SpaceX IPO: 555.6M shares at $135, $75B raise, Musk trillionaire

SpaceX priced 555.6 million shares at $135 each to raise $75 billion, completing the largest IPO in history and pushing Elon Musk’s paper wealth past $1 trillion.

Day one: the market reaction

SpaceX debuted on Nasdaq on June 12. Shares opened at $150, rose sharply in early trading — at 2:30 p.m. ET the stock was up more than 15% to $186.15 — and closed the day at $160.95, a 19% gain from the offering price. Trading volume was heavy. Robinhood said it saw "record-breaking traffic on its trading platform" in the hours after SpaceX’s debut.

Investment banks that underwrote the deal have already collected substantial fees. The banks have brought in about $500 million in total fees, with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley singled out as major beneficiaries, per the Wall Street Journal. Company insiders even highlighted the "green shoe option" by wearing green shoes in publicity photos, a reference to that underwriting provision which lets underwriters sell up to 15% more shares if demand is strong.

SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell drew extra attention in a CNBC interview when she noted that a "merger between SpaceX and Tesla might make Elon’s life a little easier," a remark that could reverberate among shareholders of both companies.

What the S-1 and pre-IPO deals show

The S-1 gave public markets an unusually detailed look inside SpaceX. The filing shows the company lost $4.9 billion on revenues of over $18 billion in 2025, and it disclosed cumulative losses of more than $37 billion since inception.

Voting control sits tightly with Elon Musk: the S-1 states he holds about 85.1% of the company’s voting power. Other coverage in the filing context notes he will have more than 50% of voting power in the publicly traded structure, a level the coverage says gives him outsized control compared with many founders.

The S-1 also highlighted SpaceX’s mixes of businesses: Starlink satellite internet dominates the narrative, while the filing and related coverage flagged the company’s AI ambitions through xAI and its Starship program, the latter described as having a murky path to reusability.

In the run-up to the IPO SpaceX locked in large compute deals. Initial coverage on May 20 noted Anthropic will pay xAI $1.25 billion per month for compute. The filing and reporting also cite a deal with Google, which will pay SpaceX $920 million per month for compute, described as a short-term arrangement to handle unexpected demand. Those agreements were presented as part of the company’s effort to bolster its balance sheet before the offering.

The IPO will create concentrated winners and losers. The offering is expected to make about 4,400 SpaceX employees millionaires, according to the New York Times. At the same time, lower-tier SPV investors face delayed payouts and hidden fees and "won’t know their true holdings until post-IPO lock-ups lift," a structural detail flagged ahead of public trading.

Why it matters

The size and structure of the offering recast both corporate control and Silicon Valley wealth. The $75 billion raise and the voting structure cement Elon Musk’s dominant role while shifting a private, entrepreneurial program into public-market scrutiny. The S-1’s large reported losses alongside high revenues expose a capital-intensive business model that still relies on large contracts and partnerships to support its near-term cash position.

The deals with Anthropic and Google show SpaceX monetizing unique compute and bandwidth assets, turning Starlink and related infrastructure into revenue drivers beyond satellite internet. That revenue mix matters to investors assessing whether the company can narrow its multibillion-dollar losses.

What to watch

Monitor post-IPO lock-up expirations to see SPV investor holdings and any secondary-market pressure when restrictions lift. Track Starship test flights and reusability signals from future filings and regulatory updates, and watch trading volume and price action in the weeks following the Nasdaq debut for signs of sustained demand or volatility.