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The Biggest IPO in History: SpaceX Hits Wall Street
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is making its highly anticipated debut on Wall Street this Friday. In what is set to become the largest Initial Public Offering (IPO) in history, both institutional and retail investors are preparing to snap up 555.6 million shares priced at $135 each, raising a staggering $75 billion.
This historic financial move could officially propel Musk—already the world’s wealthiest individual—into becoming the globe's first trillionaire.
Why SpaceX is Going Public Now
While advisors have urged Musk to take SpaceX public for over a decade, two massive, capital-intensive projects finally triggered the decision:
Next-Gen Starlink Expansion: The company aims to deploy 100,000 next-generation Starlink satellites into orbit.
Space-Based AI Data Centers: Standardizing AI infrastructure in orbit represents what Musk calls a "massive new growth base."
"Deploying AI data centers in space is a massive new growth base and you need capital for that." — Elon Musk
The Trade-Off: Capital vs. Scrutiny
While going public opens the floodgates to required capital, it exposes SpaceX to intense regulatory and shareholder oversight, including mandatory quarterly financial reporting. Critics argue this fosters short-term thinking over long-term goals. However, securities regulators are currently reviewing a proposal that could scale public financial reporting back to just twice a year.
The "Musk Risk" and Governance Controversy
SpaceX's corporate structure is raising eyebrows among major institutional investors due to the absolute control handed to its founder.
Absolute Control
Musk will hold the vast majority of Class B "super voting" shares, effectively granting him total authority over company strategy, finances, and hiring. Under this structure, the only person with the power to fire Elon Musk is Musk himself.
The Key-Man Risk
The IPO prospectus openly acknowledges how heavily reliant the company is on its founder, noting that losing Musk could severely disrupt operations, damage customer relationships, and hurt its reputation. Finding a replacement is deemed "nearly impossible."
Investor Pushback
Major pension funds representing teachers, firefighters, and public workers in California and New York have formally protested the IPO structure. Their main grievances include:
The lopsided power of the Class B super-voting shares.
Mandatory arbitration clauses that prevent shareholders from filing lawsuits.
Because these pension funds hold index-tracking funds, they will automatically become owners of SpaceX stock regardless of their ethical or governance concerns.
Make or Break: Tech, Starship, and xAI
SpaceX's ultimate financial success hinges on two core components:
| Component | Opportunity / Risk |
| The Starship Rocket | The Key to Scalability: Commercial success relies on the fully reusable Starship rocket achieving quick turnarounds between flights. If Starship development stalls, deploying satellites and space data centers will become prohibitively expensive, risking customer defection. |
| xAI Integration | The $22.7 Trillion Play: Earlier this year, Musk's xAI merged with SpaceX. The prospectus identifies business-oriented AI products as SpaceX's largest potential market. However, the filing currently shows no clear path to profitability for the xAI division as it faces fierce competition from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Microsoft. |
Wall Street Integration: The Index Race
The massive scale of SpaceX means it will heavily disrupt major stock indexes, forcing passive funds to buy billions of dollars in shares.
Nasdaq 100 (The Fast Track)
Thanks to a recent rule change, Nasdaq allows select mega-IPOs to enter the Nasdaq 100 index after just 15 trading days. This fast-track means popular passive funds like the $460 billion QQQ ETF will be forced to automatically purchase SpaceX stock almost immediately.
S&P 500 (The Traditional Route)
In contrast, S&P Dow Jones Indices is sticking to its strict, traditional guidelines. SpaceX will be forced to trade for a full 12 months before it can qualify for the S&P 500. Admission into this index is the ultimate prize, as massive benchmark funds (like Vanguard’s $950 billion VOO) will eventually be required to absorb the stock.
Elon Musk is all about big numbers — millions, billions, even trillions – and there are plenty of them associated with SpaceX and Musk’s plans to take the rocket maker public.
The prospectus for the SpaceX stock debut shows spending at a massive scale — greater than the economic output of some countries — and about to grow much larger as Musk races to make good on his promise to hurl people to distant planets. Money to be raised in the initial public offering — estimated at $75 billion — will help finance those futuristic, fantastical plans.
Assuming the IPO goes off without a hitch, it will rank as the largest ever. It also could make Musk, a major SpaceX owner and already the world’s richest man, the first trillionaire.
Aside from the eye-popping numbers, the prospectus in part reads like a script for a Hollywood sci-fi movie as Musk details how he hopes to use his rockets to save the human race from extinction by making it an interplanetary species.
First, Musk will send people to the moon to establish a base. Eventually he hopes to colonize Mars.
A look at the lofty numbers behind Musk’s outsized ambitions.
$1.77 trillion
This would be SpaceX’s market value if the shares it’s selling to the public trade at the offering price of $135 each. With the amount of interest SpaceX is drawing among investors, the price could easily go higher on Day One. NVIDIA, a maker of computer chips, is now the world’s most valuable public company at around $4.9 trillion. A value of $1.77 trillion would put SpaceX equal with Broadcom at No. 6 on the most valuable list, based on Wednesday's close of trading.
$794.6 billion
Elon Musk’s net worth as of the close of trading on June 11, according to Forbes. Depending on how much the SpaceX IPO boosts the value of Musk’s stake in the company, he could become the first-ever trillionaire. The combined net worth of billionaires two through five on the Forbes list - Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison - is $1.04 trillion.
$75 billion
The proceeds SpaceX will reap from selling 555,555,555 shares at $135 each in the IPO, more than double the previous record IPO haul of $26 billion by the Saudi oil giant Aramco back in 2019.
100,000
That’s the number of next-generation Starlink satellites Musk says SpaceX aims to put into orbit. Starlink currently has about 9,600 satellites in space. By comparison, UPS says it has 135,000 delivery vehicles — including motorcycles — in its fleet.
82.4%
The voting power Musk will hold at SpaceX by virtue of his owning more than 90% of the company’s Class B shares, which give the holder 10 votes for every share held. He also owns a 12.3% stake in the Class A shares, which carry one vote apiece.
At least 1 million
That’s how many inhabitants Musk needs to have living in a colony on Mars for him to receive a part of his SpaceX compensation package. There are no current capabilities of transporting one person to Mars, let alone 1 million. Global cities with populations of around 1 million include Ottawa, Prague and San Jose, California.
$20.7 billion
How much the company spent in 2025 for all its units, which include rockets, satellites and artificial intelligence technology. The bulk of the spending, at just under $11.4 billion, came from its connectivity unit that includes its Starlink satellites. By comparison, NASA’s budget for 2026 is $24.4 billion.
$131 million
That’s how much SpaceX spent in 2025 on Cybertrucks from Musk’s other public company, Tesla. The base model of a Cybertruck costs $69,990. At that price $131 million gets the buyer 1,871 vehicles. Musk’s businesses often interact, which has raised speculation that Tesla and SpaceX could eventually merge.
30%
The estimated amount of shares being sold in the IPO to smaller-pocketed investors, also known as retail investors. Typically, only about 5% to 10% of the IPO shares go to such investors.
🚨 The Cult of Elon Musk Goes Public
SpaceX is about to launch what could be the biggest IPO in history — with a staggering $1.75 trillion valuation.
But is it built on rockets… or just hype?
Elon Musk has achieved incredible things: reusable rockets, Starlink keeping Ukraine online, and slashing launch costs. No one can take that away from him. Tesla's early investors made fortunes. He’s delivered where many said it was impossible.
But here’s the catch: A huge chunk of that sky-high valuation rests on things that barely exist yet — space tourism for billionaires, asteroid mining, orbital data centers.
Promises that keep slipping:
- Full self-driving “next year”… since 2015.
- Crewed Mars mission in the early 2020s… still waiting.
- The million robotaxis by 2020? Now, small pilot programs.
SpaceX lost $4.9 billion last year. Rockets aren’t software — every Starship is enormously expensive, and timelines keep stretching.
As one analyst put it: You’re being asked to pay **2026 prices for a 2046 brochure**.
Musk isn’t a con man — he’s delivered real breakthroughs. But the pattern is clear: genuine wins fund belief in the next big promise. The myth of the lone genius overshadows the thousands of engineers who actually make it happen.
The SpaceX IPO isn’t just an investment — it’s a massive bet on belief.
Will he deliver this time? Or will the market finally price in the gap between the vision and reality?
Google is allocating $50 million to train more than 300,000 skilled trade workers in the U.S. to address a critical shortage for AI infrastructure projects. The funding will support labor unions and trade associations, aiming to train HVAC specialists, electricians, and other skilled workers for an estimated 2.1 million roles projected to go unfilled by 2030. The initiative underscores growing recognition among tech firms of the need for a skilled workforce to support their infrastructure investments, and follows similar recent investments from Meta and Anthropic.
OpenAI is exploring substantial price cuts to attract users from rival Anthropic, reports The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources. Both companies are facing pressure to win enterprise clients, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently stating that AI usage costs are "a huge issue." The move is in response to increasing AI expenses that are prompting many businesses, including Uber, to reconsider their spending. It could lead to a price war between the two companies, potentially affecting both businesses' profit margins ahead of their much-anticipated IPOs.
Initial jobless claims hit the highest weekly report since February
Initial claims came in at 229K for the week, which is 9K above the weekly forecast of 220K. Last week’s report was unrevised at 225K. Weekly reports were below 220K for over three months, but this marks the first two-week stretch above 220K since February.
The early part of the summer is usually accompanied by a rise in initial claims, so this is not abnormal. The 2026 trendline is below where we were at this point during the last two years.
The 4-week average for initial claims rose to 219K, the highest since February, but still below the annual averages from 2023, 2024, and 2025. 2026 has been a remarkably calm period for initial jobless claims, with a year-to-date average of 212,000 per week.
Continuing claims rose week-over-week to 1.795M, missing the forecast by 15K. Last week was initially recorded at 1.777M but has been revised down by 6K to 1.771M.
The rolling 4-week average for continuing claims rose by 5K to 1.782M. Our 2026 year-to-date average of 1.822M is an improvement over the same period last year and the total annual averages for both 2024 and 2025.
Environmental groups sued the US Fish and Wildlife Service to block a land swap granting SpaceX more than 700 acres of a South Texas wildlife refuge, citing habitat concerns https://t.co/68sjKzVpSW pic.twitter.com/kYOWBEpFB8
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 11, 2026