SpaceX Pulls Off the Biggest IPO Ever, and the Valuation Debate Starts Now

SpaceX is public, and it did not do anything small. The biggest IPO in history priced Friday, raised about 75 billion dollars, and closed its first day up 19 percent at 160.95, valuing the company near 2.11 trillion. That makes it the sixth most valuable US company already, and it made Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire on paper. Now comes the harder question of whether the price makes sense.

For scale, the old IPO record was Saudi Aramco at 29 billion in 2019. SpaceX more than doubled it. The company sold 555 million Class A shares at 135 dollars, and the stock opened strong and ran from there, briefly topping a 2.25 trillion valuation intraday before settling back. One unusual touch: SpaceX handed roughly 30 percent of the deal to retail investors, far above the typical 5 to 10 percent, so regular buyers had a real seat at the table.

The money has a job. Proceeds are earmarked for space-based data centers, with SpaceX planning to buy the chips to run them, tying the rocket company directly into the AI infrastructure boom. The engine underneath is Starlink. Its connectivity segment threw off around 7.2 billion in adjusted EBITDA last period, up 86 percent year over year, and that growth is the core of the bull case. Total revenue sits near 18.7 billion.

And that is where the skeptics dig in. At 18.7 billion in revenue, a 2.1 trillion valuation works out to a price-to-revenue ratio around 112, far beyond any other megacap. Morningstar pegs fair value closer to 780 billion, well under half the private mark, calling the stock richly priced. The float is also small relative to the company, which tends to amplify swings. So a blockbuster debut and a serious overvaluation warning are sitting side by side.

The setup from here is familiar for hot listings. A thin float plus huge retail interest plus a sky-high multiple usually means volatility, in both directions. Lockups will eventually free up more supply. The fundamentals, mostly Starlink and the new data center bet, have to grow into the number, not just hold it. And every wobble will get read as a verdict on the whole AI-infrastructure trade that Anthropic and OpenAI are also leaning on for their listings.

SpaceX just rewrote the IPO record book and gave Musk a title nobody has held before. Whether the market still agrees with 2.1 trillion in a few months is the part worth watching. Records are easy to set on day one. Holding them is the hard bit.