SpaceX surged 19% on stock market debut, lifting Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s stake to nearly $7 bn
SpaceX’s landmark stock market launch has delivered a significant windfall for Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, whose publicly traded investor owns tens of millions of shares in Elon Musk’s rocket company; It pushed its net worth to its highest level in a decade and sent Kingdom Holding Co. to a sharp rise at the open on Sunday.
SpaceX, the rocket and satellite company formally known as Space Exploration Technologies, closed its first day of trading Friday at $160.95 per share, up 19%, after raising $75 billion in the largest market listing on record. While the gains were concentrated among a small number of long-standing investors, Kingdom Holding emerged as one of the most visible beneficiaries.
The firm disclosed that it owns 42.4 million SpaceX shares, worth $6.8 billion based on Friday’s closing price; this is a position that represents approximately half of Kingdom Holding’s total market capitalization.
Shares of the vehicle rose as much as 5% at Sunday’s open, pushing its valuation to 56 billion riyals ($14.9 billion). Alwaleed’s net worth rose to just over $27 billion, the highest level in the last decade. Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Kingdom Holding: SpaceX’s share in the figures
Accordingly Luck According to the report, Alwaleed first established his relationship with Elon Musk in 2022, choosing to spin off his equity in Twitter alongside investors like Larry Ellison and Andreessen Horowitz when Musk completed the $44 billion acquisition of the social media platform and rebranded it as X.
This alignment placed Alwaleed within the corporate and private equity network that has since clustered among Elon Musk’s companies; it was a series of bets that grew significantly in value as Musk’s businesses expanded in scale and public profile.
Venture capital: other winners
SpaceX’s debut also generated historic returns for some of venture capital’s best-known names. Founders Fund, co-founded by Elon Musk’s long-time partner Peter Thiel, holds approximately 3% of SpaceX.
Andreessen Horowitz, which has backed the company in multiple rounds, is reportedly on track to post the largest single return in its history.
Sequoia Capital, which first took a position at the end of 2019, reportedly owns approximately 1.5% of the company.
Saudi Arabia: PIF, Humain and xAI
The benefits of Friday’s listing extend beyond Alwaleed’s personal assets to Saudi Arabia’s broader state investment strategy structure. The Public Investment Fund, the kingdom’s $1 trillion sovereign wealth vehicle, owns a stake in Kingdom Holding itself, giving it indirect exposure to SpaceX’s windfall. Luck report.
PIF’s AI subsidiary Humain separately committed $3 billion to Elon Musk’s AI company xAI earlier this year as part of a $20 billion financing round that gave Humain a significant minority stake. Luck report is added.
At the time of the deal, Humain said his holdings in xAI would convert into SpaceX shares, deepening the kingdom’s ties to Musk’s portfolio.
Saudi Arabia has reportedly placed artificial intelligence at the center of its long-term economic diversification strategy and is seeking to reduce structural dependence on oil revenues through strategic technology investment.
Gulf capitals: Creating AI positions
Regional Gulf capital is moving broadly in the technology space. According to various media reports, Abu Dhabi’s MGX holds stakes in Anthropic, OpenAI and xAI, comprising three of the industry’s most closely watched companies. Qatar has taken a similar approach, allocating capital to both Anthropic and xAI.
The scale of current Gulf AI investment is new, but the region’s interest in transformative technology predates the current cycle.
Abu Dhabi’s International Holding Company was involved in SpaceX as early as 2020, and Aabar Investments took a stake in Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic in 2009, more than a decade before space technology and artificial intelligence became defining themes of global corporate portfolios.
