SpaceX has taken its record-breaking stock market debut to an entirely new level. After already raising $75 billion in its initial public offering (IPO), the company’s underwriters exercised a 15% overallotment – aka ‘greenshoe’ – option, increasing the total amount raised to $85.7 billion. The company originally sold 555.6 million shares at $135 each, valuing SpaceX at around $1.77 trillion. But the additional sale of around 83.3 million shares brought in more than $10 billion extra, pushing total proceeds to $85.7 billion. Notably, no company has ever raised anywhere near this amount in a public debut.
Investor demand appears to have been extraordinary across both institutional and retail channels. Reports indicated that retail investors alone submitted bids exceeding $70 billion, while some brokerage platforms reported demand levels several times higher than any IPO seen in the past decade. SpaceX also allocated an unusually large portion of shares to individual investors, with some reports suggesting retail participation reached around 30% of the float, far above the level typically seen in large US listings. The deal was reportedly multiple times oversubscribed before trading even began, creating the conditions for the full greenshoe exercise.
It is worth noting that the strong demand was reflected immediately when trading began. Shares opened at about $150, well above the IPO price of $135. During the first day, the stock climbed as high as $176 before closing near $161, a gain of about 19% from the IPO price. The rally continued in the following session, briefly pushing SpaceX’s market value above $2.1 trillion. Within days of listing, the company became one of the most valuable publicly traded firms in the world and the sixth-largest company in the United States by market capitalization.
The IPO has also had a huge impact on Elon Musk’s wealth. Because Musk still owns a large stake in SpaceX and maintains voting control of the company, the surge in the stock price pushed his estimated net worth above $1 trillion, making him the first person ever to reach that milestone. The public listing is also expected to create thousands of new millionaires among current and former employees who hold company stock and stock options.
And now, investors will closely watch SpaceX’s earnings reports, future rocket launches, Starlink growth, and potential inclusion in major stock indexes like the Nasdaq-100. If the company is added to major indexes, passive investment funds could be forced to buy billions of dollars worth of SpaceX shares, creating another source of demand.
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Ashutosh is a Senior Writer at The Tech Portal, largely reporting on new tech, and intersection of technology and business. Ashutosh’s career spans across nearly a decade of technology writing across multiple platforms and languages.
