Headlines have recently been dominated by a wave of initial public offerings (IPO) by notable companies, with SpaceX being touted as one of the most anticipated. With a target valuation of $1.77 trillion and an expected record-breaking $75 billion raise (source: CNBC), the SpaceX IPO is shaping up to be the largest stock market debut in history, eclipsing even Saudi Aramco’s 2019 listing (source: CNN). Analysts and traders around the world are watching closely to see how the market responds when shares begin trading on June 12, 2026 on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX.
In this article, we’ll discuss what exactly SpaceX does, why everyone is watching its IPO, and what you should look out for after it goes live.
What is SpaceX?
SpaceX, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transportation company founded by Elon Musk in 2002. Headquartered in Hawthorne, California, SpaceX designs, manufactures, and launches rockets, spacecraft, and satellites.
What sets SpaceX apart from other aerospace companies is its relentless pursuit of reducing the cost of access to space. By building and operating nearly every component of its rockets in-house and pioneering reusable rocket technology, SpaceX has driven down average launch costs from the usual $18,500 per kilogram to $2,700 per kilogram compared to its competitors (source: Advanced Television).
Today, SpaceX operates three main lines of business: Falcon 9 launch services, Starlink satellite internet constellation, and Dragon spacecraft missions. These all generated $18.7 billion in revenue in 2025 alone (source: Yahoo Finance).
What does SpaceX aim to achieve?
SpaceX’s mission is to make humanity a multi-planetary civilization, allowing people to access the Moon, Mars, and other planets in the solar system. Beyond its long-term vision, SpaceX is focused on solving three main issues:
The cost problem
Before SpaceX, launching a kilogram of payload to orbit cost anywhere between $10,000 and $54,000 (source: OrbitalRadar). To counter this issue, SpaceX designed and manufactured the Falcon 9, a reusable, two-stage rocket. This reusability allows SpaceX to refly the most expensive parts of the rocket, effectively bringing the average cost of sending a payload to orbit down to $2,700 per kilogram.
The connectivity problem
Billions of people on Earth still lack access to reliable, high-speed internet, particularly in rural, remote, and developing regions. Starlink boasts strong connectivity around the globe through harsh weather conditions, network disruptions, and natural disasters. As of early June 2026, Starlink has over 12 million active users across more than 160 countries (source: Yahoo Finance).
The access problem
SpaceX wants to make space accessible not just to governments with vast defence budgets, but to commercial operators, scientific institutions, and eventually ordinary people. SpaceX engineers are currently working on the next generation of fully reusable launch vehicles, known as Starship, following the success of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. Starship is designed to carry 100 people at a time, and it is the largest and most powerful launch vehicle ever constructed.
Why is everyone watching the SpaceX IPO?
There are a couple of factors that have contributed to SpaceX IPO being one of the most highly-anticipated financial events of the year.
The largest IPO in history
At a $1.77 trillion valuation and $75 billion raise, the SpaceX IPO surpasses many of the biggest US IPOs such as Saudi Aramco ($25.6 billion), Alibaba ($21.8 billion), Visa ($17.9 billion), and Meta ($16 billion) (source: Reuters).
The IPO is oversubscribed
As of June 9, SpaceX has drawn more than $250 billion of investor demand, making the IPO almost four times oversubscribed (source: Reuters). While the subscription figure doesn’t reflect final allocations, it does provide a strong signal of market confidence.
Starlink’s growth trajectory is extraordinary
Starlink went from $0 to $11.39 billion in annual revenue within a decade. It accounted for 61% of SpaceX’s total revenue, and it increased to 69% in the first quarter of 2026 (source: CNBC). At the moment, Starlink is SpaceX’s only profitable unit, while its space launch and artificial intelligence businesses are cost centers.
Growth potential of Starship
If Starship reaches full operational capacity, it opens up entirely new revenue categories such as deep space cargo, lunar logistics, point-to-point Earth transportation, and eventually Mars colonization.
What you need to know before the IPO
With the SpaceX IPO listing date close by, here are some things you need to know before the IPO:
IPO price and valuation
SpaceX has set its IPO price at a fixed $135 for a $1.77 trillion valuation. This comes as a bit of a surprise as IPOs typically set a price range and finalize pricing based on demand. SpaceX is offering 555.6 million shares, and with a fixed price of $135 per share, it is expected to raise a record-breaking $75 billion.
Voting control
SpaceX uses a dual-class share structure where the company issues two types of shares that look identical on paper but carry very different voting rights. SpaceX’s Class A shares, the ones available to public investors, carry one vote each. Class B shares, held primarily by Elon Musk and other insiders, carry 10 votes per share (source: Reuters).
Since Musk holds a majority of Class B shares, he retains over 82% voting control even after the IPO, regardless of how many shares the public buys (source: Reuters). This means that no shareholder vote can go against his wishes.
Retail allocation
SpaceX is allocating approximately 30% of its shares to retail investors, which is well above the 90/10 or 95/5 institutional-to-retail split typical of most IPOs (source: CNBC). This generous allocation has drawn mixed reactions.
On one hand, it mirrors Musk’s playbook with Tesla, where a large and loyal retail shareholder base became a structural support for the stock. On the other hand, a growing community of retail investors on investing forums is reading the move with suspicion (source: Business Insider). The unusually high retail allocation could be a way to shore up demand that institutions aren’t fully providing at this valuation.
There’s also a more mechanical concern. Concentrating so much of the float in retail hands from day one means that a large share of the buyers will be short-term traders rather than long-term holders. If traders frontload their purchases on opening day and sell into the pop, it could drain near-term buying pressure and set the stock up for a choppy debut, following a pattern that has played out repeatedly with many high-profile tech IPOs in recent years.
Is the SpaceX IPO overvalued? What the bears are saying
Not everyone is swept up in the excitement of the SpaceX IPO. Some analysts have raised concerns about whether $1.77 trillion is actually a fair price for SpaceX right now. Citing overvaluation, Morningstar analysts believe the number is much closer to $780 billion (source: CNBC). They also value SpaceX at a 53% discount of $63 per share instead of $135. Their $780 billion fair value estimate reflects more conservative assumptions about Starlink's growth curve and the timeline for Starship commercialisation.
Price-to-sales ratio over 100x
Furthermore, with a $1.77 trillion valuation and $18.7 billion in revenue, SpaceX’s price-to-sales ratio is over 100x, 40% higher than Palantir Technologies at 73x, the most richly valued stock in the S&P 500 (source: The Motley Fool). By that measure, SpaceX is priced at a significant premium to even the most expensive stocks in the market.
Only one business unit is profitable
Despite $18.7 billion in revenue in 2025, SpaceX reported a net loss of close to $5 billion (source: Reuters). The company’s profitability is concentrated almost entirely in Starlink. The launch segment reinvests most of its income into Starship development, and the newly integrated xAI business is still in its early stages. Investors are being asked to pay a historically high price for a company that is, on paper, loss-making.
Historical IPO performance is not indicative of future results
The top 10 largest US IPO stocks have collectively underperformed the S&P 500 by 96 percentage points since listing (source: The Motley Fool). The SpaceX IPO being the biggest IPO in history right now is not, by itself, a reason to buy.
What happens after the SpaceX IPO?
So what actually happens after the SpaceX IPO goes live and begins trading on Nasdaq on June 12, 2026?
S&P 500 inclusion is not happening soon
Many investors assumed that SpaceX would quickly be added to the S&P 500, which would increase institutional investors’ exposure to the stock and boost its stock price. The inclusion could result in $14 billion in mandatory passive buying (source: Yahoo Finance). However, that assumption has been thrown out of the window as S&P Dow Jones confirmed on June 4 that it would not change its eligibility rules for mega-cap IPOs (source: CNBC).
To enter the S&P 500, SpaceX needs to fulfil the following criteria:
Have at least 12 months of public trading history
Show GAAP profitability in its most recent quarter with positive cumulative earnings over the past four quarters
Have a public float of over 10%
Nasdaq-100 fast-track is available
The Nasdaq-100, which SpaceX is listed on, has updated its rules to allow fast-track index entry within 15 days for newly listed mega-cap stocks. While this is a smaller index than the S&P 500, inclusion would still trigger meaningful buying pressure.
Lock-up expiry will create selling pressure
SpaceX has structured a staggered lock-up release schedule tied to earnings milestones and time-based windows (source: Yahoo Finance). When insider and employee shares become eligible for sale, typically after 180 days post-IPO, additional supply hits the market. This creates downward pressure on the share price and can represent a buying opportunity for investors who are patient.
The post-IPO dip is historically common
For high-profile IPOs with significant hype, a pattern tends to emerge: shares rally on the first few days of trading driven by momentum and retail enthusiasm, then pull back as early investors take profits and the hype fades (source: The Motley Fool). Waiting for this cycle to play out rather than buying at the opening has historically produced better entry prices for long-term investors.
Are there any alternatives to the SpaceX IPO?
If the valuation gives you pause, or you simply want SpaceX exposure without buying SPCX directly, there are a few ways to go about it.
Alphabet (GOOG)
Alphabet’s Google LLC division holds approximately 6.11% of SpaceX at the end of 2025 (source: Yahoo Finance), a stake now worth an estimated $100 billion. Google made this investment back in 2015 at a $10 billion valuation, which is roughly a 100x gain on paper. Buying Alphabet (GOOG) gives you exposure to SpaceX’s upside without paying SpaceX’s 100x sales multiple. You also get many of Google’s successful products such as Google Search, YouTube, Google Cloud, and DeepMind in the same package, at a far more reasonable valuation.
Amazon (AMZN)
Amazon is a useful comparison to SpaceX because the two companies are increasingly competing in the same spaces: satellite internet (Amazon’s Project Kuiper vs Starlink), cloud and AI infrastructure (AWS vs xAI), and logistics. The difference is that Amazon is doing all of this profitably. AWS generated $37.59 billion in revenue in its most recent quarter, a 28% growth from the same period a year earlier (source: CNBC). Amazon is not priced at a 100x sales multiple. If you believe in the Starlink thesis but want to invest in a satellite internet competitor with a proven profit engine behind it, Amazon is worth considering.
Other upcoming IPOs
If part of your SpaceX thesis is exposure to xAI and artificial intelligence, it is worth noting that Anthropic has now filed for its own IPO and OpenAI is targeting a public debut in late 2026 or early 2027. These are pure AI companies with comparable or greater relevance to the AI theme and without the rocketry premium attached.
What should you actually do after the SpaceX IPO?
The answer depends entirely on whether you’re a trader or an investor.
If you are a trader
The first few days of trading on a high-profile IPO like SPCX are driven by momentum, media coverage, and retail enthusiasm rather than fundamentals. Historically, oversubscribed IPOs often see a sharp opening pop. If you are intending to trade the hype, the key variables to watch are: opening price relative to the $135 offer, volume patterns in the first hour, and whether the stock holds above the IPO price by end of day one. Please note that volatility will be extreme, and the window for momentum trading is short. You should have a clear exit plan before you enter.
If you are a long-term investor
There are three near-term catalysts that could produce a better entry price than IPO day:
The post-IPO pullback: High-profile IPOs routinely give back their opening gains within the first 30-90 days. Given that SpaceX is priced at a premium even Morningstar considers excessive, a correction toward the $780 billion range in the months following the IPO would not be surprising.
Lock-up expiry: When insider shares unlock, additional selling pressure often pushes prices lower. This typically happens 90-180 days post-IPO and has historically been a better entry point for patient buyers.
S&P 500 inclusion: Once SpaceX achieves GAAP profitability and a 12-month trading period, S&P 500 inclusion could trigger an estimated $14 billion in mandatory passive buying. Getting in before that moment could be a meaningful trade.
If you believe in SpaceX’s long-term thesis such as Starlink’s recurring revenue and Starship’s transformative potential, the fundamentals may well justify a high multiple over a five to 10 year period. The question is not so much whether SpaceX is a great company, it’s whether you should pay $135 per share to get that exposure or whether the market will offer you a better price in the months that follow.
Closing thoughts
The SpaceX IPO has dominated financial headlines for the past few months, and when SPCX starts trading on June 12, the noise will likely be even more overwhelming. It’s easy to get caught up in all of that, but it’s important to remember that IPO day is just day one. The more useful matter to think about is what you do and monitor after the IPO, when the opening pop or drop happens, and SpaceX has to start justifying its $1.77 trillion valuation quarter by quarter.
Instead of agonizing over whether to buy on June 12, take a step back and watch how SPCX behaves in the weeks that follow. The investors who win are usually the ones who evaluate the circumstances carefully.
Frequently asked questions
When is the SpaceX IPO date?
SpaceX shares are set to begin trading on Nasdaq on June 12, 2026 under the ticker SPCX.
What is SpaceX’s IPO price?
SpaceX has set a fixed price of $135 per share.
What is SpaceX’s valuation at IPO?
SpaceX is valued at $1.77 trillion, making it the largest IPO in stock market history.
Is SpaceX profitable?
Not overall. Despite generating $18.7 billion in revenue in 2025, SpaceX posted a net loss of close to $5 billion. Starlink is the only unit currently turning a profit; the launch business reinvests most of its earnings into Starship, and xAI is still in its early stages.
What is Starlink, and why does it matter?
Starlink is SpaceX's satellite internet service, currently serving over 12 million subscribers across 160+ countries. It's SpaceX's only profitable business and the primary engine behind its valuation, accounting for 69% of total revenue in Q1 2026.
Will SpaceX be added to the S&P 500 after its IPO?
Not right away. S&P Dow Jones confirmed it won't fast-track SpaceX's inclusion. To qualify, SpaceX needs at least 12 months of public trading history and must demonstrate GAAP profitability, which is something it hasn't achieved yet.
When does the SpaceX lock-up period expire?
SpaceX has set up a staggered lock-up schedule tied to earnings milestones and time windows. Insiders can generally begin selling after 180 days post-IPO, which is when additional selling pressure could push the share price lower.
Why are some analysts saying SpaceX is overvalued?
Morningstar puts SpaceX's fair value at $780 billion (roughly half the IPO price) and values the stock at $63 per share rather than $135. Their concern is that SpaceX trades at over 100x sales, making it more expensive than any stock currently in the S&P 500, while remaining loss-making overall.
What does the 30% retail allocation mean for me?
It means a larger-than-usual portion of shares is available to individual investors through brokerages like Fidelity, Schwab, and Robinhood. Whether that's an opportunity or a warning sign depends on how you read it. Some see it as access, others see it as a signal that institutional appetite at this price wasn't as strong as the headlines suggest.
Should I buy SpaceX stock on IPO day or wait?
Depends on what you're trying to do. Traders might look to ride the opening momentum, but should have a clear exit plan given how volatile the debut is expected to be. Long-term investors may find better entry points after the post-IPO pullback, lock-up expiry, or when S&P 500 inclusion becomes a realistic prospect.
What are the alternatives to buying SpaceX at IPO?
Alphabet holds roughly 6% of SpaceX and gives you indirect exposure at a much lower valuation multiple. Amazon competes in the same spaces (satellite internet, cloud, AI) but is profitable and not priced at 100x sales. For pure AI exposure, Anthropic and OpenAI are both targeting public listings later in 2026.
Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team. Primary sources include CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Reuters, The Motley Fool, CNN. All facts independently verified against cited documentation current as of June 2026.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Cryptocurrency trading involves substantial risk of loss. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Always conduct your own research and consider your financial situation before trading. BloFin does not guarantee the accuracy of third-party data referenced herein.