SpaceX begins trading on the Nasdaq today under the ticker SPCX at an offering price of $135 per share, valuing the company at roughly $1.77 trillion. That is the largest stock market debut in history, eclipsing the Saudi Aramco listing of 2019. The price was locked in after market close on June 11, and the first public shares change hands this morning, the same day the company is flying another Starlink mission from Cape Canaveral.

The timing is deliberate. Musk is taking the most valuable private company on Earth public on the same day its rockets keep launching, a signal to investors that the cadence which built the business is not slowing down. For a company that spent twenty years insisting it had no reason to go public, this is a sharp reversal, and the number attached to it is staggering even by the standards of the current market.

How big is the SpaceX IPO compared to past records?

SpaceX is debuting at a valuation near $1.77 trillion, which clears the previous benchmark set by Saudi Aramco. That 2019 listing valued the oil giant around $1.7 trillion on a raise of roughly $29 billion and stood for years as the only company to crack a trillion through an IPO. SpaceX passes it on valuation alone. The $135 share price was not optimism. It followed a confidential SEC filing in the spring, a public S-1 on May 20 that gave outsiders their first real look at the books, and a roadshow that ran through early June before pricing.

Why is SpaceX going public now after Musk resisted for years?

The answer is Starlink. Musk kept SpaceX private for two decades because public markets punish the long horizon, capital heavy bets that define rocketry. Starlink changed the math. The satellite internet business now generates recurring revenue projected in the range of $22 billion to $24 billion for 2026, and that subscription income is something Wall Street can actually model. A company that only launches rockets is hard to value. A company that launches rockets and collects monthly payments from millions of Starlink customers looks like a business investors understand.

The proceeds are widely expected to fund the most expensive items on Musk's roadmap, including space based data centers and the continued buildout of Starship. Going public also hands SpaceX a liquid currency it can use for acquisitions and for paying the engineers it fights to retain.

What are the risks now that SpaceX is public?

Public ownership means quarterly scrutiny, disclosure requirements, and a share price that reacts to every launch anomaly and regulatory fight. The industry stays unforgiving. A rival's New Glenn rocket exploded on its pad earlier this year, a reminder that hardware failure is always one ignition away, and SpaceX will now absorb those shocks in full view of the market. The stock also carries the Musk factor. His other ventures, including the X social network that now sits under the same corporate umbrella, mean investors are buying into his attention and his controversies as much as the rockets.

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