SpaceX (Nasdaq: SPCX) has had a blistering first week as a public company, with shares surging more than 42% above its initial public offering price of 35. The Elon Musk-led company raised 5 billion in the largest IPO in history, and the stock is already trading around 92 as of June 18 — adding hundreds of billions in market value in just four trading sessions.
The Biggest IPO in History: By the Numbers
SpaceX priced 555.6 million shares at 35 each on June 11, raising 5 billion before underwriters exercised their overallotment option. The company listed on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX on June 12, with Goldman Sachs serving as lead underwriter alongside Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase.
The stock opened for trading at 50 — an 11% pop — and never looked back. It closed its first day at 60.95, a 19% gain. On Monday June 15, the first full trading day, shares jumped another 20% to close at 92.50. Trading volume has been enormous: over 500 million shares changed hands on debut day alone, approaching Facebook's 2012 record of 580 million shares.
At its peak intraday valuation, SpaceX has briefly surpassed .3 trillion in market capitalization, making it the sixth or seventh most valuable US company depending on the day's fluctuations. Elon Musk, who holds an 82% voting stake in the company, became the world's first trillionaire on paper when shares opened at 50.
Why Investors Are Piling In
The frenzy is driven by several factors. First, the float is tiny — only about 4% of total shares were made available for public trading, creating artificial scarcity that has amplified buying pressure. Second, SpaceX successfully lobbied major indexes including the Nasdaq 100 to fast-track its inclusion, triggering automatic buying from passive funds within days instead of months.
There's also the sheer breadth of SpaceX's business narrative. The company controls reusable rocket launch services, operates the Starlink satellite internet constellation (its only profitable unit), and merged with Elon Musk's AI startup xAI in February 2026. Musk has publicly projected that SpaceX could reach trillion in annual revenue by 2030.
NewStreet Research has a 65 price target and argues that SpaceX has at least a 10-year lead over competitors in launch capabilities, with 90-95% of global launch capacity expected over the next 4-5 years. Oppenheimer rates the stock Outperform with a 90 target, calling SpaceX the only vertically-integrated AI company with the required capital, data, LLMs, hardware, manufacturing and engineering talent.
The Bear Case: Can SpaceX Justify a Trillion Valuation?
Not everyone is convinced. SpaceX reported 8.67 billion in 2025 revenue — impressive growth of 33% year-over-year, but a fraction of what its trillion-dollar valuation would suggest. The company posted a net loss of .94 billion in 2025, and Q1 2026 losses continued at a .28 billion burn rate. Capital expenditures hit 0.1 billion in Q1 alone, with .7 billion of that poured into AI infrastructure.
CFRA slapped a Sell rating on the stock with a 15 price target, citing the company's extremely ambitious growth strategy, elevated valuation expectations, and significant capital intensity. Morningstar analyst Nicolas Owens values the stock at just 3 per share and calls it overvalued.
What Happens Next
The stock has already exceeded most analyst price targets in its first week, which raises the question of whether the rally is sustainable. With more than 5 billion in fresh capital, SpaceX is well-funded to continue its aggressive spend on Starship development, Starlink expansion, and AI compute infrastructure through its xAI division.
The broader market is watching closely. Both Anthropic and OpenAI — each valued at roughly trillion in private markets — have confidentially filed for their own IPOs, potentially later this year. SpaceX's market reception could set the tone for what some analysts are calling the summer of AI IPOs.
For now, SpaceX (SPCX) is trading at roughly 10x its 2025 revenue — a multiple that makes Meta look cheap but that believers argue is justified by the company's monopoly-like position in space launch and its long shot at dominating AI compute from orbit.
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