As Wall Street frets about a global economic slowdown, Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk is making moves to raise cash for his key businesses. It may indicate that the maverick billionaire is concerned about a credit crunch wreaking havoc on trading partners in China, which he knows will likely have a knock-on effect worldwide.

The world’s second most valuable closely-held startup, which currently has a value of about $150 billion, will sell insider shares at $97 apiece in a tender offer. That reflects a price increase from the initial discussions that saw the Hawthorne, California-based company valued at about $100 per share. According to Bloomberg News, the deal could bring the company’s valuation to $180 billion, or close to the level of T-Mobile USA Inc., Nike Inc., and China Mobile.

SpaceX dominates the commercial space launch market with its Falcon rockets and is a vital National Aeronautics and Space Administration supplier. The company also operates Starlink, a fleet of satellites that communicate with terminals on Earth to provide high-speed internet.

Those two businesses alone could give SpaceX a nearly $240 billion valuation if it goes public this year. But the company has another project that could boost its value to $400 billion. That is a plan to launch hundreds of low-orbit satellites that would spread cheap, fast internet around the globe.

SpaceX could rake in revenues of $9 billion this year from its rocket launch and satellite business. Its internet-from-space operations are a popular option for governments in Israel and Ukraine to back up their wartime communications, and they have become a source of friction with Taiwan, which fears Musk’s pro-Beijing comments.

Musk, worth an estimated $44 billion, has five companies that sprawl across transportation, aerospace, health, and telecommunications. Each intersects with the government to varying degrees, giving him unmatched clout worldwide. His electric cars underpin President Joe Biden’s climate agenda, while his Starlink satellites supply a lifeline for Ukrainian forces fighting Russian invaders.

But the government doesn’t seem more inclined to break up the Musk empire than it did Rockefeller a century ago. Instead, US officials have weighed whether to subject his Twitter purchase to review by a secretive interagency panel that can block corporate transactions if they pose national security risks. The US federal securities laws don’t forbid such deals, but they have generally been frowned upon because of concerns about the lack of oversight.