SpaceX market debut makes Musk the first trillionaire
SpaceX began trading in the US after a $75bn share sale, putting the rocket and satellite company among the country’s most valuable firms.
By James Whitfield · Staff Writer
3 min read
SpaceX made its US market debut on Friday at a valuation near $2 trillion, a listing that Al Jazeera and Reuters said made Chief Executive Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire. The offering puts the rocket and satellite company on course to rank among the largest publicly traded companies in the United States.
Shares were set to open at $150, 6.6 percent above the initial public offering price, according to Al Jazeera and Reuters. At that level, SpaceX would be valued at $1.96 trillion and would be on track to become the sixth-largest US company by market value.
The company sold $75bn in shares before trading began, valuing SpaceX at $1.77 trillion at the IPO price, Al Jazeera and Reuters reported. Reuters said demand for the offering was four times higher than expected.
Bloomberg News reported that as much as 70 percent of the institutional allocation went to long-only investors and sovereign wealth funds. Those investors included funds from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, according to Bloomberg.
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen rang the opening bell at Nasdaq MarketSite in New York at 9:30am local time, Al Jazeera and Reuters reported. The stock did not start trading immediately as the exchange gathered buy and sell orders and underwriters held back the start until supply and demand were aligned.
Samuel Kerr, global head of equity capital markets at Mergermarket, told Reuters that he expected SpaceX shares to rise sharply at the start of trading because of attention around the deal. Kerr said a gain of more than 20 percent was possible and that a weaker move would concern him.
Al Jazeera and Reuters reported that exchanges and trading firms were trying to avoid the technical problems that affected Meta’s 2012 debut. Market watchers are also looking at the SpaceX listing for signs of demand before expected public offerings from AI companies Anthropic and OpenAI, according to the reports.
The listing places SpaceX among the world’s most valuable companies even though the firm lost nearly $5bn last year and brings in far less revenue than some technology companies with similar valuations, Al Jazeera and Reuters reported. The company’s recent growth has been driven by Starlink, its satellite internet business, which accounts for as much as 80 percent of revenue, according to Al Jazeera.
The IPO also drew protests. Al Jazeera and Reuters reported that demonstrators gathered outside Nasdaq MarketSite on Thursday over allegations that Grok, part of xAI, a SpaceX subsidiary, allowed users to create non-consensual sexualized deepfake images before the listing.
SpaceX also launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Friday, carrying 29 satellites into space, according to Al Jazeera and Reuters.
This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.