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SpaceX goes public with a mind-bogglingly historic IPO. The space industry may never be the same.
SpaceX went public with the largest IPO in history, making Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire.
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With the launch of SpaceX into the IPO frontier today, the space industry has its newest publicly traded juggernaut.
SpaceX's initial public offering, or IPO, went live for trading on the Nasdaq today (June 12), riding on what you could call the "Elon factor" — the high anticipation to grab stock in a company that once aimed for Mars, but now seems to be aiming at everything else, too.
Last May, SpaceX filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission key documentation that signaled an initial public offering (IPO) of stock. Talk of SpaceX, which billionaire Elon Musk founded in 2002 to find a way to Mars, going public had been rampant since late 2025, when the first hints arose of its possibility.
And this week, the long-anticipated IPO hit the streets, becoming the largest IPO in history, a $1.77 trillion dollar valuation. SpaceX anticipated a $75 billion initial offering, with shares valued at $135 each, a dollar number that SpaceX can modify on its own.
But today, as the NASDAQ trading began, SpaceX stock began trading at $155 a share, ultimately closing at just above $161 a share. Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire in the first 20 minutes of trading, according to the New York Times.
Musk was not in New York City as trading began, choosing to celebrate at the company's Starbase, Texas facility with around 5,000 supporters.
"It is certainly hard to believe that little company that started in a warehouse in El Segundo is now going public with the largest IPO ever," Musk said during an opening ceremony broadcast by Nasdaq. "I gave SpaceX less than a 10% chance of succeeding at all, to be clear."
SpaceX transitioning to a publicly traded company is a big deal, not only cash wise but may well power the future and potency of commercial space overall.