{"id":1223,"date":"2026-06-11T21:13:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T21:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=1223"},"modified":"2026-06-11T21:13:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T21:13:06","slug":"china-follows-musk-very-closely-while-spacex-blocked-chinese-investors-from-ipo-chinas-space-firms-prep-their-own-as-a-counterweight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=1223","title":{"rendered":"\u2018China follows Musk very closely\u2019: While SpaceX blocked Chinese investors from IPO, China\u2019s space firms prep their own as a counterweight"},"content":{"rendered":"
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What\u2019s notable about that anticipation is who is doing that speculation in the first place. As the company made headlines for barring investors from Hong Kong and China from partaking\u2014a rare move for a company trying to maximize liquidity\u2014China\u2019s emerging commercial space firms are similarly preparing IPOs that signal the country is competing with SpaceX and Starlink long-term, according to analysts and company filings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more American taxpayers have spent $33 billion on sports stadiums. They got fewer seats\u2014and higher prices<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always hard to chalk everything up to a single company 8,000 miles from China, but when you look at Starlink\u2019s progress and the milestones they\u2019ve hit, and then you line that up with China\u2019s announcements and decisions around space and satellite Internet, it\u2019s pretty clear,\u201d , the founder of a consulting firm focused on the Chinese space sector, told Fortune<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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When SpaceX launched its record-breaking 94th batch of Starlink satellites in November, the China National Space Administration released an action plan \u201copening national scientific research projects to private enterprises\u201d the same month, according to a May report from Beijing-based research firm Equal Ocean.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first time that the China National Space Administration has incorporated commercial aerospace into the overall national space development layout, committing to opening up resources and channels within the system to private enterprises,\u201d the report emphasized.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Curcio, a Chinese space industry expert, said that this is because \u201cChina follows [Elon] Musk very closely\u201d and that \u201cpeople in China recognize that what SpaceX has done is by any measure pretty damn impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s partly why LandSpace, dubbed China\u2019s version of SpaceX, became the first Chinese space company to pull off a reusable rocket test in December\u2014and the parallels don\u2019t end there. Similarly to SpaceX, LandSpace is expected to IPO on China\u2019s Nasdaq\u2014the Science and Technology Innovation Board\u2014a move seemingly greenlit because of national interest in competing with SpaceX, according to filings in the Shanghai Stock Exchange.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The document recommending LandSpace\u2019s listing by its underwriter China International Capital Corporation notes that while the company is currently unprofitable, it\u2019s also \u201cdirectly addressing major national needs such as low-orbit satellite internet engineering\u201d and is up against the \u201cfirst-mover advantage of SpaceX\u201d and the U.S. leveraging Starlink. LandSpace\u2019s listing mentioned SpaceX 37 times in the context of rivalry, also using the phrase \u201cfirst-mover advantage of SpaceX\u201d in the section about international competition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is understandable that LandSpace cites SpaceX repeatedly in its prospectus, as it views it as a competitor and industry benchmark,\u201d Yiming Qian, a corporate finance professor at the University of Connecticut with knowledge of Chinese IPOs, told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cBenchmarking itself against SpaceX demonstrates its ambition and signals its value and high potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more The head of Claude Code hasn\u2019t \u2018written a line of code by hand\u2019 in 8 months<\/a><\/p>\n

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That potential, however, does leave something to be desired. Qianfan\u2014China\u2019s Starlink rival\u2014just crossed 200 satellites in orbit, well behind its original target of 648 by end of 2025, and each satellite costs over $1.5 million to manufacture compared to roughly $250,000 for SpaceX\u2019s first-generation Starlink satellites.<\/p>\n

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Seemingly also competing with Starlink\u2019s goal of global connectivity is ADA Space (Guoxing Aerospace in Chinese), a tech company that develops AI-powered satellite networks to send image data down more efficiently than traditional satellite technology, which relies on ground stations.<\/p>\n

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\u201cChina has found it difficult to build a global network of ground stations [because] there\u2019s a lot of countries that don\u2019t want to have Chinese ground stations,\u201d Curcio said, explaining reducing reliance on ground-based infrastructure is why there\u2019s interest in processing satellite data in space.<\/p>\n

The term \u201cAI computing satellites\u201d appears over 100 times in ADA Space\u2019s preliminary paperwork for an IPO, filed on May 14 through the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. While it didn\u2019t explicitly mention SpaceX like the LandSpace IPO filing did, ADA Space notes that \u201ca global leading commercial aerospace company has recently announced plans\u201d to deploy \u201cup to one million satellites,\u201d a description lining up with SpaceX\u2019s announcement to regulators that it intends to launch one million space-based satellites.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paul Lau, the head of capital markets at KPMG China, told Fortune <\/em>that the major accounting firm believes \u201cspecialist tech will be the key theme for Hong Kong and Chinese mainland IPO markets\u201d , particularly \u201cAI-related businesses\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cKPMG also expects other emerging specialist tech firms, such as those in the space tech sector, to tap into these markets,\u201d Lau said.<\/p>\n

Read more Ken Griffin\u2019s Citadel companies just hired 350 interns\u2014only 0.36% of over 115,000 young applicants made the cut<\/a><\/p>\n

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China has ramped up its space initiatives to compete with SpaceX\u2019s ascent in the last three years, with some commercial space firms eying similar satellite and rocket launch goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[161],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spacex"],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018China follows Musk very closely\u2019: While SpaceX blocked Chinese investors from IPO, China\u2019s space firms prep their own as a counterweight - Cross Country Moving Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=1223\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018China follows Musk very closely\u2019: While SpaceX blocked Chinese investors from IPO, China\u2019s space firms prep their own as a counterweight - 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