By Logan Gilland, CFP®
On June 12, 2026, SpaceX began trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX. Throughout the end of the day the company crossed a $2 trillion market cap after its shares climbed more than 25% from their IPO price of $135 before coming back down to settle in the $158 range slightly higher than where it opened to the public around noon. To put that in perspective, SpaceX started the day as a larger company by market value than Berkshire Hathaway and Eli Lilly and climbed to larger than Walmart at one point. The IPO itself raised $75 billion, nearly three times the previous record held by Saudi Aramco since 2019. Needless to say, it was an exciting day in the markets.
It is worth noting, though, that only about 4% of SpaceX shares were sold in this offering. The rest stay with employees, early investors, and Elon Musk, who still controls roughly 85% of the voting power. The majority of these shares remain off the public market for the time being.
So what is the money for? SpaceX laid it out in its filing. The capital goes toward fueling two massive, expensive ambitions: 1) continuing to expand Starlink, its satellite internet business that is growing at 50% per year and already generating over $4 billion in operating income, and 2) building out what the company calls orbital AI computing infrastructure. Translation, data centers in space.
I should also mention that SpaceX was not the only story this week, though it seemed to drown everything else out.
Iran remained a moving target. Markets sold off early in the week on escalating rhetoric, then recovered after President Trump suggested a peace deal could come within days. Oil continued its downward drift as a result, which is a positive for equities and, on a personal note, a welcome development for the Gilland family road trip budget this summer.
Technology stocks also remained under pressure coming off some disappointing earnings reports from last week’s concerns about AI buildout costs and whether the returns are materializing fast enough to justify the spending. We got a bounce in the later half of the week but technology stocks and the broad market remain off highs. I covered that in more detail in last week’s piece, which you can read HERE.
Now, back to SpaceX because I have not quite seen a market topic captivate investors (and non-investors) like this one in a long time.
History-making days have a way of making people feel like they need to act. I have already heard things like “this is getting in on the ground floor of the next Apple.” And I understand the feeling. The story is genuinely compelling: Starlink, Starship, space-based AI, humanoid robots. All of it is real and some of it is already profitable.
Pricing matters enormously though. SpaceX came public valued at roughly 94 times its annual revenue. For context, Meta was valued at 22 times revenue when it went public, and Amazon at 18 times. This is not a company priced on what it has already built — it is priced on everything it might build. That future may absolutely come to fruition, and there are already real contracts and real cash flow here. But when a company is priced for perfection, I think patience is the right posture.
History backs that up. Looking at the 10 largest IPOs ever recorded, five were lower three months after listing, and five were still lower a full year in. We have never seen an IPO at this scale, but the fanfare initially has rarely been the best entry point. My encouragement to anyone watching SpaceX right now is simple: let the story prove itself before you pay for the whole dream.
I also want to name something I have been watching closely. The energy around this IPO is unlike anything I have personally seen. The conversations I have been having lately remind me of everything I studied about the dot-com era. That is not a prediction, and it is not necessarily a warning, but it is worth being aware of as we head into what is shaping up to be a very busy stretch of IPOs and continued market volatility. Days like today have a way of making the lines between disciplined long term investing and gambling for a quick buck blur. If you are feeling that pull, let’s talk, that is exactly what we are here for.
Here is what I want to close on, because I think today is worth a moment of genuine appreciation.
Fifty years ago, the biggest company in the world was IBM. A hundred years ago it was U.S. Steel. What is remarkable is that when brilliant people come up with a solution the world actually needs, our market system allows them to build it, grow it, and eventually share ownership in that company with the rest of us. It gets added to indexes. It ends up in retirement accounts. It becomes part of the wealth-building machinery that everyday investors participate in.
That process is not gambling. It is ownership in human ingenuity. On a day when a rocket company becomes one of the most valuable businesses on the planet, that is worth remembering.
Before I let you go, a quick reminder that both the markets and our office will be closed next Friday in observance of Juneteenth. If you have any trades, transfers, or money requests next week, just plan for an extra business day on the processing side. Talk again soon,