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SpaceX IPO debut
SpaceX shares jumped more than 19% after opening for trading Friday, with the stock opening around $150 a share and finishing the day just below $161, valuing the company at $2.1 trillion.
“SpaceX stock soars in debut and makes Elon Musk the first trillionaire SpaceX stock soars in debut and makes Elon Musk the first trillionaire NEW YORK (AP) — Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire after shares of his rocket company SpaceX soared in Wall Street’s biggest initial public offering of stock”
The IPO proceeds were $75 billion, and SpaceX shares opened under the ticker SPCX after SpaceX raised $75 billion in the IPO.
Elon Musk said on a JPMorgan Chase livestream before the IPO that SpaceX had been cash-flow positive since around 2015, and he said he wanted to take SpaceX public now to raise capital for "a significant growth phase."
SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell rang the opening bell on Friday at the Nasdaq in New York City, while Musk was in Texas for the ceremonial start of trading.
The company, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., lost $8.7 billion between the start of 2025 and March 31, 2026, even as investors bet on satellites, orbital data centers and artificial intelligence.
Musk, Shotwell, and debate
Musk marked the opening of trading on Nasdaq by joining a ceremonial bell ringing from Starbase, the South Texas home of SpaceX, and he reiterated his goal "to make life multiplanetary."
In a CNBC interview, Shotwell hinted at a future Tesla-SpaceX megamerger, saying a megamerger "might make Elon’s life a little easier, actually."
Still, analysts questioned whether the IPO price was justified, with Morningstar writing that the IPO is "significantly overvalued" and estimating SpaceX is only worth $780 billion.
The debate also played out through investor expectations, as AP reported that the typical company going public has seen a 7% jump in its first day of trading from 1980 through 2025, according to Jay Ritter.
On the ground, Yordys Coro, an IT support contractor in Miami, said, "There’s a lot of hype, but I see the faith that investors have in Musk," as his $14,000 investment in SpaceX rose to $17,000 in just a few hours.
What’s at stake next
SpaceX’s IPO is framed as a test of whether its technology promises can translate into returns, with the company conceding in regulatory documents that some of its business plans rest on "unproven technologies."
AP reported that SpaceX indicated its artificial intelligence business called xAI has no clear path to profitability and is burning cash to catch up with rivals, even as investors focused on satellites, orbital data centers and artificial intelligence.
The stakes extend to Tesla as well, because AP said Tesla shares are larger even than SpaceX’s founder’s other big business, and CNBC reported Tesla shares rose 1.8% to $406.43 on Friday.
In addition, CNBC said Musk wanted to put over 100,000 satellites in orbit for communications and to build artificial intelligence data centers in space, while SpaceX’s prospectus described a total loss of $41.3 billion since it was founded in 2002.
For investors, the immediate consequence is a new benchmark for mega-cap IPO expectations, as AP noted the $75 billion proceeds topped the previous record IPO from oil giant Saudi Aramco in 2019.
