Elon Musk's SpaceX made its debut on public markets on Friday in the largest initial public offering in stock market history, raising $75 billion by selling 555.6 million shares at $135 each. The listing gives the Texas-based rocket and satellite company a valuation of approximately $1.77 trillion — surpassing the previous record set by Saudi Aramco, which debuted in 2019 at $1.7 trillion. The IPO was oversubscribed by up to four times its planned offering, with individual investors alone submitting roughly $70 billion in orders, reflecting intense retail appetite for a company widely seen as a bet on the future of space, satellite internet, and artificial intelligence.

Much of SpaceX's valuation rests on Starlink, its satellite internet service, which now counts over 10 million customers across 100 countries and accounts for nearly three-quarters of the company's launches. The company reported $18 billion in revenue last year, up from $14 billion the year before, though it posted a net operating loss of around $4.9 billion. After merging with Musk's AI firm xAI in February, SpaceX also disclosed a deal under which Google will pay approximately $920 million per month for computing capacity at its Memphis, Tennessee data centres through June 2029. Analysts and investors are, in effect, purchasing a vision — of data centres in space, continued Starlink expansion, and AI infrastructure — rather than a company currently profitable enough to justify its price tag. Morningstar analysts have valued SpaceX at just $63 per share, a 53 percent discount to the IPO price.

The listing has generated significant concern among institutional investors, pension fund managers, and academics. A key controversy centres on a Nasdaq rule change — pushed for by SpaceX — that allows the company to enter the Nasdaq-100 index after just 15 trading days, far sooner than the standard seasoning period that exists to protect investors. The S&P 500 did not change its equivalent rules. Because index funds are contractually obligated to track their benchmarks, fund managers who run pension funds for teachers, firefighters, and public employees could be forced to buy SpaceX shares regardless of their own assessment of value. North Carolina's state treasurer declined to purchase a direct stake for the state's pension fund, citing cost concerns, though the fund will still gain exposure through its index holdings. Separately, SpaceX's proposed governance structure — which would give Musk control over roughly 85 percent of voting power despite owning 42 percent of equity — has drawn sharp criticism from major public pension funds in New York and California, who argue it makes him effectively unremovable without his own consent.

Academic research adds a further note of caution for retail buyers. A study of nearly 1,000 US IPOs between 2007 and 2022 found that the average company now goes public nearly 10 years into its life — more than twice as long as in the early 2000s — meaning much of the dramatic growth has already occurred while the company was private and accessible only to institutional and venture investors. The research also found that companies with large gaps between executive stock-option prices and IPO prices tended to invest less in growth after listing and delivered weaker long-term returns for public shareholders. Historical data cited in the analysis also shows that hot IPO stocks — including major tech names like Meta and Alibaba — were down an average of 55 percent one year after their debut price.

The IPO arrives amid rising competitive pressure. Chinese state-backed satellite company Spacesail, which reached 200 satellites in orbit on June 5, is deliberately expanding into markets where Starlink has faced political friction or service complaints — including Brazil, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, and parts of Africa — and has signed a deal with Airbus for in-flight Wi-Fi. Analysts note that Spacesail still lacks a fully reusable rocket comparable to SpaceX's Falcon 9, limiting its launch cadence for now. OpenAI and Anthropic, both valued at around $1 trillion, have also confidentially filed for IPOs and are expected to list in the coming months, with Nasdaq's new rules potentially fast-tracking their entry into major indices as well. For investors, the question remains whether the staggering sums being committed to AI and space infrastructure represent the foundation of a new technological era — or the anatomy of a speculative bubble.