SpaceX pulls off historic $75B IPO

For years, Saudi Aramco held the gold standard for public listings when it raised nearly $30 billion in 2019. SpaceX just shattered that ceiling without breaking a sweat, pulling off a listing more than double the size for a company that is still losing money.

SpaceX officially priced the largest IPO in corporate history on Thursday night, selling 555,555,555 shares at $135 each to raise $75 billion. The massive transaction pins a $1.77 trillion valuation on the 24-year-old space and AI conglomerate, instantly making it the seventh most valuable U.S. public company and vaulting it past Tesla. Shares are slated to begin trading Friday on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX.

Inside the $75B haul and Musk's trillionaire milestone

Elon Musk's team did not bother with the traditional Wall Street roadshow dance. The Financial Times noted that SpaceX tested its $135 price target well before pitching investors, and Bloomberg reported the offer ended up four times oversubscribed. Underwriters also hold an option to sell another 83.3 million shares, which could rake in an extra $11 billion.

Individual investors secured roughly 30% of the allocation, triple the typical slice for a debut of this size. Meanwhile, crypto prediction market Hyperliquid saw synthetic SpaceX shares trading around $167, signaling expectations of a classic 20% first-day pop. Under updated exchange rules, SPCX could enter the Nasdaq 100 in just 15 trading days.

The offering turns Musk into the world's first trillionaire on paper. He controls roughly 850 million Class A shares with one vote each, plus 5.6 billion high-vote Class B shares carrying 10 votes each, which includes a one-billion-share award contingent on putting a million humans on Mars. All told, he retains 85% voting control. Musk's SpaceX holding alone is worth $866.5 billion, which joins his $320 billion Tesla stake to cross the 13-figure threshold. Oxfam noted his net worth grew by over $1 million a minute across the past year.

Other big winners include Valor Management CEO Antonio Gracias, whose 503.4 million shares are valued at nearly $68 billion, alongside board member Luke Nosek with 33 million shares and COO Gwynne Shotwell with nearly 12.6 million. Hundreds of venture funds that pumped around $40 billion into the firm over two decades, along with SPV investors, are now sitting on enormous windfalls.

Banking on orbital data and Martian dreams

Public filings reveal that SpaceX lost $4.9 billion on $18.7 billion in revenue during 2025. Investors are paying a staggering multiple not for trailing cash flow, but for a corporate filing that projects over $28.5 trillion in addressable markets.

Today, SpaceX relies on satellite launch cadences and Starlink internet connectivity. Tomorrow's valuation relies on a vastly more complex checklist: perfecting the world's largest reusable rocket, standing up an American semiconductor fab, launching orbital data centers, and founding a self-sustaining city on Mars.

Why it matters

Retail investors finally have a direct line into modern space infrastructure, and allocating 30% to regular buyers is a clever populist move. That said, we think chasing shares at a $1.8 trillion starting valuation is a risky bet when synthetic markets are already pricing in a frothy opening spike. You are paying for technology milestones that remain years away from commercial viability.

For the broader tech and aerospace landscape, this raise puts SpaceX in an unassailable capital league. Legacy rivals and well-funded startups alike now face an incumbent armed with $75 billion in liquid public equity. It allows SpaceX to subsidize rocket development, dominate low-Earth orbit broadband, and attempt frontier bets like space-based data hubs that competitors cannot afford to contemplate.

The obvious vulnerability is governance and execution. Musk holds 85% voting control, meaning public shareholders have zero say in capital allocation or strategy. Tying a $1.8 trillion market cap to speculative projects like Mars settlements and orbital servers creates immense execution risk, particularly as Musk navigates ongoing political backlash and protest.