Signing off...
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Thanks for following our coverage of SpaceX’s public float, which has turned Elon Musk into the world’s first trillionaire.
The listing on the Nasdaq saw SpaceX’s share price surge by over 30pc on its first day of trading.
SpaceX shares are currently up by almost 23pc, at prices of more than $165 per share.
Shares in the rocket making company initially started trading at $135 per share this morning.
The public listing has now turned Mr Musk into the world’s first trillionaire.
US stocks rise as oil prices fall
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America’s leading stock indices all rose on Friday as oil prices fell on easing tensions between the US and Iran.
As of Friday afternoon, the S&P 500 was up 0.5pc, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.8pc and the Nasdaq 100 was up 0.7pc.
Markets were boosted by Donald Trump’s decision to call off planned strikes on Iran and his suggestions the war might soon come to an end.
It saw oil prices fall sharply to their lowest levels since March. Brent Crude prices fell by almost 4pc to around $87 a barrell.
Musk’s trillionaire status prompts calls for wealth tax
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Elon Musk’s newfound status as a trillionaire has prompted calls for a wealth tax from leading Democratic Party politicians in the US.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Elizabeth Warren, the US Senator for Massachusetts, said: “We need a wealth tax.”
“Elon Musk just became the world’s first trillionaire. The typical American household would have to work more than 11 MILLION years to make Elon Musk’s level of wealth,” Ms Warren added.
In an email to his supporters, Ro Khanna, a Democrat Representative in Silicon Valley, said Musk’s new financial position is a sign the economy is “rigged”.
“It’s a sign the system is rigged,” Mr Khanna said.
SpaceX bankers to receive fees worth $500m
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Bankers working on SpaceX’s public float will be paid $500m in fees, according to a filing from the rocket making company.
In a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, SpaceX revealed a sum of $500m will be available to the advisors who worked on the listing.
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the two lead banks on the initial public offering, will take roughly 40pc of all fees, equivalent to $100m each, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Banks including JP Morgan and Citigroup will share the remaining $300m worth of fees between them.
Bernie Sanders calls for higher taxes as Elon Musk becomes world’s first trillionaire
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Bernie Sanders, the United States senator for Vermont, has said Elon Musk’s new status as the world’s first trillionaire shows the “absurdity” of US limits on social security payments.
Mr Sanders said: “Today, Elon Musk, a trillionaire, pays the same amount into Social Security as someone making $184,500.”
“If we end that absurdity and lift the cap on taxable income, we can make Social Security solvent for 75 years and expand benefits by $2,400. My Social Security bill does that.”
In the US, taxpayers must only pay social security tax on the first $184,500 they earn, at rates of 6.2pc for employees and 12.4pc for people who are self-employed.
— Sen. Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) June 12, 2026Today, Elon Musk, a trillionaire, pays the same amount into Social Security as someone making $184,500.
If we end that absurdity and lift the cap on taxable income, we can make Social Security solvent for 75 years and expand benefits by $2,400. My Social Security bill does that.
Elon Musk celebrates “people of SpaceX”
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Elon Musk has said “I love the incredible people of SpaceX” as the rocket maker’s public float is set to turn hundreds of its staff into millionaires.
In a post on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter, Mr Musk said: “I love the incredible people of SpaceX beyond words.”
Mr Musk’s comment followed a retweet by the tech trillionaire of a separate post by market research firm Bull Theory, telling the story of a welder at SpaceX who has become a millionaire because of the float.
— Bull Theory (@BullTheoryio) June 12, 2026A man working as a welder at SpaceX for $28 an hour has just become a millionaire.
Juan Hernandez, who came from Mexico, welded rockets for SpaceX at $28 an hour.
SpaceX gave him $10,000 in stock when he went full time in 2015, and he bought more with every paycheck for 10… pic.twitter.com/kfgnwVwJGN
The retweeted post from Bull Theory said: “Juan Hernandez, who came from Mexico, welded rockets for SpaceX at $28 an hour.”
“SpaceX gave him $10,000 in stock when he went full time in 2015, and he bought more with every paycheck for 10 years. $SPCX is now trading at $167, making his shares worth over $1 million.”
Thousands of SpaceX’s current and former staff are set to become millionaires due to the space exploration company’s listing on the Nasdaq exchange.
SpaceX shares rise by 28pc
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SpaceX shares have continued to rise on their first day of trading, extending their gains by over 28pc.
Shares in Elon Musk’s rocket company hit highs of $172.90 each, from an initial price of $135 per share.
It marks a 28.1pc rise in the stock, since trading started at 11.46am in New York on Friday.
The surge in SpaceX’s stock price throughout the day gives the company a market capitalisation of over $2trn.
$1bn of UK retail orders ahead of float
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British investors placed orders around £750m of orders for SpaceX shares ahead of its float, although only ultimately secured about £271m in stock amid soaring demand.
A source familiar with the share sale confirmed that British buyers through retail trading apps placed orders of about $1bn (£750m), although high demand meant not all of these orders were filled in full.
Musk is a trillionaire - but for how long?
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It’s official. Elon Musk is a trillionaire, and SpaceX is a $2tn company.
But for how long?
Investors may remember Meta’s IPO more than a decade ago, when it was still Facebook, which opened to great fanfare above its IPO price before tumbling by the end of the day. Still, Mark Zuckerberg’s firm is valued around 1,400pc higher today than it was in 2012.
But that $1.5tn firm is making a profit today, unlike Musk’s. In fact, SpaceX is famously burning through cash, although that’s not to say a lossmaking company can’t spin a profit.
Perhaps one of the maddest statistics is the implied price-to-sales ratio of its $135 IPO share price, which of course will be even greater now. The average S&P 500 firm trades at 3.5x; Tesla, Musk’s first public venture, trades on 17x, which is considered rich for some; even Meta is at 22x.
SpaceX? 94x.
James will decode the SpaceX float on Monday – exclusively for subscribers to the Investor Newsletter. Sign up here.
Green shoes all round
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The work is not done yet for SpaceX’s many, many investment bankers.
SpaceX’s float has raised $75bn in its public offering, but the company’s financial advisers have the option to sell further shares in the business if there is appetite.
This so-called “greenshoe” option could see SpaceX up its total funding to as much as $86bn, if the banks take on the stock.
Based on posts shared by Mr Musk on X, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are confident they could go further.
Elon Musk becomes the world’s first trillionaire
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SpaceX’s share price surge has minted Elon Musk as the world’s first trillionaire.
Mr Musk has a stake of around 43pc in the rocket venture, which was valued at $2.1tn (£1.8tn) as markets opened, on top of his shares in Tesla and his other start-ups.
The share price jump on Friday means he is now worth around $1.1tn.
He holds roughly 15pc of Tesla’s shares and multibillion-dollar stakes in his other businesses, including brain-chip start-up Neuralink and tunnelling outfit The Boring Company.
The 54-year-old’s net worth surged above $500bn in October last year, the first person ever to be worth more than $500bn, and has more than doubled since.
SpaceX jumps above $2tn valuation
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SpaceX has rocketed above a $2tn valuation as its shares climbed as high as $162 in early trading.
The share price at the opening of trading in the US mints Elon Musk as an official trillionaire and adds his rocket business to the ranks of the world’s most valuable publicly trading companies.
Shares traded 20pc in early trading on the Nasdaq exchange after opening at $150 per share, above the listing price of $135.
Meanwhile, stock in Tesla dropped by around 2pc as fans of Mr Musk shifted into his new business.
SpaceX opens at $150 per share
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SpaceX trading has opened at $150 per share, an 11pc jump on its listing price of $135.
Rival space stocks plummet as SpaceX hits markets
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Space businesses that compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX have suffered a sharp sell-off since markets opened - despite surging earlier this week.
Shares in Virgin Galactic, Sir Richard Branson’s space tourism venture, tumbled more than 30pc on Friday after enjoying a boost of more than 20pc just yesterday. Stock in Rocket Lab, whose launch vehicles compete with Mr Musk’s Falcon 9, was down 8pc.
Firefly Aerospace, meanwhile, dropped by 14pc and AST Space Mobile, which competes with SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network, fell 11pc.
Analysts have warned that SpaceX’s float is “sucking the oxygen” out of the market as retail investors and funds sell down their stakes in other technology businesses in order to hoover up SpaceX’s new stock.
However until now, many of these space businesses had ridden on SpaceX’s coattails and surged higher in recent weeks thanks to renewed interest in the sector.
SpaceX excitement ‘echoes dotcom boom and bust’
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The hype around the SpaceX listing resonates with the fever that gripped markets before the dotcom bubble burst, an fund manager has warned.
Neil Birrell, chief investment officer at Premier Miton, said: “It’s hard to know if the price of SpaceX getting off to an incredible start is a good thing or a bad thing.
“Investors could get sucked in at high levels but FOMO is a strong emotion and index buyers have little choice.
“These IPOs do resonate with the dotcom boom and bust more than anything else I’ve seen in this cycle.”
Why investors are waiting to find out SpaceX’s share price
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The most hotly anticipated event in markets is under way. Even people who don’t know their Isa from their ETF have asked me about the SpaceX IPO, such is the cut-through of a man like Musk.
History’s biggest IPO, the world’s first trillionaire, there’s plenty to get excited about. But those same people have started badgering me for another reason.
Why is nothing happening?
Even though this launch has broken all the records (and fiddled with some of the rules), markets still need to set a price.
Yes, the much-touted $135 per share seems to have been met, but what’s it worth now? $160? $170? $180?
Answering that question is what’s going on right now, and it’s known as an opening auction period. It’s been running for about 90 minutes but could go on for hours. Essentially, banks, market makers and underwriters are filling orders, and until a reasonable price has been found, it won’t go live.
I can’t tell you when that’ll happen, but it will happen today.
James will decode the SpaceX float on Monday – exclusively for subscribers to the Investor Newsletter. Sign up here.
‘Atmosphere electric’ as traders wait to see SpaceX price
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Global investors are glued to their screens waiting to see what price SpaceX shares will begin trading at on Wall Street.
The latest reports suggest the shares will surge from the $135 initial public offering (IPO) to around $166, which would be enough to make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.
That is down from initial reports of a pop to $175 per share, but that has not stopped traders felling the excitement in New York.
R.J. Grant, global head of equity trading at Stifel Nicolaus told Bloomberg: “The atmosphere is electric! It feels just like it does when tip off is kicking off for a Knicks playoff game.
“It’s like the calm before the storm. It’s also interns and new hire season as we get into the summer so there’s a lot of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, young people captivated by all of this. It’s going to get busy, so I may have to run across the street to Shake Shack later to buy the trading desk lunch.”
Pictured: SpaceX fever sweeps Times Square
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Record IPO ‘drew $350bn in demand’
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SpaceX’s record initial public offering is thought to have drawn $350bn worth of demand, according to Bloomberg.
It sold 555.6m shares at $135 each, raising $75bn, and the price is expected to surge to around $175 when trading begins shortly.
That would mean its valuation soars from an $1.8 trillion to well over $2 trillion.
SpaceX poised to blow past $2 trillion valuation
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SpaceX would be worth more than $2 trillion if its shares surge as expected when they start trading.
The Nasdaq has said shares will start changing hands shortly, with analysts predicting the price will leap from $135 in the IPO to $175.
That would easily make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.
US stocks lack direction before SpaceX IPO
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Wall Street opened mixed with SpaceX set to begin trading following world’s largest initial public offering.
SpaceX has priced more than 555 million shares at $135 each in a filing with the US markets regulator on Thursday.
Shares are expected to surge to $175, a leap of 30pc. The move would make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.
The Nasdaq was up 0.1pc but the S&P 500 was down 0.3pc. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has climbed 0.4pc.
SpaceX expected to surge 30pc
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SpaceX shares are expected to rocket when they began trading on the Nasdaq for the first time, making Elon Musk a trillionaire.
The company’s share price is predicted to climb by 29pc from $135 to $175 when they become publicly available for the first tiem, according to Bloomberg.
British investment windfall on SpaceX float
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Investment trusts managed by Scottish fund manager Baillie Gifford have enjoyed a multi-billion pound windfall from SpaceX’s record breaking float.
Funds including the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, Edinburgh Worldwide and Baillie Gifford US Growth have all soared on the back of the SpaceX float.
Baillie Gifford said that Scottish Mortgage invested around £151m in SpaceX, which is now valued at close to £3.8bn, around 25 times the capital invested.
Edinburgh Worldwide invested £9.1m in SpaceX, now valued at £222.2m. Baillie Gifford US Growth, the Schiehallion and Monks Investment Trust have all seen huge windfalls from small investments in the rocket giant.
Pictured: Shotwell rings opening bell at Nasdaq
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Elon Musk’s key lieutenant Gwtnne Shotwell celebrated as she rang the opening bell to launch the SpaceX IPO on the Nasdaq.
The shares are expected to open 29pc above the $135 offer price, according to Bloomberg.
Musk thought SpaceX would fail
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Elon Musk said he gave SpaceX a 10pc chance of succeeding as the company prepares to begin trading shares publicly on the Nasdaq.
To cheers from his colleagues surrounding him at SpaceX’s headquarters in Starbase, Texas, Mr Musk said: “It is certainly hard to believe that a little company that started in a warehouse in El Segundo is now going public for the largest IPO ever.
“If people had told me this was going to happen, I was like: man you must be smoking some really good crack – cause I think this company is going to fail.
“I gave SpaceX less than a 10pc chance of succeeding at all. In fact I tell people this: it is probably going to fail, but we should give it a try.”
Other companies were not pursuing rockets to “make Star Trek” and to “take the fiction out of science fiction”.
He said: “We want to be able to take anyone who wants to go to the Moon or wants to go to Mars, or anywhere in the Solar System, and maybe beyond the Solar System at some point, we want to be able to take you there. Not just a few astronauts – you, literally you.
“I am confident at this point that with the incredible team that we have here at SpaceX that we will do that for you.
“There are always problems on Earth there are always things we wish to be better. But there also have to be things that get you excited about the future. That make you glad to wake up in the morning. Because you cannot wait to see what happens next. That is the future that SpaceX wants to bring to you.”
Pictured: Elon Musk ‘rings opening bell’
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Elon Musk has “rung the opening bell” on the Nasdaq as he appeared via video link in New York for the initial public offering of SpaceX.
Nasdaq falls at the open
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The Nasdaq has dropped at the opening bell as the shares of SpaceX prepare to start trading for the first time.
The tech-heavy index was fell 0.1pc to 25,775.40, while the benchmark S&P 500 rose 0.1pc to 7,403.40.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened up 0.5pc to 51,118.41.
SpaceX shares are expected to start trading soon.
‘We’re not focused on earnings’, says SpaceX president
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SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell – one of Elon Musk’s longest serving lieutenants – has warned investors in the rocket company that it will not be focused on “quarterly earnings” as it raises tens of billions of dollars for future space missions.
Speaking on CNBC today, Ms Shotwell said: “I do not want to focus on quarterly earnings. I’m not saying we’re not going to do right by our investors, but what folks who invest in SpaceX need to know is what we’re doing is very futuristic.”
The rocket company has so far burned through more than $40bn since it was founded and its losses are expected to mount as Mr Musk ploughs tens of billions of dollars into AI and its Starship megarocket.
Becoming a public company will subject SpaceX to heightened scrutiny. Mr Musk had previously kept the business private to focus on his ambitious goals, such as reaching Mars.
However, Ms Shotwell said the company wanted to provide the opportunity for ordinary savers to own a chunk of the business.
“We’ve been feeling over the last few years a lot of pressure from everyday Americans and our friends that wanted to buy stock, and there was just no way for these folks to get in.”
Pictured: SpaceX finance chief arrives
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Bret Johnsen, the chief financial officer of SpaceX, has appeared in New York.
People are also gathering outside the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square.
SpaceX launches rocket hour before Wall Street listing
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SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket loaded with Starlink satellites less than an hour before Elon Musk’s company lifts off for the largest IPO in history on Wall Street.
“Go SpaceX, go Starlink to all SpaceXers, new and old. Let’s see what’s out there. Occupy Mars!” a SpaceX official said in a live feed of the launch from Cape Canaveral, on Florida’s east coast.
The rocket was carrying 29 Starlink internet satellites, destined to join an existing network of more than 10,000 satellites.
The Falcon 9 has now completed more than 600 flights, making it the workhorse of the commercial and military satellite launch industry.
Retail investors ‘secured 20pc of SpaceX IPO’
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Individual investors reportedly secured 20pc of the shares sold in the SpaceX IPO, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Usually, retail investors receive a share of 5pc to 10pc of major listings.
It signals Elon Musk set aside a larger than usual chunk of the 555.6 million shares sold for his legion of fans, priced at $135 each.
When does Musk become a trillionaire?
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Elon Musk will become a trillionaire if SpaceX stock rises by just 2.2pc on its first day of trading.
SpaceX shares have been priced at $135 in the company’s initial public offering, and a rise to $138 would get Mr Musk to the historic landmark given the scale of his holdings.
Record IPOs signal AI rally ‘entering final stages’
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The wave of blockbuster listings this year will be a major test for stock markets already setting record highs, economists have warned.
Capital Economics warned that major new listings like SpaceX tend to pick up when market booms enter their final stages.
As investors struggle to buy up all the shares available, it risks pushing wider share prices lower, the consultancy warned.
The listings of SpaceX and AI companies Anthropic and OpenAI are expected to make 2026 a record year for IPOs.
Markets economist Joe Maher said: “Not only is booming share issuance a sign speculation is reaching fever pitch, but rising supply may also overwhelm investor demand and help to push stock prices lower.”
He added: “Recent history suggests surging share issuance tends to be a sign that the end to an equity boom is a matter of months not years away.
“After all, gross issuance surged towards the end of the last three major equity booms and peaked broadly in line with the stock market on those occasions. With share issuance booming once again, the AI-driven equity rally may well be entering its final stages.”
Pictured: Maye Musk arrives at Nasdaq
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Elon Musk’s mother Maye has arrived at the Nasdaq as her son’s rocket company SpaceX prepares for its first day of trading, which will likely make him the world’s first trillionaire.
UK ‘already reliant’ on SpaceX
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Britain is dependent on SpaceX and its listing on Wall Street will make this more visible, a tech analyst has said.
James Bull of RSM UK said the UK is already “operationally, financially and strategically exposed” to SpaceX.
Britain is reliant on its satellite network Starlink, which accounts for 61pc of the company’s $18.7bn of revenues last year, he said.
Pensions are also exposed, as are Britain’s hopes for AI infrastructure.
He said: “The UK is not just reliant on SpaceX for satellite communications and launch capacity, but increasingly for the AI compute infrastructure that underpins the next generation of our digital services.
“Savers are exposed too, whether they choose it or not. Pension funds and ISA investors in passive index funds are likely to find themselves holding SpaceX shares automatically once the stock begins trading.
“The strategic dependency runs deeper, as the UK military has reportedly begun using Starshield (SpaceX’s militarised satellite network) for operational communications, with little debate on what this means for our sovereign infrastructure.
“This comes at a particularly sensitive moment, given yesterday’s resignation of the Defence Secretary over funding constraints.”
He added: “The bigger picture is that space is quickly becoming critical national infrastructure, and currently the UK’s position is being shaped by decisions made in California rather than Westminster.”
SpaceX could create a new generation of ‘Sids’ – or leave them out of pocket
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When Margaret Thatcher privatised British Gas, the frenzy over the “Tell Sid” campaign meant that more than one million people decided to buy shares and became stock market investors overnight.
It set up decades of interest from Britons keen to take a wager on the stock market and helped bring the inner workings of the City money men to the British public.
Now, a similar frenzy could be about to engulf a new generation of UK stock pickers when Elon Musk’s SpaceX floats on the stock market.
But many are sceptical of its stock market returns.
Wall Street poised to jump on SpaceX debut
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US stock markets are on track to rise at the opening bell as SpaceX prepares for its shares to be publicly traded for the first time.
Wall Street rallied in premarket trading as Donald Trump suggested a deal to end the Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz could be signed this weekend.
It provides a solid backdrop for SpaceX to start trading on the Nasdaq for the first time.
It is likely to be immediately ranked as the seventh biggest publicly listed US company, with a potential valuation of around $1.8 trillion.
Mark Boggett, chief executive of space investment firm Seraphim Space, said: “A SpaceX IPO is a landmark moment for the space economy.
“More than simply attracting additional venture capital, it would further establish space as a mainstream investment category and provide public market investors with a highly visible benchmark for the sector’s potential.”
‘Musk has the midas touch’
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SpaceX shares are a “risky bet”, according to Telegraph readers, although many say they admire Elon Musk for his “business creating ability”.
Here are some comments from readers who have taken part in the IPO and you can join the debate here.
Rival space stocks zoom ahead of record float
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Rivals to Elon Musk’s SpaceX are soaring in pre-market trading in the US as traders seek to capitalise on the interest in space exploration.
Shares in Virgin Galactic, Sir Richard Branson’s space tourism venture, jumped 21pc yesterday and were up 5pc in pre-market trading.
Rocket Lab, a New Zealand founded launch business, saw its shares jump 9pc yesterday and they climbed a further 6pc before markets opened in the US.
Meanwhile, satellite communications business AST Space Mobile was up 11.7pc yesterday while Earth observation company Planet was up 11.2pc.
In London, specialist space investor the Seraphim Space Investment Trust was trading up more than 4pc.
Public warned over stock market rule changes
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Retail investors risk being the “victim” of changes to rules linked to the SpaceX IPO, chief investment officer of one of Britain’s biggest fund managers has warned.
Piers Hillier, the chief investment officer at Jupiter Asset Management, said he was concerned by the decision by some popular indices to change their rules to fast-track the inclusion of SpaceX following its IPO.
Mr Hillier said that, given SpaceX’s uncertain valuation, the move could undermine the millions of retail traders who invest in popular indices like the Nasdaq 100.
SpaceX will be eligible for inclusion in the Nasdaq after just 15 days of trading, meaning funds like ETF, which aim to represent the whole of a stock market, will quickly be forced to buy shares in the company.
“It just worries me a little bit with that auto index allocation. Retail investors unfortunately tend to be the victims of this if we’re not careful,” Mr Hillier said.
“[Indices] take the last price of the day. That’s what they want. They don’t set the price. What worries me slightly from a retail investor perspective is that we don’t really know what the company’s worth. “
Analysts at BNP Paribas estimate a combined $16.2bn of passive buying across a number of popular indices will happen within the first 15 days after SpaceX lists. Mr Hillier added that the uncertainty of SpaceX’s valuation, given the heavy weighting given to Elon Musk’s AI challenger, Grok, only added to concerns.
“I’m not saying that SpaceX is necessarily a bad business,” he said. “I certainly think Starlink has been amazing but I worry when you fold in businesses like X and then you just add an AI tag to that you’re putting conceptual valuations in against fundamental businesses.”
SpaceX ‘sucks oxygen’ out of the stock market
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The unprecedented size of SpaceX’s float has “sucked the oxygen” from the rest of the stock market, as other technology stocks dip and rivals hold off launching public offerings.
Samuel Kerr, an analyst at Mergermarket, said other large listings had been put on pause to avoid clashing with SpaceX’s $1.8tn deal.
The record float “seems to have sucked out quite a lot of oxygen from the rest of the market,” he said.
“Other large IPO issuers have tried to avoid coming to market at the same time as SpaceX, and there does seem to have been some selling in other large US tech names to make room for SpaceX shares.
“The IPOs of OpenAI and Anthropic, both of which will also be sizeable, will possibly cause even more selling of other stocks and other possible IPO candidates to push back their deals to next year.”
SpaceX is also expected to be quickly included in major stock indices, meaning that passive index-linked funds and so-called ETFs will end up having to buy shares in the rocket giant, sucking liquidity away from alternative companies.
Analysts at Vanda said this week that at least some of the sell-off in US technology stocks across markets in recent days appears to have been driven by retail traders cashing in their shares in anticipation of buying into SpaceX’s listing.
Elon Musk set to become world’s first trillionaire
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SpaceX chief Elon Musk is poised to become the world’s first trillionaire when the company begins trading later today.
The company’s $1.8tn public listing should put him within touching distance of a trillion-dollars in net worth.
According to Forbes, Musk’s net worth is now around $982bn following the final pricing of SpaceX’s float.
Its shares need to rise by just a few dollars to propel him above $1tn.
According to Reuters using a different methodology, he has already eclipsed $1tn thanks to his extra share options in Tesla.
The SpaceX deal has also awarded Musk a further pay incentive if he can build a colony on Mars. That bonus is worth an additional hundreds of billions of dollars.
SpaceX valuation soars in ‘grey market’ deals
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While formally valued at $135 per share ahead of today’s public listing, crypto traders and speculators on prediction markets are betting that SpaceX’s market value will blast through $2tn when it goes public later today.
Derivatives and crypto-linked contracts were trading as much as 50pc above the listing price on Friday morning on crytocurrency trading apps and prediction websites favoured by speculators.
On the Hyperliquid cryptocurrency app, so-called SpaceX-linked “perpetual” futures were trading at around $180 per share, implying an overall valuation of $2.3tn, nearly 35pc higher than the actual float pricing.
These contracts are linked to guesses about the future stock price of SpaceX.
More than $214m has been traded by crypto speculators on this contract alone. These crypto-tied contracts are loosely regulated and the Financial Conduct Authority has said they are not authorised in the UK.
Elsewhere, punters on offshore prediction markets have forecast SpaceX’s shares will spike in opening trading later today. Prediction apps such as Polymarket have surged in popularity as a way to bet on financial events.
Punters on Polymarket have forecast that SpaceX will close on Friday at a valuation of $2.2tn. Around 73pc of traders have bet it will end with a value above $2tn.
British investors get slice of SpaceX in £75bn scramble for shares
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British armchair investors have scooped up £270m of shares in Elon Musk’s record-setting SpaceX market listing as part of a global £75bn scramble to get a slice of the business.
Amateur investors around the world attempted to buy more than more than $100bn (£75bn) of SpaceX shares before the rocket company’s $1.8tn stock market debut on Friday.
The size of the demand from everyday investors far outstripped the total share offering from SpaceX, which on Thursday night confirmed it had sold $75bn of stock in the deal.
Good morning
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Here we are then, on the cusp of the largest public listing in history.
SpaceX will launch on the Nasdaq later today after raising $75bn (£56bn) in its initial public offering.
When the rocket company floats later, it is on track to make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.
To mark the occasion, a giant inflatable figure of the controversial entrepreneur, who is also the boss of Tesla, has appeared in Times Square in New York ahead of the listing.
Protesters have accused Mr Musk’s xAI, which is behind the Grok chatbot, of being used to create “child porn”.
The company faces a lawsuit in California from teenagers who say the company allowed the creation of sexually explicit images of them.
X said that it had introduced measures to halt Grok creating images that undress people.
