KEY POINTS
- SpaceX begins trading on the Nasdaq under ticker SPCX at $135 per share, raising $75 billion in the largest initial public offering ever conducted.
- The fixed-price offering bypassed the traditional bookbuilding process and reserved roughly 30% of shares for retail investors, a structural choice that could set a template for mega-cap IPOs going forward.
- Traders should watch whether SPCX holds its $135 level through the first session and whether the stock's 94x trailing sales multiple compresses or expands as lockup dynamics and institutional demand become clearer.
SpaceX opens for trading on the Nasdaq Friday morning at $135 per share, completing a $75 billion capital raise that makes it the largest initial public offering in market history. The listing values Elon Musk's rocket and satellite company at approximately $1.77 trillion, instantly ranking it among the ten most valuable public companies on Earth and making Musk, who already held the top spot on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the world's first trillionaire by some estimates.
The 555 million shares sold represent a relatively thin slice of the company's outstanding equity, a deliberate choice by Musk and his bankers at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan to limit dilution while still delivering a headline number large enough to rewrite the record books. The previous record holder, Saudi Aramco's 2019 offering, raised $29.4 billion. SpaceX more than doubled it.
A Take-It-or-Leave-It Price
Unlike virtually every major IPO of the past two decades, SpaceX did not provide a range and did not adjust its price based on demand during the roadshow. The company set a flat $135 and told investors to take it or pass. That decision, reported in detail by CNBC, reflected Musk's stated belief that traditional bookbuilding underprices companies and transfers wealth from founders to institutional flippers.
The approach generated friction. Multiple large mutual fund complexes sat out the allocation process, citing discomfort with the lack of price discovery. But demand from sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and retail investors more than filled the gap. SpaceX directed roughly 30% of the offering, about $22.5 billion worth, to retail accounts through partnerships with Fidelity, Schwab, and Robinhood. If that allocation holds, it would be the largest retail tranche in IPO history by a wide margin.
Wall Street's reception has been divided. Fortune reported that Morningstar's equity research team called SpaceX "significantly overvalued" at the offering price, pointing to the company's $4.94 billion net loss in 2025 on $18.67 billion in revenue. That puts the IPO at roughly 94 times trailing sales, a multiple that exceeds even the most generous readings of early-stage Nvidia or Tesla. Bulls counter that SpaceX's competitive moat in orbital launch, its Starlink broadband network serving over 10 million subscribers, and its government contracts create a revenue trajectory that makes backward-looking metrics misleading.
The Revenue Picture
SpaceX generated $18.67 billion in 2025 revenue, up 33% year over year, driven primarily by Starlink's subscriber growth and a record 104 Falcon 9 launches. Starlink alone accounted for more than $12 billion, making it one of the fastest-growing subscription businesses in history. The launch services division contributed roughly $5 billion, supported by NASA's Artemis program contracts and a growing roster of commercial satellite operators.
The net loss, however, tells a more complicated story. SpaceX poured $8.3 billion into capital expenditures last year, most of it directed at Starship development and Starlink satellite manufacturing. Management has guided toward profitability by 2028, assuming Starlink subscriber growth continues at its current pace and Starship achieves commercial viability for heavy-lift contracts.
What Traders Are Watching
The first session will test whether institutional and retail demand at scale can absorb the float without a significant first-day pop or, worse, a break below $135. In recent mega-cap IPOs, including Arm Holdings in 2023 and Instacart the same year, first-day gains faded quickly as lockup expirations and insider selling created overhang. SpaceX has structured a 180-day lockup for insiders and a 90-day lockup for most employees, meaning the real supply test arrives in September.
Options activity, once the chain goes live, will be the first reliable gauge of directional conviction. Futures on the Nasdaq 100, where SpaceX will eventually be added if it meets inclusion criteria, were essentially flat in pre-market trading Friday, suggesting the broader index is treating the listing as a single-stock event rather than a catalyst for the tech complex.
For traders who participated in the allocation, the decision is straightforward: hold and see whether post-IPO momentum builds toward the $140 to $175 range that early analyst targets suggest, or sell into any first-day premium. For everyone else, the question is whether a company burning $5 billion a year deserves a nearly $2 trillion valuation. The answer probably depends on your time horizon. The June 16-17 FOMC meeting, SpaceX's first quarterly report as a public company, and the September lockup expiration are the three dates that will define the stock's trajectory through year-end.
