SpaceX debut lifts Saudi prince Alwaleed’s fortune
Kingdom Holding’s SpaceX stake was valued at $6.8 billion after the rocket company’s first day of trading, Bloomberg reported.
By Sofia Marchetti · World Affairs Correspondent
3 min read
SpaceX’s first day as a public company lifted the value of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s investment firm in Saudi trading, Bloomberg reported. The move matters because Kingdom Holding Co.’s SpaceX stake was valued at nearly $7 billion, equal to about half of Kingdom’s market value, according to Bloomberg.
Kingdom Holding said it owns 42.4 million shares of SpaceX, Bloomberg reported. Based on SpaceX’s closing price after its debut, that holding was worth $6.8 billion, according to Kingdom and Bloomberg.
Shares of Kingdom Holding rose as much as 5% at the start of trading Sunday, Bloomberg reported. That move valued the Saudi investment company at 56 billion riyals, or about $14.9 billion, according to Bloomberg.
SpaceX listing created large gains for early backers
SpaceX, whose formal name is Space Exploration Technologies, began trading Friday after raising $75 billion, Bloomberg reported. Bloomberg described the offering as the largest listing on record.
The company’s shares finished their first trading session up 19% at $160.95, Bloomberg reported. The increase produced tens of billions of dollars in paper gains for a small group of investors, according to Bloomberg.
Bloomberg reported that Founders Fund, the venture capital firm led by Peter Thiel, owns about 3% of SpaceX. Andreessen Horowitz is set for the largest return in its history from the listing, while Sequoia Capital owns about 1.5% after first investing in SpaceX near the end of 2019, Bloomberg reported.
Alwaleed’s exposure has grown
Kingdom Holding said earlier this month that its SpaceX position equals 0.34% of the company, Bloomberg reported. Prince Alwaleed’s personal exposure to Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite business is about 0.29%, according to Bloomberg.
Those holdings helped raise Alwaleed’s net worth to just over $27 billion, its highest level in a decade, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Alwaleed is one of Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest investors, Bloomberg reported.
Bloomberg reported that Alwaleed first became tied to Musk’s business interests in 2022, when Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion and later renamed it X. Alwaleed rolled over his equity in that deal alongside investors including Larry Ellison and Andreessen Horowitz, according to Bloomberg.
Gulf investors expand AI and space bets
The SpaceX listing also affects other Saudi investors, Bloomberg reported. Saudi Arabia’s $1 trillion Public Investment Fund owns a stake in Kingdom Holding, and the country has made artificial intelligence a key part of its plan to reduce its dependence on oil, according to Bloomberg.
Humain, an AI company backed by the Public Investment Fund, invested $3 billion in Musk’s xAI this year as part of a $20 billion funding round, Bloomberg reported. Humain said at the time that the deal gave it a significant minority stake in xAI and that the holding would convert into SpaceX shares, according to Bloomberg.
Other Gulf investors have also built positions in AI companies, Bloomberg reported. Abu Dhabi’s MGX holds stakes in Anthropic, OpenAI and xAI, while Qatar has invested in Anthropic and xAI, according to Bloomberg.
Some regional investors placed bets on space and advanced technology before the recent AI boom, Bloomberg reported. Abu Dhabi’s IHC invested in SpaceX in 2020, and Aabar bought into Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic in 2009, according to Bloomberg.
This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.