The $135 share price means Elon Musk’s
rocket maker is poised to exceed the 2019 initial public offering of Saudi
Aramco in both valuation and money raised.
·
SpaceX
has set its Initial Public Offering (IPO) price at $135 per share.
·
The
pricing values the company at $1.77
trillion, making it the largest IPO ever.
·
The
IPO is expected to raise $74.4
billion.
·
This
far exceeds the previous IPO fundraising record of over $29 billion set by
Saudi Aramco in 2019.
·
SpaceX's
valuation has increased by more than 40%
from its self-assessed valuation of $1.25
trillion in February 2026.
·
Unlike
most IPOs, SpaceX did not announce a preliminary price range.
·
The
company directly set a single offering price of $135 per share.
·
The
stock is expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol SPCX.
·
Analysts
view the offering as a major test for upcoming mega-IPOs.
·
Expected
future listings include:
o OpenAI
o Anthropic
·
Both
AI companies reportedly have valuations approaching $1 trillion.
·
Elon
Musk controls approximately 50% of SpaceX.
·
At the
IPO valuation, his stake would be worth more than $752 billion.
·
A
strong post-listing rally could potentially make him the world's first
trillionaire.
·
Founded
in 2002 by Elon Musk, SpaceX has:
o Revolutionized reusable rocket technology.
o Developed the Starlink satellite internet
network.
o Become a major contractor for NASA and
U.S. government agencies.
·
In
February 2026, SpaceX acquired Musk's AI company, xAI.
·
The
deal also brought social media platform X into the SpaceX corporate structure.
·
According
to its IPO filings:
o Revenue reached $18.7 billion in 2025,
up 33%.
o The company reported a $4.9 billion loss due
largely to increased AI-related investments.
o It had posted a $791 million profit in
2024.
·
Funds
raised will support ambitious projects including:
o Orbital AI data centers.
o Lunar manufacturing facilities.
o Human missions to Mars.
·
Musk
controls more than 85% of
shareholder voting power through super-voting shares.
·
This
gives him significant influence over corporate decisions despite owning about
half the economic stake.
·
Market
analysts believe trillion-dollar IPOs may become more common.
·
The
anticipated public offerings of OpenAI and Anthropic could challenge or surpass
SpaceX's record in the future.
SpaceX's
planned IPO at a $1.77 trillion valuation marks a historic milestone for global
capital markets. The offering highlights investor enthusiasm for advanced
technology, artificial intelligence, and space-related businesses while
significantly increasing Elon Musk's wealth and influence. If successful, the
IPO could usher in a new generation of trillion-dollar public companies led by
AI and technology firms.
[ABS News Service/05.06.2026]
SpaceX,
Elon Musk’s rocket maker and artificial intelligence company, set a price for
its initial public offering on Wednesday of $135 a share, which would value it
at $1.77 trillion and crown it the largest I.P.O. ever.
At
that price, SpaceX would raise $74.4 billion from the offering, and its
valuation would be more than 40 percent higher than the $1.25 trillion that it
valued itself at in February. The current I.P.O. record is held by Saudi
Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, which was valued at $1.7
trillion and raised more than $29 billion when it went public in 2019.
Most
companies that go public set a preliminary price range for their stock offering
before settling on a final number in case investor demand for their shares changes. But Mr. Musk and SpaceX sidestepped that and
simply declared one price for investors. SpaceX could still change that price
but is not expected to do so. It is likely to begin trading on the Nasdaq next
week under the ticker symbol SPCX.
At
$74.4 billion raised, SpaceX’s I.P.O. would be just about “more than every U.S.
I.P.O. combined in the last two years,” said Matthew Kennedy, a senior I.P.O.
market strategist at Renaissance Capital.
A
SpaceX spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
SpaceX’s
I.P.O. is a bellwether for other expected offerings that are set to be
enormous, including from OpenAI and Anthropic, the artificial intelligence
companies. Anthropic confidentially filed to go public on Monday, and OpenAI is
expected to file in the coming weeks. Both start-ups have valuations
approaching $1 trillion. The three offerings could unleash an avalanche of
wealth across Silicon Valley and Wall Street, creating new corporate titans in
the process.
Among
the biggest winners would be Mr. Musk, 54, who is already the world’s richest
man. At $135 a share, the roughly 50 percent stake in SpaceX that he controls
would be worth just over $752 billion. (Mr. Musk cannot sell some of the SpaceX
shares he controls until the company hits various operational milestones,
according to the firm’s filings.)
A
large increase in the company’s share price in its first days of trading could
turn Mr. Musk into the world’s first trillionaire.
Mr.
Musk, who founded SpaceX in 2002, has remade the space race with partly
reusable rockets and transformed communication with the company’s satellite
internet service, Starlink. In February, SpaceX bought his A.I. company, xAI, which owned his social media platform, X, creating a
conglomerate of the tech billionaire’s various interests. Mr. Musk separately
runs the electric carmaker Tesla, as well as other companies.
He
has used SpaceX as a kind of piggy bank over the last two decades, securing
loans from the company to himself and relying on the firm to shore up several
troubled businesses in his orbit. That was enabled partly because of Mr. Musk’s
iron grip on SpaceX. He controls more than 85 percent of its shareholder votes
because of a class of super-voting shares, according to the company’s filings.
SpaceX,
which has contracts with NASA and other federal agencies, had long been
something of a financial mystery. Last month, the company revealed a full
picture of its financial health for the first time in an I.P.O. prospectus. The
company reported that it had lost more than $4.9 billion last year, compared
with a $791 million profit in 2024 because of increased expenditures on A.I.
Revenue was $18.7 billion last year, up 33 percent from the previous year.
The
company plans to use the money it raises from its I.P.O. to fund various
moonshots, including Mr. Musk’s goals of putting A.I. data centers
into orbit, building a lunar factory and eventually sending humans to Mars.
(The
New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023, claiming copyright
infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have
denied those claims.)
Nicolas
Owens, an equity researcher with the investment research firm Morningstar, said
that while SpaceX’s I.P.O. was enormous, he would not be surprised if “the
records are broken more than once.” Companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have
become larger than ever before going public.
“A trillion-dollar market capitalization for a
company going public used to be unheard-of,” he said, using a term to describe
a company’s valuation. “Now it seems normal.”