SpaceX’s record-shattering IPO has catapulted the 24‑year‑old rocket-and-AI company into the ranks of the world’s most valuable corporations, while concentrating unprecedented wealth and power in founder Elon Musk.

On June 12, SpaceX priced 555.6 million shares at $135, raising $75 billion in the largest initial public offering in history.¹ The stock began trading on Nasdaq under ticker SPCX at $150, an 11% jump,² and quickly surged nearly 20% by the close, valuing the company at just over $2 trillion and making Musk the world’s first trillionaire on paper.³ Robinhood reported “record-breaking” traffic as retail investors piled in.⁴

As demand built ahead of the listing, Musk amplified posts noting that the IPO had drawn “more than $70 BILLION worth of retail orders alone,” nearly enough to fill the entire $75 billion sale,Elon Musk (elonmusk)⁵ and celebrated the $135 offer price as “go for launch.”Elon Musk (elonmusk)⁶ TechCrunch framed the deal as a watershed that could turn “4,400” employees into millionaires,⁷ while The Verge simply headlined: “Elon Musk is the world’s first trillionaire.”⁸

In the following days, investor enthusiasm only grew. SpaceX stock climbed again on June 14–16, with one TechCrunch package noting the IPO total ultimately “ballooning to $85.7 billion raised” and the valuation briefly passing Amazon at about $2.7 trillion as shares kept rising.⁹¹⁰ Another report described SpaceX “briefly passed Amazon to become the fifth-most valuable company in the world,” despite having posted a $4.9 billion loss on $18.7 billion in 2025 revenue.¹¹

Supporters see a triumph of capitalism and deep tech. One TechCrunch analysis said SpaceX is “sucking up just a huge chunk of the money that’s available on public markets” and inspiring a “hot IPO summer” for AI firms hoping to “ride that SpaceX IPO wave.”¹² Bankers behind the deal persuaded investors to buy into what the Financial Times called a “sci-fi strategy,” overlooking steep losses and granting Musk near-total control.¹³

Skeptics focus on risk and dominance. Ars Technica noted “broad disagreement” over whether SpaceX’s sky-high valuation is “fool’s gold,” stressing that most of its projected value lies not in rockets or Starlink but in speculative AI services from space.¹⁴ TechCrunch warned that Musk now holds more than 80% of the company’s voting power, can hand‑pick the board, and has structured SpaceX to sharply limit legal challenges, even as his political activism and role in dismantling U.S. aid programs have made him “more disliked and more powerful than ever.”³

For now, markets are betting that Musk’s combined space-and-AI empire can justify valuations once reserved for the largest terrestrial tech giants—and that the first trillionaire will keep delivering on promises as audacious as launching AI data centers into orbit.¹⁵