Musk becomes world’s first billionaire as SpaceX shares soar

Shares of Elon Musk’s SpaceX closed up nearly 20% in their trading debut Friday after the largest IPO in history, making the polarizing entrepreneur the world’s first billionaire as he promised to take humanity to Mars.

The blockbuster IPO, which raised more than $75 billion, is expected to kick off a string of major AI company IPOs in the coming months.

The debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York ended weeks of investor frenzy over the rocket company turned AI and satellite conglomerate.

The stock rose as high as $176, or 31 percent above its offering price of $135, in its first session before ending the day at $161.50.

“SpaceX wants to be able to take you to the Moon, to Mars and ultimately beyond,” Musk said at a launch event at Starbase, Texas, surrounded by his staff, many of whom became multimillionaires with the trading launch.

“I am confident at this point that with the incredible team we have here at SpaceX, we will do this for you,” Musk added.

About 100 people gathered outside Nasdaq headquarters in New York, where SpaceX also marked the occasion with a neon sign in Times Square.

Musk “is setting very futuristic goals that no one else is doing, and I think that has excited a lot of people,” said Sarin Sio of the financial company Dovetail, who came to Nasdaq headquarters.

The company valued more than 555 million shares at $135 each in a filing Thursday with the U.S. securities regulator, valuing SpaceX at just under $1.8 trillion.

Friday’s gain lifted SpaceX’s market value to more than $2 trillion, placing it among the 10 most valuable U.S. companies, ahead of Tesla, Facebook owner Meta and Walmart.

Options on nearly 83 million additional shares could bring the total raised above $86 billion.

Co-founded by Musk in 2002, the rocket startup has since become a major satellite operator and has also become part of Musk’s artificial intelligence company – xAI – which includes the X social media platform.

Trading under the symbol “SPCX,” the conglomerate is being closely watched for how Wall Street is absorbing supply and what that will mean for AI rivals looking to trade on public markets as soon as this year.

Both OpenAI and Anthropic recently filed initial documents with regulators.

Friday’s IPO comes just over a year after Musk left President Donald Trump’s administration, having spent months leading the highly controversial “DOGE” effort to cut government spending – while simultaneously juggling his CEO roles at Tesla and SpaceX.

Musk’s support for Trump and right-wing populists in Europe – as well as a long list of incendiary comments about X – have seen the entrepreneur go from widely admired wunderkind to deeply polarizing figure.

The record-breaking IPO nevertheless speaks to Musk’s continued support among investors, with Bloomberg reporting that the offering was oversubscribed more than four times.

Demand among retail investors – for whom 20 percent of the shares were reserved – would also be high.

New billionaires

The IPO is expected to attract thousands of new millionaires and several billionaires, with former and current employees – as well as a long list of investors – from the company’s nearly quarter-century history looking to profit.

The valuation largely depends on Musk fulfilling science fiction promises, including putting data centers in space and humans on Mars using as-yet-unproven technology.

Much also depends on the considerable expansion of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service as well as the success of xAI, the maker of the Grok chatbot and Musk’s rival from OpenAI and Anthropic, which has yet to gain traction.

In a bid to shore up its books, SpaceX is leasing its AI computing capacity to Anthropic and Google in short-term deals worth billions of dollars.

While SpaceX is growing rapidly (revenues hit $18.7 billion in 2025), the company is also losing money, generating a net loss of $4.9 billion, mostly on spending to boost AI capabilities.

In an extraordinary forecast, SpaceX’s filing claims it can generate more than $28.5 trillion in revenue across its various markets.

The milestone makes Musk by far the richest person in the world – a feat that has drawn criticism from some quarters.

“The world will have its first billionaire as Americans across the country scrape together every dollar to save for retirement,” Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren said.

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