What does it mean when a company “goes public”?
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A private company has a maximum number of people who can own shares in it. These shares can’t be sold on the general market because that would quickly expand the number of shareholders. If the company needs money, it has to find big investors.
So, for example, SpaceX (privately held) wanted to let a lot of early employees cash out on their stock they got in compensation. So they did a round of funding, one current big investment company bought a bunch of shares, and that cash was used to pay out those employees. Essentially, that investment company bought their shares.
This is obviously a bit complicated and it relies on finding investment companies to invest. So the company goes public, shares are listed on the stock market to be bought and sold by anyone. Existing shareholders have their shares converted to the public stock, and usually many more shares are issued so people can by the newly public stock.
All this mass selling of stock brings a lot of money into the company, which can then be used to expand the company. And now things like stock options for employees are a lot easier to manage.
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