SpaceX raises $75 billion in IPO, valuation nears $1.8 trillion

SpaceX’s long-awaited public debut is already reshaping the market and creating a new wave of winners across venture capital, startups, and the broader space industry. The company priced its IPO at $135 a share, raised $75 billion, and began trading on Nasdaq with an opening print of $150, briefly valuing it at about $1.8 trillion and making Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire on paper, according to Bloomberg and TechCrunch.

The IPO is a milestone not just for Musk, but for the wider ecosystem around SpaceX. Bloomberg reported that Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz are poised for record-breaking returns from their early bets on the company, a reminder of how a small number of investors can reap enormous gains when a private company finally goes public. The scale of the listing also reflects huge demand: Bloomberg said the deal drew more than $350 billion in orders from institutions and retail investors, far more than the stock available to buy.

That excitement has rippled through the space sector. Bloomberg reported that rival space stocks sold off as investors rushed toward Musk’s company, while other coverage noted that space-linked names were rising and falling on the force of what one outlet called IPO fever. The debut has also drawn traders around the world, from London to Sydney, underscoring how closely watched the offering has become across markets.

For many investors, however, the opportunity may be less straightforward than the headlines suggest. TechCrunch reported that lower-tier special purpose vehicle, or SPV, investors may not know their true holdings until lock-up periods expire, and that they could face hidden fees, delays, and even fraud risks. Wired likewise warned that even with an unusually large retail allocation, most individual buyers are still likely to get only a small slice of the offering.

The public listing also brings fresh scrutiny of Musk’s control over the company. Wired described the debut as a test of his “extreme” ownership model, noting that SpaceX has operated this way from the start and that the structure may now face a broader audience of shareholders. Musk himself addressed employees during the company’s market debut and said he had once given SpaceX less than a 10% chance of success, according to Bloomberg.

The bigger story may be what happens next for the so-called SpaceX mafia — the alumni and early employees now founding startups of their own. Fast Company says the company’s public listing is likely to accelerate that trend, as former SpaceX insiders bring the same playbook to new ventures: ambitious engineering, tight execution, and a willingness to tackle problems that others see as too difficult. In that sense, SpaceX’s IPO is not only a liquidity event for early backers and employees, but also a signal that its influence is spreading into the next generation of aerospace and deep-tech startups.