SpaceX, the Elon Musk-led rocket company, finally made its public market debut on Friday, and it did not disappoint. Shares opened at $150, up 11% from the $135 IPO price, and quickly climbed to $165. That first trade prompted a celebratory post on X from SpaceX itself: "Liftoff! First $SPCX trade complete."
The $150 opening price values SpaceX at roughly $1.96 trillion — that's about $197 billion more than the $1.77 trillion valuation set on IPO night. The company sold 555.6 million Class A shares at $135 each, raising $75 billion. But demand was far higher: Bloomberg reported that orders topped $250 billion, nearly four times the available float. Goldman Sachs led the underwriting syndicate, which included Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase — 21 banks in total.
The opening price of $150 was actually below the $174 level that pre-market trading had indicated earlier in the morning. That suggests that institutional price discovery tempered some of the early speculative frenzy. Still, the stock is up more than 20% from the IPO price as of publication.
There's a structural tailwind coming, too. MSCI confirmed on June 9 that SPCX qualifies for early large-cap index inclusion starting June 13. That means passive index funds will be forced to buy the stock at Friday's close, potentially providing support into the next trading day.
SpaceX's debut wasn't great news for other space stocks. Redwire Corp. (RDW) and Satlogic Inc. (SATL) each fell more than 10%. AST SpaceMobile Inc. (ASTS) dropped 9%, and EchoStar Corp. (SATS) fell 12%. It seems investors are making room for the new kid on the block.
