SpaceX soars after trading begins in largest IPO of all time - ABC News

SpaceX soars after trading begins in largest IPO of all time<br>The stock listing could make SpaceX founder Elon Musk a trillionaire.

ByMax Zahn<br>June 12, 2026, 4:25 PM

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Elon Musk is photographed at Space X in Brownsville, Texas, May 27, 2025.<br>Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Elon Musk-led rocket and AI company SpaceX soared in trading on Friday, moving well above an initial public offering (IPO) price of $135 per share.<br>The stock price closed at about $161 a share on Friday, marking a nearly 20% rise from the IPO price and setting the value of SpaceX at more than $2 trillion. The IPO, the largest of all time, made SpaceX one of the world's six largest companies by market capitalization.<br>The IPO made Musk the first trillionaire, vaulting the world’s richest person further ahead of other financial titans. The second-wealthiest person alive, Google founder Larry Page, holds a net worth of $291 billion, according to Forbes.

Related<br>SpaceX, Anthropic: What to know about this year's blockbuster IPOs

Here’s what to know about the SpaceX IPO.<br>Why is SpaceX moving forward with an IPO?

The IPO pulls in fresh funds for the Texas-based firm, which oversees Musk's ambitions in the fast-growing but cost-intensive AI industry. The company aims to raise as much as $75 billion from its public listing.<br>Founded in 2002, SpaceX builds and operates spacecraft, including thousands of satellites deployed in support of its Starlink satellite internet service.<br>In February, the company merged with xAI, a Musk-led AI company that offers a chatbot in competition with the likes of OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude. OpenAI and Anthropic recently filed paperwork to become publicly traded companies.<br>SpaceX touted the merger with xAI as a key step in its plan to launch a fleet of "orbital data centers," satellites designed to deliver computing power, much like their terrestrial counterparts.<br>The company’s revenue jumped to $18.7 billion in 2025, soaring 33% compared to the previous year, a financial filing showed. Nearly a quarter of that revenue came from Starlink, which counted millions of subscribers. Still, SpaceX failed to turn a profit, registering a loss of $4.9 billion last year.

A Spacex Flacon 9 rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40, June 8, 2026, in Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla.<br>Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Will the SpaceX IPO make Elon Musk a trillionaire?<br>The wealthiest person alive has become even richer.<br>Musk boasts a net worth of about $780 billion, according to Forbes. The SpaceX IPO vaulted Musk’s wealth well beyond $1 trillion.<br>The company’s founder and CEO is set to own roughly 42% of SpaceX shares after the IPO. If SpaceX were to achieve its target valuation of $1.75 trillion, Musk would accrue hundreds of millions of dollars in new wealth, at least on paper.<br>However, Musk cannot sell any of his SpaceX shares until a year after the IPO, according to a financial filing.

Still, Musk could own a major stake in two of the 10-largest companies in the world as soon as Friday. Last year, Tesla shareholders granted Musk a compensation package that could earn him more than $1 trillion over the coming years, meaning he may eventually push toward a net worth of $2 trillion.

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Will SpaceX stock be in your 401(k)?<br>SpaceX will all but certainly become a part of individuals’ 401(k) accounts soon. Those accounts often hold index funds, which are pegged to major indexes like the S&P 500 and Nasdaq.<br>Until recently, newly listed companies were barred from major indexes until after an extended waiting period. But the Nasdaq issued a rule change last month permitting "fast entry" to the Nasdaq-100 for some major IPOs. Over the ensuing weeks, some other top exchanges also tweaked their rules.<br>As a result, it won’t take long for SpaceX to become a part of 401(k) holdings.

What do analysts think of the stock?<br>The SpaceX IPO has divided stock analysts, some of whom tout its earnings potential in the lucrative aerospace and AI industries, even as others bemoan what they view as pie-in-the-sky initiatives like space-bound data centers.<br>Dan Ives, a managing director of equity research at investment firm Wedbush, called the SpaceX IPO an "important moment" for the tech industry as the "AI Revolution and data take this next step forward."<br>Observers seeking evidence of potential shareholder gains can look no further than Musk-led Tesla. Over the past five years, Tesla shares have soared 90%, outpacing a 71% rise in the S&P 500 over that time. Electric vehicles account for the vast majority of revenue generated by Tesla. Similarly, Starlink subscriptions and government contracts...