Among the world’s 10 most valuable private companies in 2025, Elon Musk’s SpaceX tops the list with a valuation of $350 billion, followed by ByteDance and OpenAI. While public markets in every country are in most of the spotlight, private companies are quietly building huge valuations and setting the course of the industry.
AI companies are on the rise
Artificial intelligence (AI) startups made it into the top 10, with OpenAI in third place ($300 billion), Anthropic in seventh place ($62 billion), and xAI in eighth place ($50 billion), all based in the US. All three companies have developed some of the world’s most powerful AI models in recent years.
US tops the global unicorn count
The United States represents the largest number of private companies (758) in the world, with valuations of $1 billion or more, known as unicorns, according Visual Capitalist to the Hurun Global Unicorn Index 2025.