SpaceX's IPO has finally arrived. Here's what investors need to know.
SpaceX's IPO has finally arrived. Here's what investors .
Naomi Buchanan Thu, June 11, 2026 at 6:41 PM UTC
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Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images -
SpaceX is going public on Thursday in the largest IPO in history.
The mega-offering has captured Wall Street's attention for weeks leading up to pricing.
SpaceX's IPO also marks the start of a boom in colossal tech IPOs slated for 2026.
SpaceX's highly anticipated public debut is ready for lift-off.
The rocket and AI giant is set begin trading on Friday. The stock will trade under the ticker SPCX and is expected to be priced $135 per share later in the day on Thursday.
The company is led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and its IPO will add to Musk's wealth as the world's richest person, with a strong likelihood that the debut makes him the world's first trillionaire.
Here are five things investors heading into the historic IPO.
What's behind the nearly $2 trillion valuation
SpaceX is expected to raise $75 billion in the largest IPO ever. That funding will bring the company's valuation to a whopping $1.75 trillion.
The IPO filing showed that the company posted a $4.9 billion loss and a revenue of $18.7 billion in 2025, raising the question: What exactly are SpaceX investors buying?
Cathie Wood's ARK Invest, which holds a stake in SpaceX, said the company's rocket launch business is the "foundation" while the Starlink satellite internet business is the "financial engine."
The more out-of-this-world ambitions, according to the company's S-1 filing, include things like data centers in space, Mars colonies, asteroid mining, and opportunities in frontier tech like AI. The consensus on Wall Street is that traders aren't investing SPCX on current fundamentals, but are buying into the wild technological advancements slated for the future, along with the profits that come with them.
The retail trader hype is real
Retail traders have become a huge part of the SpaceX IPO story. Whether that's a good thing or not depends on who you ask.
SpaceX will allocate up to 30% of its shares sold at the IPO to retail investors. That's compared to the 5% to 10% companies typically allocate for the retail crowd when going public.
Between the atypically large retail allocation and the fast track to index inclusion, some have raised concerns about everyday investors, like those with retirement accounts, being overexposed to the company,
Buckle up for volatility ahead
Like many IPOs, SpaceX's early days of trading are expected to be volatile.
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The company faces the potential for big swings on several fronts including its massive scale, retail exposure, speculative valuation, and tiny free float, among other factors.
Mark Zuckerberg's 2012 Facebook IPO offers a cautionary tale of the price volatility big tech IPOs can face, in that case to the downside. As investors love to say, history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
Ahead of the IPO, some on Wall Street flagged the tech-dominated stock market sell-off could function as fuel to fund SpaceX's early gains.
A potential SpaceX-Tesla merger
Some have flagged a possible merger between SpaceX and Tesla given both companies are run by Musk.
The two companies are already interconnected, and it wouldn't be the first time Musk merged entities under his control: SpaceX acquired xAI earlier this year.
Wedbush Securities' Dan Ives, who is arguably one of Tesla's loudest bulls on Wall Street, said he expected a SpaceX merger in 2027.
The pair's combined valuations would sit around $3 trillion.
SpaceX is the blueprint for mega IPOs to come
SpaceX is the first of the mega IPOs set for 2026 to make the public leap and kick off what's expected to be a busy IPO cycle.
The IPO will set the tone for others, particularly other mega-caps like Anthropic and OpenAI.
"I expect that the SpaceX IPO will be the high tide that lifts all boats, resulting in flood of new IPOs, and all-time highs in the market," Ross Carmel, a partner at capital markets law firm Sichenzia Ross Ference Carmel, told Business Insider.
On the other side of the spectrum, an IPO flop could thwart investor enthusiasm.
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Source: “AOL Money”
