SpaceX raises $75 billion in largest IPO ever, making Elon Musk world's first trillionaire

The mega IPO

SpaceX priced its initial public offering at $135 per share on Thursday, raising $75 billion at a valuation of $1.77 trillion, the largest amount ever raised in an IPO. The deal exceeded the previous record of Saudi Aramco's $25.6 billion offering in 2019 and ranks SpaceX as the seventh-most-valuable U.S. listed company. The offering sold 555.56 million shares, with a 30% allocation to retail investors, an unusually high share.

The pricing meeting with bankers concluded at 3 p.m. EDT, and the price was communicated immediately to the market while U.S. exchanges were still open, a break from the tradition of announcing after the close. A press release followed half an hour later. Major banks including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, which underwrote the offering, were given precise instructions on order sizes and investor types without being told their pay, according to sources.

Musk's control and investor caution

Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX in 2002, retains more than 80% voting control through a multi-class share structure, ensuring his dominance over the company after the listing. Pre-IPO investors described a process where Musk personally approved allocations, sometimes after interviews, and provided limited financial information.

When we invested, it was straight up: Elon controls everything, and you're not going to know anything unless you put in $250 (million).

The company's financials draw caution. In 2025, SpaceX reported a net loss of $4.94 billion on revenue of $18.67 billion. In the first quarter of 2026, it lost $4.28 billion on revenue of $4.7 billion, with Starlink contributing $3.26 billion. Heavy investment in the Starship rocket, totalling over $15 billion, is expected to bring commercial flights in the second half of 2026, but the path to profitability remains distant.

Some analysts question the valuation. Aswath Damodaran, a valuation expert at NYU, criticized the IPO prospectus's reference to a future artificial intelligence market of more than $26 trillion.

When I read that number, I thought Musk's chatbot Grok had written the prospectus, because we know AI tends to hallucinate.

Global reverberations

China's commercial space sector watched the IPO as a benchmark. At least seven Chinese rocket and satellite firms, including LandSpace and CAS Space, are advancing IPO plans. Huang Yan, who invested in LandSpace in 2016, said the sector has a "technological moat and strategic value." But the gap remains wide: LandSpace reported first-half 2025 revenue of 36.4 million yuan ($5.2 million), while SpaceX's full-year revenue approached $19 billion. China has yet to launch a reusable rocket successfully; LandSpace's Zhuque-3 test in December failed a controlled landing.

Everything SpaceX does is a bellwether for China's space industry… I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a strong uptick in Chinese commercial-space listings and funding.

In the U.S., investment officials from New York, Illinois, Maryland, and Oregon pressed Nasdaq and FTSE Russell to pause rule changes that fast-track SpaceX into indexes, warning that passive funds may be forced to buy at elevated prices without adequate impact analysis. A letter to FTSE Russell urged the board to reconsider changes so as "not place the interests of listing companies and their underwriters ahead of the interests of the passive fund assets that will bear the cost of any resulting mispricing."

The first trillionaire

Musk's stake in SpaceX, worth about $866 billion at the IPO price, lifted his net worth above $1.1 trillion, making him the world's first trillionaire, according to Forbes and Reuters calculations. Matt Durot, deputy editor at Forbes Wealth, noted that the second-richest person was around $300 billion, less than one-third of Musk's fortune. Musk's wealth had already reached roughly $780 billion before the offering.

The IPO cements Musk's status as a polarizing figure. He has interjected in British politics by amplifying extreme critics of immigration policy before unrest. His political role in President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency last year drew protests and boycotts that weighed on Tesla sales in 2025. With SpaceX's debut, investors continue to bet on his vision despite the risks.