Live updates from SpaceX IPO debut: SpaceX valuation now at over $2 trillion as stock climbs to $165 a share |
SpaceX valuation now at over $2 trillion as stock climbs to $165 a share: Live updates from the IPO debut
Today could mark one of the biggest days in stock market history—or set the stage for one of its greatest flops. SpaceX, the most hotly anticipated stock market debut ever, soared in its first minutes of trading on Friday. Elon Musk’s rocket, satellite, and AI empire made its long-awaited debut on both the Nasdaq Global Select Market and Nasdaq Texas under the ticker SPCX, capping a 24-year run as the most valuable, and most scrutinized, private company in the world. SpaceX opened at just above $150 a share just after 11:46AM.
The stock was up 13% above its target price of $135 a share, surging Musk’s net worth above $1 trillion and SpaceX’s valuation to more than twice that.
By noon Friday, the stock was hovering between $162 and $165.
Musk addresses SpaceX employees at Nasdaq before debut
Ahead of the debut, the rocket, satellite and AI company’s CEO Elon Musk addressed Nasdaq in Texas, reiterating the company’s extraterrestrial goals. “SpaceX wants to be able to take you to the moon,” Musk said. “I am confident at this point that with the incredible team that we have here at SpaceX, that we will do that for you.”
He told the crowd of SpaceX employees at Nasdaq’s Starbase, Texas location that at first, he didn’t have high hopes for the company that today, could potentially make him the world’s first trillionaire. “I gave SpaceX less than a 10% chance of succeeding at all.”
Still, he said, after more than two decades of prototypes, failed launches and eventual success that has culminated in the Falcon 9 Block 5—the world’s most reliable rocket—Musk said that his initial out-of-this-world fascination still remains at the company.
“That’s what SpaceX is all about, is take science fiction and create an exciting, inspiring future for everyone,” Musk said. “We want to be able to take anyone who wants to go to the moon, anyone who wants to go to Mars… not just a few astronauts, I mean, you, literally you.”
“There are always problems on Earth,” he concluded, moments before Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man’ started playing. “But there also have to be things that get you excited about the future, that make you glad to wake up in the morning, because you can’t wait to see what happens next.”
The offering priced Thursday afternoon—which was announced in a free-writing prospectus filed with the SEC just after 3 p.m. ET, while markets were still open—was at $135 a share for 555.6 million shares, raising the $75 billion the company targeted and valuing it at $1.77 trillion. Underwriters hold a 30-day option to purchase up to 83.3 million additional shares, which would lift the total raise to $86.25 billion.
That valuation makes it the largest IPO in stock market history: the raise is nearly triple the previous record, set when Saudi Aramco collected $25.6 billion on Riyadh’s........