Elon Musk's rocket company SpaceX plans to raise $500 million to help launch its satellite internet service, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

SpaceX will garner the funds from existing shareholders and a new investor, Baillie Gifford & Co, a Scottish money management firm that is also a major shareholder in the Musk-led Tesla Motors.

The new funding round lifts SpaceX's valuation to $30.5 billion, the newspaper reported. SpaceX could announce the deal by the end of the year.

SpaceX in November won authorization from US officials for a total of nearly 12,000 satellites into orbit in order to boost cheap, wireless internet access by the 2020s.

Serial entrepreneur Musk has risen to prominence with a series of ambitious ventures, especially Tesla, which has boosted production of its Model 3 electric car and has continued to enjoy strong demand for the vehicle.

Other Musk ventures include OpenAI, Neuralink and the Boring Company.

But Musk has also drawn plenty of criticism over unconventional and at times erratic behavior.

In an interview broadcast earlier this month, Musk openly mocked the US Securities and Exchange Commission after agreeing to a $20 million fine to settle fraud charges the agency had brought over Musk's quickly aborted effort to take Tesla private.

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk taunts US financial regulatory agency
Washington (AFP) Dec 10, 2018
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, openly derided the US Securities and Exchange Commission in an interview aired Sunday, having settled fraud charges with the regulatory agency over an errant tweet. "I want to be clear. I do not respect the SEC - I do not respect them" he said in an interview on the CBS network news program "60 Minutes." Musk had to resign as Tesla chairman under a September arrangement with the SEC to settle fraud charges stemming from a tweet in which he said he planned to take th ... read more