SpaceX’s stock market debut has rapidly morphed from a closely watched tech listing into a test of how much power and wealth public markets are willing to concentrate in a single company and its controversial founder.

On June 11, SpaceX and its bankers confirmed they had priced 555.6 million shares at $135 each, raising $75 billion and officially creating “the largest IPO in history,” eclipsing Saudi Aramco’s 2019 debut.¹ The Financial Times framed it as “Elon Musk’s SpaceX raises $75bn in world’s biggest IPO,” driven by blockbuster demand for the rockets‑to‑AI conglomerate.²

Trading began on Nasdaq on June 12 under the ticker SPCX, opening at $150 — an 11% “pop” — and briefly spiking as high as $167.³ By the close, the shares were up about 19%, valuing SpaceX near $2.1 trillion and making Musk “the world’s first trillionaire,” according to The Economist’s market wrap.⁴ TechCrunch likewise reported that the IPO “turn[ed] Musk into the world’s first trillionaire.”⁵

Wall Street banks hailed the execution. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley celebrated their roles, with Goldman calling SpaceX “the largest IPO ever” in modern markets.⁶ Behind the scenes, Axios reported that SpaceX and Goldman had been educating investors since January, using a “take it or leave it” $135 price and a constant drumbeat of AI and compute deals — a playbook other AI giants like Anthropic and OpenAI are now expected to copy.⁷

Investors responded with fervor: one analyst cited “more than $70 BILLION worth of retail orders alone,” nearly enough to fill the whole sale.Elon Musk (elonmusk)⁸ Robinhood said it saw “record-breaking” traffic as retail traders piled in, even causing brief outages.⁹

Within days, SpaceX’s rally continued. The company’s valuation ballooned past $2.6–2.7 trillion, briefly leapfrogging Amazon to become the world’s fifth‑most valuable company, despite posting a $4.9 billion loss on $18.7 billion in revenue last year.¹⁰¹¹

Commentators are split on what this means. The Financial Times described the IPO as “a display of Musk’s dominance,” turning his grip on the public imagination “into Wall Street gold,” even as bankers asked investors to overlook “steep losses” and buy into a “sci‑fi strategy.”¹²¹³ TechCrunch warned that SpaceX is “sucking up just a huge chunk of the money that’s available on public markets” and “stress testing the limits of what a public company can be and how much it can be controlled by one single person.”¹⁴

Others focus on inequality. The Verge tried to quantify Musk’s new status, arguing “a trillion dollars is a stupid amount of money” whose scale is “colossal” and hard to fathom.¹⁵ TechCrunch noted that Musk’s rise to trillionaire status comes as he is “more disliked and more powerful than ever,” citing his political interventions and overwhelming 80%‑plus voting control at SpaceX.¹⁶

Yet among employees and allies, the story is cast as shared upside and renewed optimism. TechCrunch highlighted that some 4,400 workers could become millionaires through stock grants and options.⁵ One viral anecdote described a welder who accumulated company shares over a decade and “has just become a millionaire,” a story Musk amplified on X.Elon Musk (elonmusk)¹⁷ Another tweet he boosted claimed the IPO would “create 4,400 new Millionaires, from engineers to Cafeteria workers. God bless Capitalism.”Elon Musk (elonmusk)¹⁸

Supporters in finance and tech argued Musk had “created enormous value for society” by driving down launch costs and building a global satellite network, calling the outcome “the American Dream.”Elon Musk (elonmusk)¹⁹Elon Musk (elonmusk)²⁰ One admirer said the IPO’s message was not profit but “hope… the once‑inspiring future that excited us when we were young.”Elon Musk (elonmusk)²¹

As SpaceX’s stock continues to swing and its valuation races ahead of its earnings, the IPO has become a symbol of 2026’s “hot IPO summer” for AI and deep‑tech firms — and a flashpoint in debates over speculative markets, extreme wealth, and the risks of tying trillions of dollars to one man’s vision.²²