SpaceX IPO draws retail investors, pushes valuation higher, and raises governance and volatility concerns

Will the blockbuster SpaceX IPO trigger a stock market crash or manic bull run?  Yahoo Finance UKMusk's SpaceX overtakes Amazon to become world's fifth most valuable firm  BBCElon Musk, the world's first trillionaire - his stratospheric rise in charts  BBCSpaceX Overtakes Amazon in Value as Post-IPO Rally Reaches 49%  BloombergThe spectacle of SpaceX trumps DCF models  Financial Times

SpaceX stock just popped — should you consider buying it on Monday?  Yahoo Finance UKHow much money did Elon Musk make in SpaceX’s stock market debut?  The GuardianSpaceX makes its Nasdaq debut after the largest public offering in history  Yahoo Finance UKSpaceX IPO Draws More Than $100 Billion in Retail Orders  Bloomberg.comA Guide to the Biggest Winners From the SpaceX IPO  WSJ

SpaceX soared in its Nasdaq debut on Friday, sending its value past $2 trillion, as investors jumped at the chance to get a piece of Elon Musk's sprawling empire spanning rockets, internet service and AI after a record-setting IPO. The launch was smoother than many observers expected, with trading kicking off late on Friday morning, swinging for most of the session between gains of 15% and 30% above Thursday's pricing with little in the way of volatility. Shares ended the day at about $161 a share, up 19%, making SpaceX the sixth-largest U.S. company, though the final settlement price had yet to be determined. The trading, which surpassed 500 million shares, or about $80 billion in volume, capped off a lead-up fraught with anxiety over the exchange's ability to handle the launch, particularly after a recent swoon in technology shares that raised concerns about the stratospheric gains ‌in AI-linked names. With mega-listings from ⁠AI heavyweights Anthropic ⁠and OpenAI waiting in the wings, market watchers worried that a flood of new IPOs could hurt market performance following a long period with a relative dearth of offerings. But investors across the spectrum, from large institutions to retail fans of Musk, ended the day euphoric. "SpaceX is not only a record breaker in terms of money raised at a stock market debut, but it has also left other big names for dust. When the starting valuation is already pushing $2 trillion, adding that much value at the click of a finger is impressive," said Dan Coatsworth, head of markets at AJ Bell. Retail investors received about 20% of the allocation, far more than the typical IPO, with some even celebrating an allocation of one share. The landmark listing cements Musk's status as the first trillionaire ever - even though the firm posted a loss of nearly $5 billion last year and generated only a fraction of the revenue brought in by similarly valued tech giants. SpaceX executives, including President Gwynne Shotwell and Chief Financial Officer Bret ⁠Johnsen, celebrated ‌at the Nasdaq market site in New York's Times Square after ringing the opening bell on Friday. Musk held a separate event for employees in Texas. WORLD'S LARGEST IPO The IPO is a culmination of Musk's long-held ambitions in space and technology, and has stood out for rewriting Wall Street's IPO playbook and drawing legions of retail investors into the ⁠market. At $75 billion, the deal's proceeds were more than double those of Saudi Aramco's record-setting 2019 IPO.Also Read | After record IPO, Musk's SpaceX faces next test in market debut The valuation could rise further should underwriters exercise their right to sell additional shares, a decision typically made within 30 days after the offering. "Seeing the company that I joined when it was just some sketches on paper become this valuable is almost surreal," said Tom Mueller, a founding SpaceX employee who spent 18 years at the company and is now CEO of Impulse Space, a spacecraft startup. As a shareholder, he said it was "almost surreal" to watch SpaceX's IPO. Although SpaceX may have to wait for entry into the S&P 500, its expected fast-track inclusion in the Nasdaq 100 will soon make it a major holding for passive funds and ETFs that track the index, creating a fresh source of demand for its shares. "We have to go back 100 years to get comparable entrepreneurs. He's a visionary unlike others, and he executes extremely well," said Joel Shulman, CEO of ERShares, which manages an ETF that has an exposure to SpaceX. It will take about a month before ‌it gets added to that index under Nasdaq's new fast-entry rules, as opposed to a typical wait of as much as a year. Some analysts expect SpaceX's debut to trigger a reshuffling of investor portfolios, creating selling pressure on other technology heavyweights as funds rotate into the stock. On Friday, shares of other space firms and satellite companies declined sharply, with Planet Labs down 8% and EchoStar down 14%. A $28.5 TRILLION MARKET ⁠OPPORTUNITY For all the excitement surrounding the IPO, determining what SpaceX is actually worth remains a difficult valuation exercise. SpaceX said its market opportunity spans $28.5 trillion, a figure it called the largest in human history. With its leading position in space - the firm says its operation is responsible for more than four-fifths of the mass launched into orbit over the past three years - and revenues from Starlink, some investors said it has a strong foundation upon which to build. With revenue of $18.7 billion in 2025, the company's market cap puts its price-to-revenue ratio at roughly 110, far above other megacap stocks. Some analysts have already issued positive ratings on the company. Morningstar analysts this month said it is more fairly valued at around $780 billion, and CFRA on Friday started coverage with a sell rating. "This is not a name you're buying based on fundamentals. For me, the analogy is Amazon. This was a company that changed the way we live," said Nancy Tengler, CEO and CIO of Laffer Tengler Investments. "If the stock drops to $100, that's not ideal, but it wouldn't change our long-term view. We want to participate."

SpaceX is going public, and its shares could go to the moon. That doesn’t mean that all investors are starstruck, however. That’s because for many investors, SpaceX’s IPO, and its effects on the broader market, may be nearly unavoidable. First, some background: SpaceX’s IPO is expected to be huge, potentially valuing the company at around $1.75 trillion. That would immediately make it one of the most valuable companies in the world, and could help make its founder, Elon Musk, a trillionaire (by some reports, that’s already happened). But despite the hype, the company has a questionable financial track record.  Specifically, it’s not profitable, and last quarter, it reported a loss of $4.9 billion. And the company even says in its SEC filing that profitability “may never occur.” Further, Musk folded his Ai startup xAI into SpaceX, and SpaceX has also been found to be one of Tesla’s biggest enterprise customers—yet another Musk company. All of that has given some investors pause. And those concerns have spilled over into retirement accounts. Why investors are concerned about SpaceX and their 401(k)s Because SpaceX’s IPO has immediately made it one of the largest companies in the world, it’s been fast-tracked into some major market indexes — specifically, the Nasdaq-100 and the Russell 1000. Those indexes also changed or loosened their own rules to grant the stock fast access to their respective indexes.  Some brokerages, too, have lowered thresholds for investors to invest in the IPO. Typically, retail investors would need a six-figure minimum balance to invest in an IPO, but the company dropped it to $2,000 for SpaceX.  Those changes effectively created billions of dollars in mandatory purchases from index funds, or funds that track those respective indexes, and since SpaceX is included in those index funds, many investors who hold shares of those funds—which include a lot of 401(k) accounts and others—have become de facto SpaceX investors. That, even as some investors are wary of the stock, and there are a lot of concerns about the company’s profitability, as outlined. In all, there’s a lot of rule-changing and pumped-up demand (fueled by lowering thresholds for retail investors as well) that, again, has people wary. The main concern is that SpaceX’s IPO will amount to something of a large pump-and-dump, with a surge in demand sending share prices skyrocketing after the IPO, only to see a large fall in the coming weeks or months. Of course, the opposite could happen: SpaceX could shoot for the moon, and continue to remain one of the biggest companies in the world. Nobody knows, but SpaceX hits the market on Friday (trading under SPCX), and by the weekend, there’ll likely be new millionaires, billionaires, and a trillionaire minted as a result.

Shares of SpaceX appear ready to jump when they start trading on Friday after Elon Musk’s company made history with a $75 billion IPO that instantly turned it into one of the biggest public companies in the world. Early indications of buying interest on Nasdaq pointed to a roughly 30% jump from the shares’ offering price of $135. The stock is expected to officially start trading later Friday under the ticker SPCX. Campbell Harvey, Professor of Finance at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, breaks down why the SpaceX IPO could expose major flaws in index construction, passive fund buying and market structure, with a tiny float and accelerated benchmark inclusion set to intensify demand. (Source: Bloomberg)

If you follow the stock market or financial news at all, you’d have to be living under a rock to not know that Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp.—better known as SpaceX—is going public. Shares were officially priced yesterday and are expected to begin trading today. The IPO is both the largest in history and one of the most contentious. Here’s what you need to know about SpaceX’s IPO. What is SpaceX? Space Exploration Technologies Corp is the largest player in the private space industry. Its largest private owner is tech billionaire Elon Musk. With its stock market debut today, SpaceX will be the second public company that Musk controls, the first being Tesla. While SpaceX is best known for its space products, such as the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Starship rockets, the company also owns several other high-profile businesses. Those businesses include xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, which develops both hardware and software for the artificial intelligence industry. SpaceX’s ownership of xAI is why you will sometimes see SpaceX also referred to as an AI company. SpaceX also owns Starlink, the satellite internet provider. Notably, Starlink is the only profitable division of SpaceX so far, making it a shining light for the company. When is SpaceX’s IPO? SpaceX confirmed the final details of its initial public offering yesterday. Its shares are expected to begin trading today (Friday, June 12, 2026). What is SpaceX’s stock ticker? SpaceX’s shares will trade under the stock ticker “SPCX.” What market will SpaceX’s shares trade on? Shares in SpaceX will trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market and Nasdaq Texas. What is the IPO share price of SPCX? The initial public offering price for SPCX shares is $135.00 per share.  How many SPCX shares are available in its IPO? SpaceX’s initial public offering saw 555,555,555 million of its Class A common stock shares go on sale. Additionally, SpaceX is giving its underwriters an additional 30 days to purchase up to an additional 83,333,333 shares of its Class A common stock. SpaceX’s underwriters include Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, and more. How much did SpaceX raise in its IPO? With 555.5 million shares sold at $135 each, SpaceX raised $75 billion in its IPO. This makes SpaceX’s IPO the largest IPO in history—by a long shot. The prior largest IPO in history was the oil giant Saudi Aramco. Its 2019 IPO raised nearly $25.6 billion, according to data from Renaissance Capital. SpaceX’s IPO is nearly three times that. For those keeping track, these are now the 10 largest IPOs in history, according to Renaissance Capital data: SpaceX (2026): $75 billion Saudi Aramco (2019): $25.6 billion Alibaba (2014): $21.8 billion SoftBank (2018): $21.3 billion NTT Mobile (1998): $18 billion Visa (2008): $17.9 billion American International Assurance (2010): $17.8 billion ENEL SpA (1999): $16.5 billion Facebook (2012): $16 billion General Motors (2010): $15.8 billion How much is SpaceX worth? At its IPO price of $135 per share, SpaceX is now worth around $1.77 trillion. That is a staggeringly large valuation for a company that is only now going public and has never turned a profit to date (although one of SpaceX’s most prominent divisions, satellite internet operator Starlink, does turn a profit). To put SpaceX’s valuation into context, these are now the top 10 most valuable publicly traded companies, according to CoinMarketCap: Nvidia: $4.96 trillion Alphabet: $4.35 trillion Apple: $4.34 trillion Microsoft: $2.9 trillion Amazon: $2.6 trillion TSMC: $2.2 trillion Broadcom: $1.8 trillion SpaceX: $1.7 trillion Saudi Aramco: $1.8 trillion Tesla: $1.5 trillion With SpaceX’s instant accession to the trillion-dollar club, there are now 16 publicly traded companies worth $1 trillion or more. What are analysts saying about the company’s valuation and price targets? SpaceX’s IPO is drawing controversy, particularly for its valuation, which many investors and analysts say is much too high for a company that is far from achieving a profit. These individuals argue that SpaceX’s IPO share price of $135 is much higher than its fundamentals should allow for, and as a result, the stock is overvalued. The most high-profile institution making this argument is the financial services giant Morningstar, which argues that SpaceX is actually worth less than half of its IPO valuation, notes CNBC. And Morningstar is far from alone. As Fast Company reported yesterday, other critics, including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have expressed deep concerns about SpaceX’s IPO, particularly its high valuation. While SpaceX’s IPO is expected to make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire today, and could make 4,400 of its employees millionaires today, many experts worry that retail investors could be left with steep losses as early equity holders cash out when the stock is sky high. Of course, not all analysts and investors agree that SpaceX is overvalued. As reported by Reuters, Oppenheimer recently issued an “outperform” rating on the stock, with a $190 price target. At that price, SpaceX would be valued at around $2.5 trillion. In other words, Oppenheimer believes the stock could increase around 33% over its IPO price. Investing.com also reports that New Street Research initiated coverage of SpaceX with a 12-month price target of $165 per share, representing about 22% growth from its $135 IPO price. What time does SpaceX stock go live? While the Nasdaq opens at 9:30 a.m. ET this morning, SpaceX shares likely won’t begin trading at that moment. This is because of a required “price discovery” process, notes Coinpedia.  SpaceX’s underwriters will need to match buy and sell orders manually before public trading begins. This means retail investors likely won’t be able to buy SpaceX shares until sometime between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. ET today. Disclosure: Morningstar was founded by Joe Mansueto, owner of Fast Company and Inc.