Elon Musk’s SpaceX is preparing to stage the largest public offering in history, aiming to sell an astounding $75 billion of shares in a single swoop—and investors are eagerly showing up. BlackRock has reportedly put in an order to buy at least $5 billion of SpaceX shares, with other large asset managers submitting similarly eye-popping requests. While it is common for major firms to buy large stakes in initial public offerings, orders of this magnitude are multiples of those typically seen. To put this massive scale into context, the largest IPO of the year prior to SpaceX was chipmaker Cerebras Systems, which raised a total of $5.55 billion.
On Thursday afternoon, SpaceX confirmed that it sold all 555,555,555 shares made available for its IPO at a firm $135 apiece. This colossal sale officially gives the space exploration and technology company a valuation of approximately $1.77 trillion.
Fervent Individual and Institutional Demand
The demand for shares extends far beyond traditional Wall Street giants. Individual retail investors alone requested well over $70 billion worth of SpaceX shares. The company has also received massive orders from sovereign-wealth funds and family offices, including a request exceeding $1 billion from a single family-office investor. Because investors in high-demand IPOs typically submit orders well above what they actually hope to receive, SpaceX’s bankers are currently navigating the complex process of allocating shares before the planned listing on Friday.
From the beginning of this process, Musk has made it clear that he hopes to allocate a significantly larger-than-normal portion of the offering—possibly up to 30%—directly to individual retail investors.
An Unconventional Approach to a Record Valuation
This fervent market demand comes despite Musk’s highly unconventional approach to the offering and a flurry of events that would severely complicate a typical IPO. Instead of providing a traditional price range and refining it based on investor feedback, Musk offered investors a strict “take-it-or-leave-it” price of $135 a share. Furthermore, he stands to retain an unprecedented level of control over SpaceX post-IPO, a move that has drawn sharp criticism from corporate-governance advocates in recent days.
Perhaps most notably, the company remains broadly unprofitable. SpaceX is basing its staggering $1.77 trillion valuation largely on the future prospects and aggressive growth of its nascent artificial intelligence unit, betting heavily on the convergence of space infrastructure and advanced AI.
Reference
Driebusch, C., & Pitcher, J. (2026, junio 11). SpaceX IPO draws at least $5 billion order from BlackRock. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/spacex-ipo-draws-at-least-5-billion-order-from-blackrock-12fcd29f