NEW YORK, June 13 (Our New York News) — SpaceX’s first day as a publicly traded company on Nasdaq produced two financial milestones on Friday: a $75 billion stock sale for the rocket and satellite company and wealth estimates that placed founder Elon Musk above $1 trillion for the first time.
The records supporting those findings are market-based. Nasdaq trading data showed SpaceX began trading June 12 under the ticker SPCX after the company priced its initial public offering at $135 a share. The offering raised $75 billion, according to SpaceX’s announced IPO terms cited in market coverage.
Shares opened around $150, rose as high as about $176.50 during the session and closed at roughly $161, according to Nasdaq trading data. At that closing price, the public market valued SpaceX at more than $2 trillion, compared with an IPO valuation reported around $1.77 trillion to $1.8 trillion.
For New York’s financial markets, the debut was one of the largest single-company events of the year. The listing moved a company long financed in private markets onto a public exchange, giving public investors a direct way to buy into SpaceX while also setting a market price for Musk’s stake, employee equity and earlier private investors’ holdings.
The Musk wealth finding depends on estimates, not a cash payout. Forbes and Bloomberg wealth calculations placed Musk’s total net worth at roughly $1.05 trillion to $1.11 trillion after the first day of trading. By those estimates, he became the world’s first trillionaire.
The same estimates varied on the value of Musk’s SpaceX holdings because they used different share counts, options assumptions and trading prices. Calculations tied to the IPO price put his SpaceX stake at roughly $688 billion, while other market-day estimates put it near $690 billion, about $766 billion to $767 billion, or as high as roughly $795 billion to $800 billion when higher trading prices and options were included.
Those differences matter. A share price can move by the minute, and Musk’s reported wealth is largely paper wealth tied to stock and options rather than cash. The available source material did not include the full offering prospectus, audited financial statements or a definitive share-count filing that would allow Times Media Service to independently reconcile every estimate.
The IPO also did not settle questions about valuation. Morningstar analysts, described in AP and PBS accounts as independent of investment-banking fees, estimated SpaceX’s value at about $780 billion and called the IPO “significantly overvalued.” That estimate was far below both the IPO valuation and the market value implied by Friday’s closing price.
Musk has said SpaceX went public to fund plans for satellites and data centers in space and, ultimately, a human settlement on Mars, according to an AP account of his statement. SpaceX was founded in 2002.
Several reports also described a dual-class or special-share structure that leaves Musk with outsized control, but the reported ownership and voting figures conflict. The available material gave ownership estimates ranging from 38% to about half of the company and voting-power estimates above 80%. Without the underlying company filing, those figures could not be reconciled.
The clearest documented result is narrower but still large: SpaceX completed a $75 billion IPO, traded publicly on Nasdaq under SPCX, closed its first session well above the $135 offering price and produced market-based wealth estimates that moved Musk above $1 trillion.
