All IPO processes come with a few surprises for those deeply involved, even one like SpaceX’s (SPCX), which went off without a hitch on June 12.
The quick insight: Nasdaq president Nelson Griggs (video above) was one of the primary point people on the SpaceX IPO for the exchange. He has spent years rising through the ranks in the exchange’s listings business and has seen it and done it all on the IPO front.
Here’s what he told Yahoo Finance on what surprised him about the SpaceX IPO, which offers up good insight into the lay of the land for markets ahead of potential debuts for AI names OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) and Anthropic (ANTH.PVT):
“I think in terms of surprises, if you date back in time and say would we think there’d be a $75 billion raise? That can be a decent year for the entire IPO market,” Griggs said. “So I think I would say that was a surprise. I think as you look at a trend, we know that companies are staying private longer. We do know they come to market much more scaled. SpaceX has three major divisions, and each one is well north of $1 billion in revenue. So I think just the size of companies going public continues to surprise us. And I think we’re going to see more of that to come as the year progresses.”
The analysis: The Elon Musk-led rocket company officially priced its stock at $135 on June 11, offering 555.6 million shares. The pricing valued SpaceX at $1.78 trillion.
SpaceX made its historic public debut on the Nasdaq on June 12, when the stock officially opened for trading around midday at $150 per share.
Driven by heavy demand from both institutional and retail investors, the stock steadily climbed throughout the session before closing its first day at $160.95.
This successful 19.2% gain from its initial offering price instantly catapulted SpaceX to a massive $2.1 trillion market capitalization according to Yahoo Finance AlphaSpace, making it the sixth-largest public company in the US.
The market cap is light-years away from the $27 million valuation SpaceX fetched at its founding in 2002.
Now, the company has to deliver.
According to the prospectus, revenue last year skyrocketed 33% year over year to $18.7 billion, fueled by a 32% surge in Starlink satellite internet sales. Starlink is a proven business that’s likely to stay strong well into the future.
But SpaceX did post a massive $4.94 billion GAAP net loss for full-year 2025 and a brutal $4.28 billion net loss in the first quarter of this year.
The primary culprit for the losses is Musk’s capital-intensive pivot into artificial intelligence infrastructure, with SpaceX throwing $40 billion annually into AI capital expenditures.
