SpaceX opened for public trading on Friday at $150 per share under the ticker SPCX, quickly surging above $160 and pushing its market capitalization beyond $2 trillion in one of the most anticipated and largest initial public offerings in history.
The debut not only shattered records but also cemented Elon Musk’s status as the world’s first trillionaire, with his combined stakes in SpaceX and Tesla pushing his net worth above $1.1 trillion according to Reuters calculations based on company filings.
Musk and SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell symbolically rang the opening bell, Musk from Texas and Shotwell from the Nasdaq in New York, marking a watershed moment for a company founded in 2002 with little more than ambition.
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The IPO earlier raised a record $75 billion at an initial $1.75 trillion valuation, with strong early demand reflecting investor enthusiasm for Musk’s vision of multiplanetary expansion intertwined with artificial intelligence infrastructure.
The Reuters calculations based on company filings show Musk’s holdings in SpaceX alone are worth approximately $866 billion. Combined with his interests in Tesla and other ventures, his net worth is projected to exceed $1.1 trillion following the public debut, making him the first person to cross the trillion-dollar threshold.
“The second richest person has been hovering around $300 billion, so about less than one-third of what Musk can potentially be worth tomorrow,” said Forbes Wealth deputy editor Matt Durot.
“And only one other person, (Oracle founder) Larry Ellison, has ever been worth $400 billion.”
While the milestone illustrates the extraordinary concentration of wealth created by the AI and technology boom, it also highlights investor confidence in Musk’s ability to identify and dominate emerging industries.
Unlike traditional aerospace companies, SpaceX is being valued not only on its launch business but on a broad portfolio spanning satellite communications, artificial intelligence, cloud infrastructure, and future space-based computing systems.
Ahead of the listing, Musk used a JPMorgan livestream to outline the company’s next phase of expansion.
He revealed that SpaceX has been cash-flow positive since approximately 2015 and said the decision to go public was driven by the need to finance an ambitious new growth cycle.
“We wanted to raise capital for a significant growth phase,” Musk said.
Among the company’s priorities are plans to deploy more than 100,000 satellites in orbit, dramatically expanding its Starlink communications network while building artificial intelligence data centers in space. Those projects form part of a broader strategy to position SpaceX as a central player in both the AI economy and future space infrastructure.
The company’s ambitions extend far beyond rockets.
While SpaceX was originally founded as a reusable launch company, its most profitable operation today is the Starlink satellite internet business, which has become a major source of recurring revenue and global connectivity.
The company’s transformation accelerated earlier this year when SpaceX acquired Musk’s AI venture, xAI. The transaction folded xAI’s assets into SpaceX, including its data centers, Grok AI models, the Grok chatbot platform, and the social media network X, formerly known as Twitter. The integration effectively created a combined aerospace, communications, and artificial intelligence conglomerate, giving investors exposure to several of the fastest-growing segments of the technology sector through a single company.
The listing also represents a significant shift in how investors value long-term technology platforms. According to SpaceX’s prospectus, the company has accumulated a total deficit of $41.3 billion since its founding. Yet investors have largely looked beyond historical losses and focused instead on future opportunities in satellite communications, AI infrastructure, defense technology, and commercial space services.
Shotwell, the operational architect behind Musk’s grand strategies, told CNBC just before the roadshow that the decision felt right now, despite earlier uncertainty.
“I wasn’t sure we would go public. It actually feels like the right time now,” she said.
She emphasized that staying private had allowed the company to pursue long-horizon goals without quarterly pressure. With roughly 22,000 full-time employees, Shotwell oversees everything from rocket production to Starlink scaling and the recent integration of xAI.
“Elon jokes that we make the impossible, we just make it late,” she said. “Look at our track record. We do really difficult things. We do bring them to product level.”
That track record has helped drive demand levels rarely seen in public markets. The offering attracted overwhelming interest from institutional and retail investors alike, bolstering a belief that SpaceX could become one of the dominant infrastructure providers of the AI era.
The company’s debut is also expected to influence a wave of forthcoming technology listings. Market participants are closely watching the performance of SpaceX ahead of anticipated IPOs from frontier AI firms, including OpenAI and Anthropic. A strong performance could strengthen confidence in the market’s ability to absorb mega-cap technology offerings, while validating the extraordinary valuations currently being assigned to leading AI companies.
Beyond the numbers, however, the IPO highlights the unique position Musk occupies in business and popular culture. Few corporate leaders have become as influential or as polarizing.
From reusable rockets that slashed launch costs to Starlink’s global connectivity and now orbital data centers, SpaceX has repeatedly turned “impossible” into operational reality, albeit often later than initially promised. Supporters view his willingness to pursue audacious goals as evidence of visionary leadership.