Elon Musk’s SpaceX has said it wants to save humanity from the “same fate as the dinosaurs” as it starts a record-breaking $1.75tn (£1.3tn) initial public offering (IPO).

In a prospectus filed with US financial regulators, SpaceX stated its goal was to help mankind spread to other planets to avoid the “non-zero probability of extinction-level events” that could wipe out life on Earth.

“By moving beyond the only home we have ever known, we ensure species-level redundancy and that the light of consciousness will not be tied to a single planet,” SpaceX said. “We do not want humans to have the same fate as dinosaurs.”

The document discloses that SpaceX has tied Mr Musk’s long-term pay deal at the company, which is worth more than $1tn, to raising the company’s valuation to $7.5tn and establishing a “permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants”.

The filing includes a footnote that offers a definition to investors of a Kardashev Type II civilisation – a concept from astrophysics – which it calls “a civilisation that harnesses the full energy output of its local star, like our Sun, to power unprecedented growth”.

US companies have set outlandish goals when launching public listings in the past. The office space rental business, the We Company, declared its ambition to “elevate the world’s consciousness” before its botched attempt at a public float in 2019.

Yet SpaceX’s ambitions stand apart. The company noted that it believed its overall “market opportunity” could generate total theoretical revenues of up to $28.5tn, with sales dominated by its AI tools, including Grok. That figure would be nearly equal to the whole of UGDP of $32tn.

The space business, which includes xAI and the X social network, adds that this figure excludes its overarching ambition to explore the solar system, which could unlock yet more markets with “multi-trillion-dollar economic opportunities”.

These include the potential for “long-haul point-to-point terrestrial travel, space tourism, in-orbit manufacturing, asteroid mining, energy production and manufacturing on the Moon and Mars, and passenger and cargo transportation to the Moon and Mars”.

Read More: Musk: SpaceX will save mankind from extinction