Elon Musk’s rocket company debuts on Wall Street
Manya Saini, Echo Wang And Niket Nişante
SpaceX was on track to surpass US$2 trillion ($2.84 trillion) in market valuation at its Nasdaq debut on Friday (US time); This reflected the Elon Musk-led company’s frenzy and put it on track to become the sixth-largest publicly traded company in the United States.
Shares will open at around US$175 ($248) per share, or an increase of around 30 per cent from the US$135 ($191) IPO price, setting the stage for a blockbuster launch for the world’s largest IPO, it said.
Days of excitement surrounding its launch will now turn into one of the biggest tests of Wall Street’s trading infrastructure in years; Exchanges, market makers and underwriters are bracing for extraordinary order volumes after the company sold $75 billion in shares, instantly valuing it at $1.77 trillion, making it one of the largest companies in the United States.
Exchanges and trading firms want to avoid the technical setbacks that marred Meta’s debut in 2012. With SpaceX widely seen as a dry run for the next generation of mega-listings, market participants will also be watching for signals on investor appetite ahead of IPOs for AI heavyweights Anthropic and OpenAI.
The shares likely won’t be traded until the middle of the trading day as the exchange collects buy and sell orders and underwriters delay trading until supply and demand balance.
“We expect SpaceX to see an immediate increase in trading due to excitement around the deal, perhaps north of 20 percent,” said Samuel Kerr, global head of equity markets at Mergermarket. “Anything lower would make me really nervous.”
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen rang the Nasdaq opening bell at 9.30am New York time on Friday (11.30pm AEST on Thursday).
The landmark listing cemented Musk’s status as the first trillionaire ever and propelled SpaceX among the world’s most valuable companies; Even though the company posted a loss of nearly $5 billion last year and generated only a small fraction of the revenue generated by similarly valued tech giants.
Speaking in Texas shortly before the opening bell, Musk reiterated his lofty goals of “making life multi-planetary.”
“I don’t mean just a few astronauts, I mean literally you,” Musk said. “No matter who you’re watching this from, SpaceX wants to be able to take you to the moon, Mars, and eventually beyond.”
He added: “I gave SpaceX a 10 percent chance of success.”
The stock’s performance will also be a test of the “Musk premium,” the force behind Tesla’s more than $1 trillion valuation, even though it has come under pressure during Musk’s active role in President Donald Trump’s administration.
The record IPO is a culmination of Musk’s long-standing ambitions in space and technology, and he has come forward to rewrite Wall Street’s IPO playbook and attract large numbers of retail investors to the market.
More to come
Reuters, AP
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