SpaceX on Thursday priced the biggest-ever US initial public offering at $135 per share, making Elon Musk’s rocket and spacecraft manufacturer one of the world’s most valuable companies.
The IPO raised a record $75 billion on the sale of 555.56 million shares, valuing the space, satellite and AI provider at $1.77 trillion, a record for an initial offering.
SpaceX will rank seventh among US-listed firms when its shares begin trading on the Nasdaq on Friday, though it lost money last year and other mega-caps outpace its revenue by several magnitudes.
Thursday’s pricing culminates a months-long effort that realized Musk’s most ambitious project yet even as he stood a handful of financial traditions on their head, and as some analysts question whether its lofty valuation is justified.
With the pricing, SpaceX shares will open for trading on Friday valued more highly than firms as varied as JPMorgan Chase, Berkshire Hathaway and Eli Lilly, as well as tech giants such as Meta Platforms and Musk’s own Tesla.
The largest-ever IPO before SpaceX was the December 2019 offering of Saudi Aramco, which raised $25.6 billion at a $1.71 trillion valuation. In inflation-adjusted terms, Aramco raised $33.2 billion at a $2.21 trillion value.
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