Catenaa, Saturday, June 13, 2026- SpaceX stock gave a return of 19% on its first day on the stock market in one of the world’s most-valuable public companies.
Yet the record-breaking $75 billion offering also accomplished something else: It allowed for a sigh of relief, not only for backers of Musk’s company but for an entire stock market that has been driven higher this year on optimism about the growth potential for artificial intelligence.
SpaceX’s embrace of AI with the acquisition of Musk’s xAI in February made the listing somewhat of a referendum on the current leadership of the market as well as the IPO prospects of competitors Anthropic PBC and OpenAI, both of which plan to go public as soon as this year.
The shares jumped as much as 31% above their $135 offering price, before closing up 19% at $160.95. That left the company’s market capitalization at $2.2 trillion, meaning it ended its first day on the stock market as the sixth-highest valued public company in the world.
There was a long list of skeptics when it came to Musk’s grandiose ambitions and whether they’d lead to a monumental day like this for the company.
Among them, surprisingly, was Musk himself.
“It is certainly hard to believe that little company that started in a warehouse in El Segundo is now going public with the largest IPO ever,” Musk said in a livestream on Friday morning on X, the former Twitter that is now part of SpaceX. “If people had told me this was going to happen, I was like, man you must be smoking some really good crack, because I think this company is going to fail.”
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen and Musk’s mother Maye waded through the crowds of paparazzi, police and onlookers to make it inside the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York’s Times Square for the stock’s debut.
Musk himself remained behind at the company’s headquarters in Starbase, Texas, where he rang the exchange’s opening bell remotely.
Many of his employees had other business to attend to: SpaceX launched 29 of its Starlink satellites into orbit on its Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, about an hour before US stock markets opened.
The IPO drew more than $350 billion in demand from institutions and retail investors, Bloomberg News reported. Among the firms that placed orders, close to one-third of them didn’t receive any stock, the report said.
Retail traders delivered more than $100 billion of demand, Bloomberg News reported, the majority of which wasn’t met since the group received about $15 billion in stock.
Despite all the enthusiasm for the listing, many investors remain skeptical that a company that has yet to turn a profit deserves such a hefty valuation.
Meanwhile, Musk’s newly minted trillionaire status also prompted calls from Democratic lawmakers including Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and California Representative Ro Khanna for a wealth tax on the richest Americans.
For the hordes of small-time investors among Musk’s fanbase, however, there was reason to celebrate, and trade.
SpaceX was the most bought stock by retail investors on Friday, according to a preliminary assessment by Vanda Research Ltd., with net purchases running at more than 3.5 times that of second place Nvidia.
