SpaceX Soars 19% in Market Debut, Musk Becomes First Trillionaire

SpaceX, Elon Musk's rocket company, surged 19% in its first day of trading on Friday, as investors piled into the stock, betting on its AI potential and its now-trillionaire CEO.

Details

The debut gave SpaceX a valuation of more than $2 trillion, placing it in elite company with Nvidia and Apple, and making it more valuable than Musk's Tesla. The landmark listing also made Musk the first trillionaire ever.

The IPO raised $75 billion, more than double the record set by Saudi Aramco in 2019.

Context

SpaceX's listing comes ahead of forthcoming IPOs for AI heavyweights Anthropic and OpenAI, which will further test market appetite for new entrants.

Despite posting a loss of nearly $5 billion last year and generating only a fraction of the revenue of similarly valued tech giants, retail investors snapped up shares of SpaceX.

What This Means for Investors

Analysts attribute the stock's surge to excitement around AI rather than SpaceX's fundamentals. Anna Rathbun, founder and CEO of Grenadilla Advisory, said: "I think it's not so much about SpaceX, but just the excitement about AI. SpaceX is an AI company at the end of the day. Whether or not it would be successful, we have to see."

SpaceX is expected to be fast-tracked into the Nasdaq 100, making it a major holding for passive funds and ETFs that track the index, creating a fresh source of demand for its shares.