The SpaceX IPO made history. One month on has it lost momentum?
SpaceX investors have moved from celebration to apparent concern in its first month as a public company.
When the shares of the company, co-founded and led by Elon Musk, became available for individuals to purchase on the public stock exchange for the first time on June 12, there was an investor frenzy.
Although the company decided to price its shares at $135, the price instantly rose to $150, $176, and then closed at $160.95 on the first day.
It cemented SpaceX as the largest initial public offering (IPO) of all time.
The following week, its shares rose even further, reaching an intraday high of $225, meaning it overtook Amazon and Microsoft in total market capitalization.
“Every company Elon Musk touches gets people excited,” said Keith Snyder, an analyst at investment research firm CFRA. “But this was also the first time people felt like they could invest in something marketed as an AI game.”
Willy Lee, an investor at Neosteller, which makes it easier for individual investors to put money into private companies, acknowledged that the excitement around the IPO was largely about artificial intelligence (AI).
“Everyone saw SpaceX as an AI story,” he said.
SpaceX recently acquired Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI earlier this year Renamed SpaceXAI, external and is best known for its controversial chatbot Grok, and has also begun leasing its data center capacity to other tech companies.
