Space Exploration Technologies, known simply as SpaceX, became a publicly traded company on Friday, nearly a quarter century after it was founded.
The company started trading at $135 per share on the Nasdaq exchange in New York, valuing SpaceX at about $1.8 trillion. By the end of the trading day, the company’s shares were trading at $160.95, up more than 19 percent.
On paper, SpaceX founder Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire, with his personal stake in the company valued at more than $700 billion. Thousands of current and former employees have benefited from the company’s stock option plan overnight millionaires. The employees at SpaceX have worked hard for the past 24 years, and now they will be greatly compensated for doing so.
SpaceX now stands as one of the few most valuable companies in the world. Should it be? There is wide disagreement over whether SpaceX’s high valuation is fool’s gold or whether it represents a valuable opportunity to finally own a piece of a dominant space company that could one day run data centers in orbit.
SpaceX is now primarily an AI company
One thing is clear: SpaceX is now subject to significant public disclosures, and it will conduct more of its business in the public eye. While Musk will retain complete autonomy in terms of ownership and voting rights, he will now be tied to shareholders in a very important way: his company’s stock price.
Most shareholders bought SpaceX shares today to avoid being part of the company’s long-term plans to put people on Mars or help NASA land people on the moon. Of course, some space enthusiasts did. However, most people invest in stocks to make money.
Like SpaceX It is clearly stated in the S-1 document It was unveiled in May, but the company’s value isn’t in its “space-ready solutions” or its Starlink internet constellation. As part of the “addressable total market,” the company accounts for less than 7 percent of its value.
Instead, Musk and SpaceX see most of their value in providing AI services, mostly from space and primarily for enterprise applications. If investors agree that’s where the vast majority of the company’s profits lie, they’ll want to see SpaceX invest its time and resources.
