SpaceX Goes Public in History's Largest IPO, SPCX Jumps 19% on Debut

SpaceX made market history on June 12, 2026, when the aerospace company began trading on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker SPCX, raising approximately $75 billion in the largest initial public offering ever conducted. The company sold more than 555 million shares at an offer price of $135 per share, eclipsing Saudi Aramco's 2019 record of $29.4 billion by more than 2.5 times.

Shares opened at $150 on the first trading day, climbed to an intraday peak of $176.52 — a gain of nearly 31% from the offer price — before closing at $160.95, up 19% on the session. By the close of trading on June 12, SpaceX's market capitalization stood above $2 trillion, placing it immediately among the largest publicly traded companies in the world.

Road to the Public Markets

SpaceX filed a confidential draft S-1 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on April 1, 2026. The company published its full S-1 prospectus on May 20, 2026, revealing years of net losses driven by heavy capital expenditure on Starship rocket development and Starlink satellite manufacturing. Despite those losses, investor demand was overwhelming: the offering was heavily oversubscribed, with books covered multiple times over during the roadshow, which launched June 4. CEO Elon Musk appeared at the Nasdaq MarketSite on June 12 to mark the debut.

Scale and Context

The previous record for the world's largest IPO was held by Saudi Aramco, which raised $29.4 billion when it listed on the Tadawul in December 2019. SpaceX's $75 billion raise more than doubles that figure. At a $2 trillion-plus valuation, SpaceX ranks alongside Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia as one of the most valuable companies on U.S. exchanges — a remarkable position for a company that until June 2026 was entirely privately held.

Market Implications

SpaceX's listing shifts the composition of Nasdaq meaningfully, and index providers are expected to evaluate inclusion in major benchmark indices, which would force passive funds to buy SPCX shares automatically. Institutional and retail investors who previously could only access SpaceX through illiquid private secondary markets now have a fully regulated, exchange-listed instrument.

The record debut also reignites speculation about other large private companies — particularly AI firms that have reached multi-hundred-billion-dollar valuations in private rounds — potentially accelerating their own paths to public markets. SpaceX has demonstrated that investor appetite for transformative technology companies remains robust even at valuations that would have seemed extraordinary just a few years ago.