Market closes with SpaceX up after blockbuster day
SpaceX ends the day with a closing price of $160.95. It’s up 19% from its initial price of $135 per share and 7% from the start of public trading.
The Nasdaq exchange lists the company’s value at $2.1tn at market close.
The stock lost a little steam over the day’s last two hours of trading, briefly dipping down below $160 per share after hitting a high of around $176 earlier in the day. The final figure is still a significant pop from its opening price, however, and represents a successful, non-volatile IPO for the company.
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Democrats blast Musk's new trillionaire status
A host of prominent Democrats criticized Musk on X as SpaceX shares began to trade, framing his growing fortune as an example of glaring inequality in the US and a broken system. Several, including Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, called for legislation to tax extreme wealth.
“The typical American household would have to work more than 11 MILLION years to make Elon Musk’s level of wealth,” Warren posted. “We need a wealth tax”.
California governor and potential 2028 presidential candidate Gavin Newsom posted “when the federal government is for sale, the rich get richer and everyone else gets shafted,” adding that “the system is rigged”. Controversial Maine senate candidate Graham Platner meanwhile called on the public to make Musk the last ever trillionaire.
The Democratic Party’s official account also criticized Musk, referencing the sweeping cuts that he made while in government as leader of his Department of Government Efficiency. “The same man who cut children’s cancer research is now a trillionaire,” The Democrats’ account posted.
Musk’s fortune has grown by a staggering amount in the past decade. Ten years ago the tech mogul was worth around $14bn, according to Forbes.
His net worth then grew to around $189bn by 2021, when he surpassed Jeff Bezos to become the richest man in the world. It is now around six times higher than that already astronomical figure.
Anti-billionaire protesters gather at JPMorgan in New York City
A small group of protesters gathered outside JPMorgan’s Manhattan headquarters on Friday, with signs stating: “Elon Musk is stealing your pension.”
“The billionaire class is willing to rig every rule in the book to enrich themselves,” said Jonathan Westin, executive director of Climate Organizing Hub, a grassroots environmental group. “At a time where the majority of Americans are facing an affordability crisis, Musk is about to pilfer the retirement funds of working people to enrich himself and support an authoritarian political agenda.”
62% of American adults are invested in the stock market, through individual stocks, as well as those included in a mutual fund or retirement savings account, like a 401 (k) or IRA, according to 2025 Gallup data. SpaceX’s IPO has, in some ways, tied Americans’ financial future to the uncertain trajectory of AI.
At least three protesters were dressed up as “Trillionaires for Trump.” One of their signs read: “The market demands your sacrifice.”
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After SpaceX’s huge IPO, Americans’ financial future will be bound to AI
Guardian columnist Eduardo Porter writes:
Americans are growing worried about what artificial intelligence portends for their futures. Eight in 10 Americans report concern over AI, compared with a third who report being excited, according to a recent Quinnipiac poll.
Skeptical though they may be, they are about to get more AI rammed down their throats and stuck into their pension plans and their investment portfolios, whether they want it or not.
First up is this week’s massive $75bn initial public offering (IPO) for Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the largest ever.
The offering is just the first in a series: both Anthropic and OpenAI have already filed paperwork for their own IPOs later in the year, both near $1tn.
Even investors who don’t care to buy their stock will end up owning a bunch, either in their 401(k) retirement plans or among their holdings of market index funds, which are forced to buy AI shares in proportion to their weighting in stock indices like the Nasdaq and the S&P.
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SpaceX’s valuation is hovering around $2.2tn.
The company’s share price has stabilized between $165 and $170 for a couple hours after peaking at $175 around 1 o’clock New York City time. The jump from the initial share price of $150 has added some $500bn to the company’s worth since the start of trading.
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SpaceX’s shares reached a high of around $176 midday Friday, up 30% from the IPO price. The stock price fluctuated in the hours following shares hitting the market, dipping down a bit shortly after the high and hovering around $170 per share.
Many longstanding Musk allies stand to increase their fortunes by billions. SpaceX’s board and list of major investors is stocked with close friends and acolytes of Musk, some of whom have been tethered to him and his companies for over a decade.
Early investors include Musk buddies Steve Jurvetson, who recently bought a $125m mansion in Lake Tahoe, and Antonio Gracias, who stands to make tens of billions of dollars from the IPO. Musk’s younger brother Kimbal, who sits on the board at Tesla and until recent years was a board member of SpaceX, also owns a sizable amount of shares.
SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell, who has worked for two and a half decades with Musk and held her title since 2008, stands to see her stake of roughly 12.6m shares become worth more than $3bn, according to the Observer. CFO Bret Johnson could see his stake of 9.6m shares become worth $1.4bn.
Musk was in a celebratory mood on X as his rocket company went public. In a break from his usual online output boosting far-right influencers, attacking immigration and posting about race, Musk’s feed on Friday looked like a victory lap touting his success. He reposted well-wishers and positive news about the IPO, as well expressed his gratitude for SpaceX’s employees.
“I love the incredible people of SpaceX beyond words,” Musk said.
Musk’s extreme wealth could have profound effects on democracy
Musk’s status as the world’s first trillionaire is a symbol of the vast wealth being accumulated amid the tech and AI boom. OpenAI and Anthropic’s IPOs later this year are additionally set to result in huge financial gains for other tech moguls and wealthy investors.
It’s a consolidation of extreme wealth that highlights massive economic disparities and could have profound effects on society, as described by French economist Gabriel Zucman. “There is a fundamental tension in democratic societies between extreme wealth … and the very possibility of a well-functioning democracy,” said Zucman. “After World War II, it looked like extreme wealth belonged to the past” but now, he said, “But as the AI boom is minting billionaires by the day and the first trillionaires are now coming into view, we cannot ignore it anymore. The battle between democracy and oligarchy will be the defining battle of the 21st century”.
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In today’s episode of The Guardian’s new podcast, Stateside with Kai and Carter, US tech editor Blake Montgomery tells Kai Wright about SpaceX’s plan to create a self-sustaining city of one million people on Mars. If that happens, Musk could earn additional shares and compensation.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has made the largest-ever stock market debut today, with a valuation of over $2tn, making Musk the world’s first trillionaire. What’s behind the company’s astronomical valuation? A promise to make humanity multiplanetary.
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Elon Musk becomes world's first trillionaire as SpaceX shares jump
The jump in SpaceX’s share price today, as its floats on the US stock market, means Elon Musk has become the world’s first trillionaire.
His 38% stake in SpaceX is now worth around $800bn, after they jumped 20% in early trading, with the whole company’s valuation now over $2tn.
Musk also owns just over 10% of Tesla, a stake worth $165bn, plus options to acquire another nearly 8% stake, worth $114bn according to Forbes’s calculations.
Forbes had calculated Musk’s wealth at around $980bn before SpaceX’s shares started trading, so it would only have taken a small rise in the share price today to hit the one-trillion dollar figure.
Musk also owns stakes in his brain interface startup Neuralink and his tunneling firm Boring Company, plus has wealth from previous Tesla share sales.
Reminder: Oxfam has warned that the jump in Musk’s wealth to over a trillion dollars marks ‘a dark day for democracy’.
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SpaceX’s shares are pushing higher, as investors who missed out in this week’s initial public offering try to buy a stake in the company.
They’re now up to $162.58, or 20% higher than the $135 IPO price.
That pushes SpaceX’s stock market valuation over the $2tn mark.
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SpaceX shares jump 11% to $150 at start of trading
BOOM! SpaceX’s shares have begun trading 11% above their IPO price, as the biggest stock market float ever gets under way.
After an auction process that lasted more than two hours, SpaceX’s shares are finally trading on the Nasdaq at $150.
That’s a jump on the $135 which investors paid for each share in the company’s IPO, which raised a record $75bn.
It gives SpaceX a valuation of almost $2tn, above the $1.77tn set in the IPO.
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SpaceX is now only expected to jump by around 12% when the company’s shares finally start trading.
Early quotes from the Nasdaq are now pointing to an indicative opening price of $151, Reuters reports, still above the IPO price of $135.
The price-discovery auction, where Nasdaq collects and matches buy and sell orders, ready for a smooth start to trading, is still continuing …
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Back at the Nasdaq, SpaceX’s indicated opening price has continued to tick down a little.
A few minutes ago it was indicated to open at $160, 18.5% above the $135 IPO price.
The drama of today’s stock market float didn’t prevent SpaceX continuing with its day job.
SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, to take 29 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit.
Speaking before the company rang the Nasdaq opening bell, SpaceX chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell said:
I want everyone to know that we opened in a rather exciting way. We launched. Falcon 9 launched Starlink satellites to orbit. What company would do such a thing on the day that they open in the public market? SpaceX would.
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Oxfam has also released polling showing that six in ten Britons (60%) think it is unacceptable for any individual to hold more than £1tn in personal wealth.
A timely finding, as SpaceX’s IPO appears to be poised to catapult Elon Musk into that position.
The charity adds:
At the same time, three quarters of the public (76%) support a 2% wealth tax on assets over £10 million, which Oxfam says could raise an estimated £24 billion every year to help rebuild public services, reduce poverty and tackle inequality in the UK and around the world.
71% also believe the current economic system works mainly in the interests of the very wealthy rather than ordinary people - a finding the charity says reflects growing public frustration with extreme inequality and falling living standards.
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The SpaceX valuation appears to be slipping back towards earth, rather like one of it’s impressive self-landing rockets.
Reuters are now reporting that SpaceX shares are indicated to open at $168, down from the $174 reported about 20 minutes after the market opened.
That’s still a hefty pop on the IPO price of $135, though, as the wrangling of the auction process continues.
Anti-poverty charity Oxfam warned earlier this week that Elon Musk’s imminent ‘government-backed trillionaire’ status marks ‘a dark day for democracy’
It pointed out that Musk would be richer than the poorest 46% of the world population, or 3.8 billion people, combined.
Nabil Ahmed, senior director of economic justice at Oxfam America, said:
A trillion dollars in the hands of one man is incompatible not only with an affordable economy, but also with a healthy democracy. Economic inequality begets political inequality, and ordinary people bear the brunt while billionaires continue to write the rules for their own benefit.
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SpaceX set to top $2tn valuation in stock market debut
SpaceX appears firmly on track for a $2tn valuation when its shares begin trading.
The ongoing auction process is now suggesting shares could start trading at $175, a big jump on the $135 which investors paid in this week’s initial public offering.
That would give SpaceX a stock market valuation of $2.287tn, I calculate, up from the $1.77tn valuation set in the IPO.
There’s plenty of razzmatazz outside the Nasdaq MarketSite today to mark SpaceX’s IPO, including large images of the company’s rockets:
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SpaceX shares indicated to open at $174
SpaceX’s shares are indicated to open at $174, Reuters is reporting, based on the auction process taking place on the Nasdaq right now.
That would be 29% above the company’s IPO price, of $135.
It would push SpaceX’s valuation up from $1.77tn to $2.28tn.
It would also cement Elon Musk’s status as a trillionaire, as Forbes had pegged his wealth at $982.6bn based on the IPO price (Musk owns roughly 38% of SpaceX, plus shares and options in Tesla worth around $280bn).
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Photos: Ringing the opening bell
Tradition dictates that executives ringing the stock market opening bell get terribly excited, and clap like a herd of performing seals, and SpaceX’s top brass did not disappoint:
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The auction period before SpaceX’s shares start trading could take a few hours, agrees Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown:
“SpaceX has finally touched down on public markets, and the first few hours of trading once shares emerge from the auction period are likely to be noisy.
A company with this profile, this valuation and this level of investor attention is unlikely to drift quietly into the market. But early share price moves should not be mistaken for a clean verdict on the long-term investment case.
SpaceX is set to surge in its stock market debut today, predicts Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB.
But she points out it may take some time before the shares actually trade:
SpaceX’s IPO has been an historic market event for its sheer size and the scale of demand for its shares. Ahead of its debut on the Nasdaq, the shares are higher by 30% in the pre-market, and could start trading at $175 per share, up from the $135 IPO price, based on prediction markets.
There is so much enthusiasm for SpaceX right now, that it is hard to see the shares slipping anytime soon. The numbers are huge: SpaceX sold $75bn of shares at its IPO, which valued the company at $1.75tn. If the stock pops 30% today, then SpaceX will be worth more than $2.4tn. SpaceX’s IPO alone is greater than the amount raised in 22 of the last 25 years, and the its IPO generated more money than all IPOs in the US so far this year.
The shares may not trade straight away when the market opens, usually an IPO with this level of enthusiasm trades a few hours after the opening bell, to ensure a smooth transition to the stock market; to do this bankers will typically want to match buyers and sellers for 10% of shares. This should be easy, as we expect SpaceX to be extremely liquid today. The risk is that there are not enough sellers, and if the stock price is volatile, then circuit breakers could kick in, which may halt trading later today.
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With trading underway in New York, two of the three major US share indices are a little higher.
The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 300.0 points, or 0.59%, at the open to 51,148.73.
The broader S&P 500 index has gained 0.22%.
But, the Nasdaq Composite is down 0.1%, suggesting a slight softening in tech stocks.
But what we really want to see is a trade in SpaceX’s shares…..
The livefeed from the Nasdaq Marketplace is now playing Elton John’s Rocket Man …
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SpaceX rings the opening bell
And we’re off! SpaceX executives at the Nasdaq stock exchange have rung the opening bell, and the world’s biggest ever stock market flotation is under way.
There’s much celebrating at the Nasdaq, and also at SpaceX’s HQ where Elon Musk and his staff are also clapping excitedly.
A reminder, SpaceX is floating on the market at a valuation of $1.77tn after raising a record-breaking $75bn from investors through its IPO share sale.
The IPO price pushed up Musk’s wealth to $982.6bn, according to Forbes, so a small rise in the company’s share price today would make him the world’s first trillionaire.
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Musk: We want to take the fiction out of science fiction
Elon Musk is addressing the Nasdaq MarketSite by videolink from SpaceX’s headquarters now, where a large crowd have assembled, clapping and cheering.
Musk says it is “certainly hard to believe” that a little company that started in a warehouse is now going public with the largest IPO ever.
If people had told me this at the start, Musk jokes, he’d have replied “man, you must be smoking some really good crack”.
Musk then explains that SpaceX’s ambition is to “take the fiction out of science fiction”, and create an exciting, inspiring future for everyone.
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Crowds gather at the Nasdaq
People are gather outside at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York City, ahead of SpaceX’s float …
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SpaceX to 'cannibalise capital'
The arrival of SpaceX on the stock market is likely to suck shareholder capital away from other businesses, argues Joel Shulman, CEO of ERShares, which manages an ETF with SpaceX exposure.
Shulman says:
“A dominant company with a $1.77 trillion valuation doesn’t just quietly enter the market. It’s going to cannibalise capital.”
Reminder: the SpaceX IPO was reportedly oversubscribed by three or four times, meaning there may be plenty of disappointed investors looking to buy shares once the company floats today.
Other companies in the space sector are on track for a mixed day’s trading, when the US stock market opens in under 20 minutes.
Rocket Lab are up 2% in pre-market trading.
But Virgin Galactic are down 10% pre-market, having jumped by over 20% yesterday.
Voyager Technologies, who gained 16% yesterday, are on track for a 4% drop.
SpaceX is set to slot into the top ten list of the most valuable listed companies.
If SpaceX shares hold at their offering price ($135), the company’s market value would be $1.77tn, making it equal to Broadcom, the sixth most valuable publicly-traded company, Associated Press point out.
Chipmaker Nvidia is curently the world’s most valuable public company at around $4.9tn.
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The excitement is building outside the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York, where one man has turned up in an orange astronaut costume:
Should Elon Musk become the world’s first trillionaire today, it will refocus attention on economic inequality, and renew calls for more effective taxes on wealth.
Ed Pomfret of the Fight Inequality Alliance tells us:
“If you spent a million dollars every single day, it would take you two thousand seven hundred years to spend a trillion. The system that made Musk a trillionaire is the same system that underfunds your hospitals, loads countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America with unpayable debt, and then tells you redistribution is too complicated.
The obstacle to taxing extreme wealth is not the arithmetic. It is the politics, and the politics is owned by Musk and his billionaire buddies.”
Maye Musk, Elon’s mother, has been photographed arriving at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York City, ahead of SpaceX’s stock market flotation.
Summary
Time for a quick catch-up.
We’re 90 minutes away from the open of the US stock market, where SpaceX is due to list after conducting the largest initial public offering ever.
If the rockets/satellites/AI company’s shares jump in early trading, it will cement Elon Musk’s status as the world’s first ever trillionaire.
Last night, SpaceX announced it had raised $75bn in a record-breaking initial public offering, by selling 555m shares to investors at $135 each.
That pricing has lifted Musk’s wealth to around $982.6bn, Forbes has calculated.
Analysts have warned that SpaceX’s early inclusion in many stock market indices means millions of investors, including pensioners, will be exposed to its fortunes, and that passive investment funds will have to buy its shares in the coming weeks.
Wall Street is on track to open higher, as global markets are lifted by hopes of a US-Iran peace deal soon.
SpaceX’s IPO has market watchers on high alert. Along with the lack of profitability, some analysts say such a big valuation for a company that’s burning cash on its AI buildout – xAI is spending big on datacenters – and is predominantly governed by one person – Musk, who commands roughly 85% of SpaceX’s voting shares – potentially makes for a volatile asset.
The company’s debut on Wall Street could also bolster its grip on the financial system. Its shares will reportedly be distributed into index funds shortly after its IPO, far quicker than most companies going public, though notably not into the S&P 500. Those funds hold people’s retirement savings and pension plans, meaning individual investors could be unwittingly exposed to financial risk if SpaceX’s share price plummets.
For SpaceX employees, however, the record-shattering valuation means they are about to get a lot richer. More than 4,400 current and former employees are expected to become millionaires with the IPO, according to the New York Times, with 400 of them each securing $100m or more.
More here:
SpaceX’s IPO has symbolic significance for the wider space sector, says Nirgunan Tiruchelvam, an analyst at Aletheia Capital in Singapore.
“In this case, the SpaceX IPO is a bellwether for the state of the market.
SpaceX represents the AI-driven tech boom and the rise of space technology as one of the defining forces of our time.”
Forbes’s real time billionaire guide shows Elon Musk’s wealth has risen by $12.6bn to $982.6bn today.
The key is what happens to SpaceX shares when they start trading in the US markets later today, as much of Musk’s wealth is contained within his 40% stake in the company.
He might not get crowned a trillionaire when the market opens either, as it may take some time for SpaceX’s shares to start trading.
Over on FT Alphaville, Craig Coben suggests SpaceX might not start trading until 1pm in New York (6pm UK time), “given the sheer amount of order-matching that needs to happen”.
Bloomberg reckon that we’ll get “indications of where SpaceX shares could open… at some point” after the market opens at 9:30am. in New York (2.30pm UK time).
SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO today, and upcoming floats from artificial intelligence companies Anthropic and OpenAI, will be a major test for the stock market as investors are hit by a wave of equity supply.
Joe Maher, markets economist at consultancy Capital Economics, points out that booming share issuance can be a sign that market speculation is reaching fever pitch.
That rising supply may also overwhelm investor demand and help to push stock prices lower.
Maher told clients:
Recent history suggests surging share issuance tends to be a sign that the end to an equity boom is a matter of months not years away. After all, gross issuance surged towards the end of the last three major equity booms and peaked broadly in line with the stock market on those occasions. [See Chart 2, below].
With share issuance booming once again, the AI-driven equity rally may well be entering its final stages.
Although the market’s attention will be on SpaceX today, the true success of its float will be judged in the months ahead.
Samuel Kerr, global head of ECM at Mergermarket, says the important question is how its shares hold up over the longer term, not simply whether it jumps today.
Kerr points out:
In the next six months, a far greater number of shares than were sold in the IPO will become freely tradeable as various lock-up restrictions on existing investors expire. SpaceX has a rare staggered lock-up expiry period designed to prevent a huge wall of selling at one fixed point, but this could still translate to hundreds of billions of dollars of shares from existing investors hitting the market in a short period of time.
The first lock-up waiver will also coincide with SpaceX’s first results as a public company in late July/early August, where investors will get the first indication of whether the company is hitting its ambitious growth targets.”
Elsewhere in the space world, Japan successfully launched its flagship H3 rocket earlier today.
The launch came after a previous mission to put a geolocation satellite into orbit ended in failure.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) reported that the rocket carrying six small satellites blasted off at 9:53 am (0053 GMT) from Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan.
The H3 was developed to boost the international competitiveness of Japan’s rocket industry, but Japan’s planned launch rate runs far behind SpaceX’s.
AFP explains:
The agency is targeting up to eight H3 launches a year – still far below privately owned SpaceX, which dominates the global satellite launch market with 165 Falcon 9 orbital flights in 2025, compared to just two for H3.
UK pensioners will be riding the SpaceX IPO
The ‘forced buyers’ who will have to buy shares in SpaceX once it is added to stock market indices such as the Nasdaq (see earlier post) will include UK pensioners, investment experts are warning.
Professor Iain Clacher, Ashok Gupta and Dan Hedley of New Capital Consensus (a group pushing for reform of the UK investment system) are concerned that the 11mn people enrolled in UK defined contribution default funds will be exposed to SpaceX.
In a letter to the Financial Times this morning, they explain:
Nasdaq’s fast-entry rule pulls SpaceX into the Nasdaq-100 index after 15 trading days rather than 63. FTSE Russell has gone further. S&P Dow Jones, to its credit, has held the line.
The mechanical consequence, on our modelling, is that roughly $17.7bn of passive demand will be conscripted into SpaceX on day 15 — of which about $3.9bn comes from MSCI World-tracking vehicles, the benchmark to which the great majority of UK DC default funds are anchored.
Clacher, Gupta and Hedle also point out that the practice of investing UK pension funds in indices such as the Nasdaq, or the MSCI World index, is “mechanically exporting British pension capital” to the balance sheets of the UK’s competitors.
They explain:
The uncomfortable truth is that, for the British DC pensioner the cost is being collected automatically through a default fund whose architecture was never designed for an index whose rules are now being rewritten around a single generation of megastar listings.
Shares in investment funds that hold SpaceX stock are rising in pre-market trading ahead of SpaceX’s stock market listing today, Reuters has spotted.
That includes Fundrise Innovation Fund, who are up 9.5%, and Destiny Tech 100 which has gained almost 6%.
SpaceX’s shares will be supported by a number of “forced buyers”, such as tracker funds.
Richard Hunter, head of markets at interactive investor, explains:
The Nasdaq index has tweaked its rules, which has allowed SpaceX to join the index on a fast-track basis. It remains to be seen whether the company will have a disproportionate effect on the index in terms of weighting, but in any event its inclusion guarantees some additional and significant buying pressure.
SpaceX appears to have chosen a good day to join the US stock market.
Equity markets around the world are rallying today, after Donald Trump claimed that the US and Iran are on the verge of signing a peace agreement and announced that he will cancel fresh missile strikes.
Stocks rallied in Asia-Pacific markets overnight, lifting Japan’s Nikkei 225 by 2.8%.
In London this morning, the FTSE 100 index of blue-chip shares is up 1.5%, or 151 points, at 10,455 points.
Wall Street is on track to open a little higher, after rallying strongly after Trump’s comments.
Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club, says:
“Risk-taking is back in fashion at the end of another volatile week, helped by renewed confidence that the conflict with Iran may soon end.
President Trump’s promises are again moving markets, with investors buoyed by his assertion that a deal could be reached as soon as this weekend. The hotly anticipated SpaceX IPO is feeding the frenzy, with high hopes that aerospace and AI will cross bountiful new frontiers in the future.
Marex Financial, who have handled the UK retail element of SpaceX’s IPO, have reported that just over 60% of UK investors who applied for shares have received their full allocation.
Those who wanted more than about £2,000 of shares, though, won’t get as much as they hoped.
Marex explain:
Investors in the Retail Offer who applied for up to $2,700 (£2,013) have been allocated in full, rounded down to the nearest whole Share. Those who applied for more than this amount have been scaled back, with a maximum of 1000 Shares being allocated to any such investor.
This means 61 per cent. of investors in the Retail Offer have received a full allocation.
A poll by Opinium has found that one in four Gen Z and Millennial investors in the UK say they have applied for shares in SpaceX or will buy shares on the day of the IPO.
One in seven (15%) of all UK investors say they have applied for shares or will buy them on the day of the IPO, which is on track to become the largest in market history. Male investors (18%) are also more likely than female investors (10%) to say that have or will buy SpaceX shares.
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Analysts at Unicredit say that the stock-market debut of SpaceX is more than an IPO story, adding:
It is a reminder that space is increasingly becoming Earth’s critical economic infrastructure – and that the US is setting the pace in the commercial and geopolitical space race.
SpaceX shares soar in shadow trading ahead of official float
SpaceX’s shares are surging in ‘shadow’ financial markets, indicating that its value could surge by 35% when trading begins later today.
Derivatives offered by online brokerage IG are indicating SpaceX’s market value could surge to around $2.4tn, up from the $1.77tn valuation set by last night’s IPO pricing.
That implies that SpaceX’s shares might jump to around $180 when trading begins, cement Musk’s trillionaire status.
Bloomberg have spotted a second market which also implies SpaceX’s shares might pop:
SpaceX-tied perpetual futures, contracts that don’t expire, on crypto venue Hyperliquid were trading around $180, implying a valuation of more than $2.3 trillion.
Forbes: Elon Musk is on the verge of becoming a trillionaire
Forbes has calculated that Elon Musk is on the verge of becoming a trillionaire thanks to the pricing of SpaceX’s record-breaking IPO.
That’s if you add Musk’s stake in SpaceX to his holding in Tesla, which they calculate means Musk is now worth $982bn.
Forbes explain:
Musk, who serves as chairman, CEO and chief technical officer of SpaceX, owns 4.8 billion shares of the rocketmaker, worth $644 billion. He has another 350 million stock options with an exercise price of $8.40 per share, worth $44 billion, giving him a 38% stake in the company, worth $688 billion at the IPO price
They add:
Musk also owns just over 10% of $1.5 trillion (market cap) Tesla, worth $165 billion, plus options to acquire another nearly 8% stake, worth $114 billion.
So SpaceX’s shares only have to rise slightly when they start trading on the US stock market, to around $138.50, to give Musk the title of the world’s first trillionaire.
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Giant inflatable Elon Musk warned of Grok dangers
The SpaceX IPO also led to an unusual protest yesterday in New York.
A 40-foot high giant inflatable of Elon Musk, smiling and shirtless, appeared at Times Square. It was created by the Safe AI Now (SAIN) coalition, to warn of the dangers of SpaceX’s AI assistant Grok.
SAIN say:
The enormous inflatable of Musk is meant to draw attention to a serious issue: SpaceX’s Grok has been widely used to generate illicit images of real people – including children. In fact, a NYT report found that of the 4.4 million images Grok pushed out in a recent nine-day period, an estimated 65% were sexualized or explicit. There are entire online communities, with hundreds of thousands of visitors each week, dedicated to sharing Grok-generated pornography and tips for explicit content generation.
While this inflatable is a fitting metaphor – much like Musk and his companies, it is inflated, full of hot air, and could pop at any minute – it serves as a warning to investors eager to buy into Musk’s SpaceX IPO on Friday morning. Because the reality is, shareholders’ investment in SpaceX means financially supporting a company that has been involved in child exploitation, revenge porn, and worse.
In March, three teenage girls in Tennessee, two of whom are minors, filed a lawsuit against xAI alleging that its Grok image generator used photos of them to produce and distribute child sexual abuse material.
Last week, UK MP Jess Asato took legal action against Elon Musk’s xAI company after saying its Grok tool helped a user produce fake sexualised pictures of her.
Analyst: Space X float is huge
Today may go down in history as the day Elon Musk could become the world’s first trillionaire, and the day SpaceX blasted off into the public markets, says Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote:
The company already made history yesterday by selling 555.6 million shares priced at $135 each, raising the $75 billion that it was looking for and giving the company nearly the $1.8 trillion valuation that it was targeting. It equals the combined value of the 29 biggest IPOs in US history since 2000 – adjusted for inflation – including Meta, Google, Hilton, Airbnb, DoorDash, Uber, Snowflake and GM.
Yes, it’s huge. So today, everyone will be watching SpaceX leave the launchpad. In yesterday’s note, I discussed in detail what to expect from this IPO today, and in the coming weeks and months, for those who are interested in what the future could hold for the company and for the rest of the market.
Introduction: SpaceX raises $75bn in world’s biggest IPO
Good morning. Elon Musk’s SpaceX will touch down on the US stock market today after successfully conducting a record-breaking initial public offering, but will its shares head towards the moon?
Shares in the rockets-to-satellites-to-AI company will begin trading in Wall Street today, after SpaceX raised $75bn through its IPO.
The listing will put SpaceX among the largest public companies, and could see Musk declared the world’s first trillionaire later today.
Last night, SpaceX announced it had has raised $75bn in a record-breaking initial public offering, which values the company at $1.77tn. It successfully sold 555,555,555 shares of its Class A common stock, at $135.00 per share.
Banks underwriting the deal have also been given an “over-allotment option” to buy an extra 83.3m shares, which would pump up the size of the IPO to about $86bn.
SpaceX attracted orders for more than three times the amount on offer, the Financial Times reports – with strong demand from institutions and also retail investors. That could help propel SpaceX’s shares up today, as those who missed out in the IPO (or didn’t get as many shares as they wanted) try to get on board.
This strong demand came despite concerns that the company was overvalued – being sold at 92 times last year’s revenues (a hefty valuation).
Investment research group Morningstar claimed earlier this week that SpaceX was worth only $63 a share – less than half the IPO price of $135 – and warned there is “a major disconnect between market expectations and underlying fundamentals”.
Michael Field, the chief equity strategist at Morningstar, suggests investors should sit out the IPO and wait for “a more attractive entry point down the line”.
All eyes will be on the US markets today to see how SpaceX’s shares perform….
The agenda
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7am BST: UK GDP report for April
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2.30pm BST: US stock market trading begins
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3pm BST: University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey
Updated
