding rounds served primarily to provide liquidity for employees and investors rather than to raise fresh operating capital. The IPO, he said, reflects a shift into a far more capital-intensive phase of the company's development.
Space AI data centres, he argued, represent “the primary means by which AI can be expanded.”
"It's increasingly difficult to build power plants on the ground. There are very few people who want a power plant in their backyard," Musk said.
Moon before Mars: Musk's sequenced vision for space infrastructure
Beyond AI computing, Musk outlined a broader expansion roadmap with the Moon as the first staging post.
"We can build a self-growing city on the Moon faster than we could do so on Mars," he said, describing the lunar surface as a base where manufacturing and infrastructure could be developed before human activity extends further into the solar system.
On Mars, Musk was characteristically expansive, suggesting the planet could eventually be terraformed.
"If you warm up Mars, you could one day make Mars like Earth, meaning with liquid oceans and life and where you could walk outside without a spacesuit type of thing," he said.
He added: "I call Mars a fixer-upper of a planet, but it's got a lot of potential."
Starlink expansion and 100,000 new satellites
The IPO proceeds will also fund an expansion of Starlink, SpaceX's satellite internet service and currently its most profitable business line, including the launch of 100,000 new satellites, Musk said.
Jamie Dimon calls Musk 'the Edison of our time'
Dimon opened the JPMorgan event by describing Musk as "the [Thomas] Edison of our time," while acknowledging the investor roadshow format was "new for us." The talk was broadcast to 90 JPMorgan branch locations. Among those in the room was Musk's mother, Maye, who offered words of support.
"Elon, very brave," Dimon added. “I would never let my mother speak publicly when I was in the room.”
JPMorgan brought in a rocket sculpture by artist Dustin Yellin for the occasion, alongside space rocks and meteorite fragments from Yellin's private collection.
Wall Street's SpaceX moment
The JPMorgan event followed a fireside conversation between SpaceX chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell and Bank of America on Thursday, during which thousands of investors across BofA's wealth management division and private bank were reached through a livestreamed broadcast to launch parties across the country. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are co-leading the deal, with 21 other major lenders participating.
