SpaceX Set to Begin Trading at 1.8 Trillion Dollars in Largest Listing on Record

SpaceX began trading on the Nasdaq on Friday under the ticker SPCX and gained about 19 percent on its first day, closing at 160.95 dollars after the company had set a fixed offering price of 135 dollars a share, Globes reported and CNBC confirmed. The company sold about 555.6 million shares to raise roughly 75 billion dollars, which bankers describe as the largest initial public offering on record, ahead of Saudi Aramco's 1.7 trillion dollar listing in 2019. The shares opened near 150 dollars and at one point rose more than 30 percent, briefly valuing SpaceX above 2.25 trillion dollars, and closed with a market capitalization above 2 trillion dollars, placing it among the most valuable companies listed in the United States.

The debut made Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire, NPR reported. Among the other large beneficiaries are early investors who built positions when the company was valued at only tens of billions of dollars, including the fund manager Ron Baron, who has said he expects SpaceX to become one of the most valuable companies in the world.

The listing will reshape the major United States indices in stages. SpaceX entered the Nasdaq immediately but must wait before it can join the S&P 500, a second Globes analysis explained, with two further large offerings also expected. The Financial Times was more skeptical about valuing a company whose revenue depends heavily on the Starlink satellite business and on government contracts, summarizing the uncertainty bluntly.

The timing is notable. The offering arrived as investors rotated into technology shares this week, with the chipmakers Micron and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) rising sharply, suggesting that appetite for risk has returned alongside falling oil prices.