SpaceX is now public | Edge

SpaceX is now a publicly traded company.

The IPO is historic for several reasons: SpaceX hopes to raise $75 billion under the ticker symbol SPCX, making it the largest IPO in history. The company is controlled by Musk, who also runs Tesla, another trillion-dollar company. The IPO is expected to make Musk, who is set to control 85% of voting shares, the world’s first trillionaire. But individual investors may find it difficult to buy into this vision Bloomberg It was recently reported that the IPO had attracted demand for more than four times the available shares.

This amount is a reflection of the energy surrounding the SpaceX mission. The company handles approximately 82 percent of all U.S. space launches and controls nearly half of the global commercial space market. Starlink, its satellite internet company, is a high-margin cash cow, having surpassed 10 million subscribers globally earlier this year.

SpaceX was valued at $1.25 trillion earlier this year after merging with xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence company that also owns X.com, formerly Twitter. This connection means that investors will buy at a historically high price, but Musk has merged the two companies at great cost to himself and SpaceX as well.

The groundwork was laid in May, when SpaceX formally filed its S-1 prospectus with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In it, the company presented its plans for future rocket launches, a permanent human colony on Mars, and orbital data centers to support its artificial intelligence capabilities. In typical Musk fashion, most of these plans remain largely out of reach.

The S-1 also detailed all the ways in which this is done Musk enriches himself by treating himself. Tesla owns approximately 19 million shares of SpaceX’s Class A common stock, less than 1% of total shares outstanding. Tesla’s stake in xAI was subsequently converted into SpaceX shares Elon Musk has merged his artificial intelligence company with his space company In February. SpaceX buys Cybertrucks and Megapacks from Tesla, and leases office space to The Boring Company. The S-1 also lists Musk himself as a risk factor, noting that his other companies may compete with SpaceX for valuable supplies.

SpaceX is also largely unprofitable. It lost nearly $4.9 billion in 2025 and burned through billions more in the first quarter of 2026, largely due to its spending on massive AI data centers. At the current burn rate, the $75 billion raised from the IPO could disappear within two and a half years.

Even if you don’t buy the stock outright, you may end up owning it soon anyway. As Liz Lobato recently explainedThe Nasdaq changed its rules to allow large companies to enter the Nasdaq 100 after just 15 trading days instead of waiting for the December annual change. This means that popular ETFs will likely have to buy billions of dollars worth of SpaceX stock soon after launch.