SpaceX shares closed their first session on the Nasdaq at $161.11, an increase of 19.34%, raising the capitalization of the aerospace company founded and led by Elon Musk to $2.1 trillion ($1.83 trillion euros).
After more than two hours of adjustments in the initial auction due to strong demand, SpaceX shares began trading this Friday with a first trade at $150, 11.1% above the $135 per share set in the initial public offering, placing its valuation at $1.97 trillion ($1.73 trillion euros) from the outset.
From that moment on, the price of the rocket and satellite launch company climbed strongly in the market, reaching an intraday high of $176.52, 30.75% above the IPO price, which implied a valuation of $2.3 trillion ($2 trillion euros).
The rise registered by SpaceX in its stock market debut on the Nasdaq has consolidated Elon Musk as the first person in the world with a net worth exceeding one trillion dollars ($866 billion euros).
With this debut, SpaceX becomes the sixth largest listed company in the United States by capitalization, clearly positioning itself above Tesla's $1.5 trillion ($1.3 trillion euros), the other company on the stock market led by Musk.
"If someone had told me this was going to happen, I would have thought: That's crazy!" Musk acknowledged this Friday at the bell-ringing ceremony prior to the Nasdaq opening, where he confessed that he initially thought the project had "less than a 10% chance of success."
"If we don't do it, if there isn't a new company that ventures into space, we will never be a truly spacefaring civilization," he stated, referring to the possibility of promoting multi-planetary life, "to create Star Trek" and make "exciting" futures a reality for everyone. "That's what SpaceX is about: taking science fiction out of science fiction and creating an exciting future," he assured before the Friday session on the Nasdaq began.
For his part, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, David Salomon, congratulated SpaceX this Friday on its stock market debut this Friday, "the largest in history," in which the Wall Street firm acted as the lead coordinator of the placement.
"We are proud of the solid collaboration that our team has forged with SpaceX over time. I have known Elon Musk for more than 15 years, as have several of my colleagues, and it has been incredible to see his vision come to fruition and to work with Gwynne, Bret, and the entire team," Solomon commented on social media.
SpaceX had set a price of $135 for each of the 555.6 million shares offered in the initial placement yesterday, allowing the company to raise $75 billion in a first tranche, although the underwriting banks have an option to sell another 83.3 million shares, which would raise the total amount of the operation to $86.25 billion (€74.695 billion).
In this way, SpaceX signs the largest stock market debut ever recorded, comfortably surpassing the record of the oil company Saudi Aramco, which in 2019 obtained $29.4 billion (€25.462 billion).
In the documentation previously submitted to the SEC, SpaceX detailed that Elon Musk will control approximately 91.6% of the outstanding Class B ordinary shares and 82.4% of the total voting power (or 82.3% if the underwriters exercise their option), so the company will be considered a "controlled company" under Nasdaq and Nasdaq Texas corporate governance rules.
In addition, SpaceX anticipated that it does not plan to declare or pay cash dividends to ordinary shareholders "in the near future," as it plans to allocate potential profits to finance business expansion, although the dividend policy will be at the discretion of the board of directors and will depend on current circumstances, including operating results.