SpaceX has made history by completing the largest initial public offering ever, propelling the company into the ranks of the world’s biggest listed firms and bringing founder Elon Musk close to becoming the world’s first trillionaire.
The company raised US$75 billion through its IPO by pricing 555.6 million shares at US$135 each, according to a statement released on Thursday. The listing surpassed Saudi Aramco’s US$29.4 billion IPO in 2019 by more than double.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp, the company’s official name, also granted underwriting banks an over-allotment option to purchase an additional 83.3 million shares at the IPO price. If fully exercised, the total offering would increase to about US$86 billion.
Demand for the IPO exceeded four times the number of available shares, according to Bloomberg News.
Record valuation and overwhelming demand
Based on the IPO price, SpaceX is valued at US$1.77 trillion. Including employee stock options and restricted share units, its fully diluted valuation reaches approximately US$1.8 trillion. The company is scheduled to begin trading on Nasdaq and Nasdaq Texas under the ticker symbol SPCX.
Retail investors, many of whom are loyal followers of Musk, played a major role in the offering. People familiar with the matter said they submitted more than US$100 billion in orders despite only 20% of the shares being reserved for them.
Not all market participants share the optimism. Veteran short-seller James Chanos described the listing as “a hopes-and-dreams IPO”, arguing that investor enthusiasm for Musk and artificial intelligence outweighed the company’s financial fundamentals, noting that it has yet to record a profit.
Nevertheless, anticipated rule changes that could accelerate the company’s inclusion in benchmark indices such as the Nasdaq-100, together with demand from passive funds and investors unable to secure IPO allocations, are expected to provide continued buying interest once trading begins.
Kim Forrest, chief investment officer of Bokeh Capital Partners, described the offering as one driven by optimism, saying investors wanted to be part of the future despite market swings between greed and fear.
AI enthusiasm fuels investor interest
SpaceX is the first of three major IPOs expected to benefit from investors’ strong appetite for leading artificial intelligence companies. Despite higher inflation and economic disruption linked to the war in Iran, benchmark US stock indices have continued reaching record levels this year.
Anthropic PBC and OpenAI are also expected to pursue public listings as early as this year and could each target valuations exceeding US$1 trillion. As a result, SpaceX’s market performance is likely to be closely monitored by both venture capital investors and public market participants.
Anthony Saglimbene, chief market strategist at Ameriprise, said the significant capital being raised by these companies reflects continued strong demand for AI despite recent market volatility.
SpaceX’s valuation has climbed rapidly in less than a year. Its acquisition of Musk’s xAI in February lifted the combined private valuation to US$1.25 trillion and placed the original SpaceX business at US$1 trillion, following an insider share sale valued at roughly US$800 billion in December.
At the IPO price, SpaceX joins the world’s 10 largest publicly traded companies by market value and is valued above Tesla.
The company’s transformation has expanded beyond rocket launches and satellite broadband into ambitions of becoming a major AI infrastructure provider. Agreements to provide computing infrastructure to Anthropic and Alphabet’s Google for as much as US$2.17 billion per month are expected to become its largest revenue source.
Musk approaches trillionaire milestone
Musk has promoted a long-term vision that includes data centres in space and robot factories on the moon, benefiting from heightened investor enthusiasm surrounding AI-related investments.
However, much of SpaceX’s strategy to capture what it estimates as a US$26.5 trillion AI market depends on technologies that either remain undeveloped or have yet to be deployed on a large scale. The company also faces competition from Anthropic and OpenAI, whose chatbots have achieved broader adoption than xAI’s Grok.
Chanos argued that ambitious concepts such as colonies on Mars, lunar factories and space-based data centres can be used to justify almost any valuation.
Even so, many observers acknowledge Musk’s track record in building Tesla and SpaceX into major companies while generating substantial returns for investors.
According to calculations by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk’s net worth is expected to increase by about US$275 billion to approximately US$970 billion following the IPO pricing, placing him just below trillionaire status. His holdings in SpaceX, including options, are valued at US$688 billion based on the IPO price.
Further gains could follow if he satisfies performance-based conditions tied to awards of up to 1.3 billion additional Class B shares. Those targets include achieving a market capitalisation of US$7.5 trillion, completing non-Earth-based data centres capable of delivering 100 terawatts of computing power annually, and establishing a permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants.
Musk will not be permitted to sell shares until one year after trading begins. Excluding any over-allotment exercise, he retains control of 84% of the company’s voting power, giving him effective authority over board appointments and his own position as chief executive officer.
The IPO is also expected to generate significant paper gains for a broad range of investors, including venture capital firms, special purpose vehicle investors and members of the Trump administration.
Led by board member Antonio Gracias, Valor Equity Partners becomes the second-largest shareholder after Musk, holding 6.7% of the Class A shares following the listing, assuming the over-allotment option is not exercised. SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell and chief financial officer Bret Johnsen also own millions of shares and stock options.
The listing further strengthens the paper wealth of private funds and current and former employees. Bloomberg News previously reported that more than 1,000 individuals had negotiated collectively with wealth management firms to obtain improved pricing and access to tax-efficient financial products ahead of the IPO.
Goldman Sachs Group, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase are leading the offering, with another 18 banks participating.
