SpaceX makes its stock exchange debut after record IPO: online

SpaceX, a pioneer in the development of reusable space rockets, will begin trading on the Nasdaq exchange today. The day before, Elon Musk's company held the largest IPO in history, which valued it at about $1.8 trillion. Watch SpaceX's debut trading here online.

17.03 CET: Retail investors should be allocated at least 20% of SpaceX shares - significantly more than usual, Bloomberg writes.

Meanwhile, retail traders who wanted to invest in SpaceX at the IPO price are already complaining on Reddit that they got next to nothing. "Asked for 300 shares, got one," one user wrote.

16.48 CET: Several investment firms are already covering SpaceX shares. New Street Research recommends buying with a target price of $165. Oppenheimer has given an "above market" rating with a target price of $190. According to Bloomberg, four analysts have given SpaceX recommendations equivalent to "buy" with an average target price of $189.25 - about 40% above the offering price.

16.42 CET: Tesla shares , which debuted on the stock exchange on June 29, 2010, rose 40.5% on the first day of trading. Investors who have held Tesla shares since the IPO have gained more than 35,000%, Bloomberg calculated.

The record for the highest first day of trading growth since 2000 belongs to designer software developer Figma - its shares have soared 250% since its IPO in 2025. 

16.38 CET: SpaceX's shares will determine whether the world will see its first trillionaire. The day before, Musk fell just a little short of that status - based on an offering price of $135, his fortune was $971 billion (Bloomberg estimate ).

If Tesla's stock price remains stable on Friday and SpaceX shares rise at least 4%, Musk's fortune will exceed $1 trillion.

16.35 CET: It looks like SpaceX shares will take off immediately after the start of trading, writes Barron's. According to Nasdaq, trading could open at $175 - nearly 30% above the IPO price.

16.30 CET: Shares in other space companies are falling ahead of the SpaceX trading launch. The Procure Space ETF, a fund tracking space companies, is down 4%.

Quotes of Rocket Lab, Redwire Corporation, EchoStar and Satellogic are down 6-8%. AST SpaceMobile collapsed by almost 11%. Virgin Galactic collapsed by 23%.

16.20 CET: Could SpaceX 's mega-debut cause stock market crashes?

A similar thing happened after Facebook's IPO in 2012: some investors who tried to change bids before the start of trading were not confirmed due to a technical glitch. The ensuing confusion contributed to the fall of Facebook shares on the first day of trading. Quotes of the social network did not rise above the IPO price for more than a year.

Nasdaq has held test trading openings to make sure its platform is ready, the WSJ writes. Still, some experts expect increased activity on Friday - particularly in stocks that retail investors may sell to invest in SpaceX. The impact of the offering on the market could also play out in the coming weeks, when SpaceX shares will be purchased by large index funds, the publication notes.

16.11 CET: Tesla shares are down 0.5% in anticipation of the SpaceX trading launch. Some popular AI-related stocks are also getting cheaper, such as Apple (-1.1%) and Marvell Technology (-0.7%). Investors are probably selling them to allocate money to buy SpaceX, WSJ suggests.

16.00 CET: Elon Musk remotely participated in the start of trading on Nasdaq from Starbase in Texas. Here's his speech:

It's hard to believe that a small company that started in a warehouse in El Segundo is now not just going public, but having the largest IPO in history. If someone had told me this was going to happen, I would have thought, "Man, you must have gotten high on something really stoned." I thought the whole thing was going to end in a crash. I gave SpaceX less than a 10% chance of success.

I've been telling people this - it's probably going to fail, but it's still worth a shot. Because unless there's a new company that gets into space, we're never going to be a truly space civilization. Other aerospace companies have built nice rockets and all that, but they haven't tackled the technology needed to make life multi-planetary, to make Star Trek a reality, to realize the exciting sci-fi future we've been reading about.

And that's what SpaceX is all about - taking the "sci-fi" out of science fiction and creating an exciting, inspiring future for everyone. We want to be able to take anyone who wants to go to the moon, anyone who wants to go to Ma or anywhere in the solar system or maybe beyond at some point - we want to be able to get you there. Not just a few astronauts - I mean literally you, whoever you are, whoever is watching this. SpaceX wants to be able to get you to the moon, get you to Mars, and eventually beyond. And I'm confident that with the amazing team that we have at SpaceX, we will accomplish that.

I always think about it - there are always problems on Ma, there are always things that we want to improve, that we want to solve, and we have to solve them. But there should also be things that get you excited about the future, that get you excited after you wake up in the morning because you can't wait to see what's next. And that's the future that SpaceX wants to bring you.

After trading began, the Nasdaq turned on the Elton John song Rocketman.

15.40 CET: The Nasdaq Composite index started June 12 trading slightly down despite news of progress in Iran-US talks on ending the war. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones indices are trading slightly up.

15.30 CET: What time will SpaceX shares start trading? The main session on the Nasdaq exchange starts at 9:30 a.m. ET, but don't expect trading in SpaceX shares to begin at the same time, Barron's writes.

It may take brokers several hours to process all buy and sell orders after the IPO. The start of trading will depend on the flow of bids and how close buyers and sellers are to each other.

In 2012, shares of Meta Platforms, then known as Facebook, didn't begin trading until about two hours after the main session began. You can target around noon Eastern time, but keep in mind that anything is possible in this offering, Barron's states.

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This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor