Bloomberg: SpaceX Starship Development Spending Tops $15 Billion — $3B in 2025 Alone

Bloomberg published a major investigation on May 1, 2026, revealing that SpaceX's total spending on Starship development has exceeded $15 billion — more than 37 times the ~$400 million spent developing Falcon 9. The report details that SpaceX invested approximately $3 billion in Starship R&D in 2025 alone and $1.8 billion in 2024, reflecting the accelerating pace of flight testing and hardware iteration as the company prepares for IFT-12. The spending figure underscores the scale of SpaceX's ambition to achieve airline-like rocket operations: Starship (Block 3 / V3) is designed for rapid full reusability with a target marginal cost per launch of under $10 million once the vehicle reaches operational cadence. Bloomberg notes that despite the massive investment, Starship has generated zero revenue to date — all costs are internally funded from Starlink and launch revenue. SpaceX's IPO prospectus, expected around May 15-22, is anticipated to disclose detailed Starship financial data for the first time, potentially revealing burn rates that could give investors pause at a $1.75 trillion target valuation.