Space X is now public | The Verge
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The world’s richest man just took his rocket company public in the world’s biggest IPO.
The world’s richest man just took his rocket company public in the world’s biggest IPO.
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In one of the most highly anticipated and controversial public offerings of all time, the rocket venture helmed by Elon Musk started trading on Nasdaq on June 12th at the take-it-or-leave-it price of $135-per-share — though most retail investors will likely pay far more.
The IPO is historic for many reasons: Space X is hoping to raise $75 billion under the ticker symbol SPCX, which would make it the largest public offering in history. The company is controlled by Musk, who also runs Tesla, another trillion-dollar company. The IPO is expected to make Musk, who is set to control 85 percent of the voting shares, the world’s first trillionaire. But retail investors may struggle to buy into this vision, as Bloomberg recently reported that the IPO has attracted demand for more than four times the available shares.
The amount is a reflection of the exuberance around Space X’s mission. The company handles roughly 82 percent of all US space launches and commands nearly half of the global commercial space market. Starlink, its satellite internet business, is a high-margin cash cow, having crossed 10 million subscribers globally earlier this year.
Elon Musk is steamrolling Wall Street to become a trillionaire
The Space X IPO is great for Elon Musk and terrible for you
The Space X IPO is a trillion-dollar gamble on the future of space
Space X was valued at $1.25 trillion earlier this year after merging with x AI, Musk’s AI company that also owns X.com, formerly Twitter. The tie-up means investors will be buying in at a historically high price — but Musk combined the companies at great cost to himself and also Space X.
The groundwork was set in May, when Space X formally filed its S-1 prospectus with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. In it, the company laid out its plans for future rocket launches, a permanent human colony on Mars, and orbital data centers to power its AI capabilities. In typical Musk fashion, most of these plans remain wildly out of reach.
The S-1 also detailed all the ways in which Musk enriches himself through self-dealing. Tesla owns nearly 19 million shares of Space X’s Class A common stock, which is less than 1 percent of the total outstanding stock. Tesla’s stake in x AI was converted to Space X shares after Elon Musk merged his AI company with his space company in February. Space X buys Cybertrucks and Megapacks from Tesla, and leases office space to the Boring Company. The S-1 also lists Musk himself as a risk factor, noting that his other companies may compete against Space X for valuable supplies.
Space X is also wildly unprofitable. It lost roughly
Even if you don’t buy the stock directly, you might end up owning it soon anyway. As our own Liz Lopatto recently explained, Nasdaq changed its rules to allow massive companies to enter the Nasdaq 100 index after just 15 trading days instead of waiting for the annual December shuffle. This means popular ETFs will likely be forced to buy billions of dollars of Space X stock shortly after launch.
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