From 10% chance of success to $2 trillion market cap: SpaceX's historic IPO
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- SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 with no roadshow price range, raising $75 billion — roughly triple Alibaba's 2014 record — and closed Friday up 19% at a $2.1 trillion market cap, a 112x revenue multiple despite a $4.9 billion loss last year.
- Elon Musk told SpaceX staff he originally gave the company "less than 10% chance of succeeding" at its 2002 founding; the IPO vaulted him to the title of the world's first trillionaire and made SpaceX the sixth most-valuable U.S. company.
- CFRA issued a sell rating with a $115 price target minutes after the Nasdaq debut, writing that SpaceX's strategy is "heavily dependent on Starship" and that proving the rocket's viability is key to justifying the valuation.
- New York University finance professor Aswath Damodaran called SpaceX's stated $28.5 trillion total addressable market a "hallucination," saying he'd be "embarrassed to even put that number out," while Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire countered that the figure is "an underestimate."
- The IPO minted roughly 4,400 millionaires among current and former SpaceX employees, pushed Alphabet's 2015 investment past $100 billion, and left Valor Equity Partners sitting on a stake worth more than $80 billion.
- Operating chief Gwynne Shotwell, now worth over $2 billion from her stake, neither confirmed nor ruled out a future SpaceX-Tesla merger in a CNBC interview, saying there are "synergies" but her focus is running day-to-day operations.
- OpenAI and Anthropic, both valued near $1 trillion privately, stand to benefit from the renewed IPO enthusiasm; former Nasdaq CEO Robert Greifeld said he "would definitely bet" both go public in 2026 after confidential filings this month.
Why it matters: The 19% first-day pop ended a slow IPO stretch dating back to late 2021 and is already boosting sentiment for upcoming OpenAI and Anthropic offerings, yet CFRA issued a sell rating within minutes of the debut, questioning whether a company with a $4.9 billion loss last year deserves a 112x revenue multiple.
