SpaceX IPO begins in US markets, Musk becomes the first trillionaire in the world | Financial Markets News

A GROWING STORYTHE STORY IS DEVELOPING,

SpaceX falls on the public markets as the sixth largest US company by market value.

SpaceX hit the US market with a market value of over $2 trillion, making CEO Elon Musk the world’s first billionaire.

Shares opened Friday at $150 per share, which represents a 6.6 percent increase from the initial public offering (IPO), valuing the company at $1.96 trillion, and placing the aerospace company as the sixth largest company in the United States.

The stock, which trades under the symbol SPCX, has risen 22 percent since trading began at $164.99.

The company sold $75bn in shares, over the same period its value is $1.77 trillion. The IPO was oversubscribed four times more than expected, according to Reuters.

According to Bloomberg News, about 70 percent of the funds allocated to the institutions went to so-called long-term funds – a method in which owners buy assets based on the expectation that their value will increase over time – as well as independent funds, including those from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen rang the opening bell at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York City at 9:30am local time as US markets open.

On Thursday, protesters gathered outside MarketSite to protest the IPO as they continued to allege that Grok, part of xAI, part of SpaceX, allowed users to create inappropriate sexual images before the IPO.

Shares of SpaceX did not sell until the middle of the trading day when exchanges gathered buy and sell orders and underwriters delayed trading until supply and demand were right.

“We would expect SpaceX to see an increase in sales because of the increase in sales, north of 20 percent maybe,” said Samuel Kerr, head of global capital markets at Mergermarket. “Anything less would scare me.”

Investors and retailers are eager to avoid the technical problems that marred Meta’s 2012. With SpaceX seen as a dress rehearsal for a new generation of mega-series, market participants will also be monitoring investors’ appetite for information ahead of the upcoming IPOs of AI heavyweights Anthropic and OpenAI.

A series of events that made Musk the first trillionaire and propelled SpaceX into one of the most important companies in the world – although the company lost about $ 5bn last year and made only a small fraction of the revenue that came with similar technology giants.

The move comes amid growth driven by his company Starlink, which is a major driver 80 percent of his income.

On Friday, SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket carrying 29 satellites into space from Cape Canaveral in Florida.