What the biggest IPO of all time reveals about Elon Musk

• The owner of SpaceX is putting everything into the company. His other projects are subordinated to space travel.

• Although business at SpaceX is going extremely well, the start-up is now facing competition. Jeff Bezos also has big plans.

• The space sector is developing into a key industry worth billions.Wie Anleger davon auch ohne SpaceX profitieren können.

The job of John Cowen Jr. is actually an unenviable one. The mayor governs Brownsville, a small town in the south of Texas that regularly ranks low in the US statistics: A third of the population lives below the poverty line. Unemployment is high and the level of education is low.

But times are changing. Brownsville could become the place where the future is at home. Elon Musk is building his starbase here on the Gulf of America, as the Gulf of Mexico is now known: SpaceX's new spaceport. "Elon is fantastic," says Cowen.

SpaceX has long been the most valuable start-up in the world. SpaceX intends to almost double its current valuation to at least 1.5 trillion dollars when it goes public in June. Back in Marchthe necessary documents could be submitted. Musk wants to raise 50 billion dollars, which would eclipse the largest IPO in economic history to date: the 29 billion dollar IPO of the oil company Saudi Aramco in 2019.

Mayor Cowen sees a golden future for his town: "Elon is planning 1000 rocket launches per year." That would be just under three a day, and the foundations in Brownsville already shake when a spaceship takes off. But the SpaceX boss thinks big, says Cowen. And takes care of his ground staff.

The richest man in the world has donated ten million dollars to spruce up the centre of Brownsville, for example with murals. One of them features Musk himself. "We are working closely together," emphasises the mayor. He has never spoken to Elon, he adds when asked. But once, he was in a room with him - a special moment.

Many people feel the same way as Cowen: Musk inspires, even if you don't know him at all. SpaceX has revolutionised space travel and the Falcon 9 rocket is a miracle of reliability and efficiency. Unlike conventional rockets, it can be used multiple times. The image of a Falcon landing vertically back on earth is already one of the icons of the 21st century. Almost ten million customers worldwide use the internet of SpaceX subsidiary Starlink - and the trend is rising rapidly.

And that is just the beginning, if Musk has his way. SpaceX soon wants to offer satellite-based, global mobile communications, operate data centres in space in a few years' time and build refuelling stations in orbit for the next generation of spaceships. Musk's latest type of rocket, christened Starship and taller than Munich's Frauenkirche, will finally be able to transport people to other celestial bodies.