UPDATE: SpaceX Begins Trading Today — And It’s Just the Opening Act
Published June 12, 2026 | Follow-Up to: “SpaceX Is Going Public This Week — Here’s What Investors Need to Know”
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It’s official. As of this morning, SpaceX is a publicly traded company.
After two decades as the world’s most-watched private firm, Elon Musk’s rocket-and-satellite conglomerate began trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX — and the numbers behind the debut are as staggering as advertised. But the bigger story may be what comes next: a once-in-a-generation pipeline of AI company IPOs that could redefine public markets for the rest of the decade.
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SpaceX IPO: What Just Happened
The Record Is Official
SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 per share for exactly 555,555,555 shares, raising $75 billion in the largest initial public offering in stock market history. The deal values the company at $1.77 trillion — eclipsing Saudi Aramco’s $29.4 billion offering in 2019, which had held the record since then. The offering is expected to formally close on June 15.
Underwriters were also granted a 30-day option to purchase an additional 83.3 million shares at the IPO price, meaning the total raise could climb even higher.
Float Is Tiny — Which Matters for Today
One of the most important mechanics for investors watching the open: SpaceX’s initial float is approximately 4% of total shares outstanding. That is an exceptionally small proportion for a company of this size, which means today’s price discovery session will be highly sensitive to demand imbalances. In simple terms — a relatively small amount of buying pressure can move the price significantly in either direction.
Index Inclusion Begins Tomorrow
In a meaningful structural tailwind, MSCI announced on June 9 that it would make SPCX eligible for early large-IPO inclusion, beginning index addition on June 13 — tomorrow. This means passive index funds and ETFs that track MSCI benchmarks are required to begin purchasing shares regardless of valuation, creating a wave of non-discretionary demand from the second trading day onward. This is a genuine short-term catalyst that has nothing to do with the company’s fundamentals.
Retail Allocation: The Reality
SpaceX set out to allocate 30% of shares to retail investors — three to six times the typical amount reserved in a standard IPO. In practice, the deal was so heavily oversubscribed that most individual investors who submitted allocation requests through platforms like Robinhood, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, SoFi, or E*TRADE received partial fills or nothing at all.
For investors who did not receive an allocation, SPCX is now available on the open market like any other stock. The important caveat: the opening trade may be well above the $135 IPO price, and buyers in the open market are paying whatever the market clears at — not the institutional price.
Political Headwinds — And Why They Don’t Stop the Listing
Senator Elizabeth Warren formally requested the SEC delay the offering, citing governance concerns related to Elon Musk’s concentrated voting power (approximately 85% of votes). A congressional letter of that nature carries no legal mechanism to halt an IPO, and the listing has proceeded on schedule. It is, however, worth noting for your portfolio risk assessment: regulatory scrutiny of Musk-controlled entities has intensified in 2026, and that creates headline risk that is independent of the company’s operating performance.
Where Do Analysts See the Stock Going?
Opinions remain sharply divided:
Source View Price Target / Valuation
Morningstar Bearish ~$780B fair value — wait for a pullback
ARK Invest Highly Bullish Up to $3.1T by 2030
TradingKey (Week 1) Neutral/Bullish $140–$175 range
TradingKey (Month 1) Neutral $130–$165 range
TradingKey (90-Day) Wide Range $120–$200 depending on Starlink & xAI trends
Investing.com consensus Strong Buy $165 (12-month target)
The first earnings report as a public company is expected in early November 2026 — the first time investors will see a full quarter of SEC-audited financials from the combined SpaceX-xAI entity. That report will likely be the most consequential single data point in SPCX’s early trading history.
A Conservative Playbook for New Investors
First-day pops on high-profile tech IPOs frequently retrace 20–40% within the first 90 days. Given SPCX’s 4% float, valuation premium, and dual-class share structure, a measured approach would be to treat any day-one position as speculative, size it accordingly, and use the November earnings print as the real signal for a conviction position. For those with a longer time horizon, the Starlink subscriber growth trajectory — now at 10.3 million and targeting continued rapid expansion — is the fundamental metric most worth tracking each quarter.
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The Bigger Picture: This Is Just the Opening Act
SpaceX’s debut is extraordinary on its own terms. But the more significant story for investors is that it may be the first in a cluster of generational AI IPOs that will define the second half of 2026 — and potentially reshape the composition of major market indices for years to come.
Two of the most consequential companies in AI are now formally on the path to the public markets: Anthropic and OpenAI. Here is what we know about both.
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Anthropic IPO: The AI Safety Company Racing to Market
Who Is Anthropic?
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, and a group of former OpenAI researchers focused on building AI with safety and reliability as core design principles. The company’s primary product is the Claude family of AI models — now widely used in enterprise software, coding, research, and consumer applications. The company operates as a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), a legal structure that creates formal obligations to its stated mission beyond pure shareholder return.
The Numbers Are Remarkable
Anthropic’s revenue growth in 2026 may be the fastest in the history of enterprise software:
• January 2024: $87 million annualized run-rate
• January 2026: $9 billion annualized run-rate
• March 2026: $19 billion annualized run-rate
• May 2026: $47 billion annualized run-rate — a 540-fold increase in roughly 28 months
CEO Dario Amodei has publicly acknowledged that the pace of growth exceeded the company’s own internal forecasts by a factor of eight. The company is on track to post its first-ever operating profit in Q2 2026 — a milestone that significantly strengthens the IPO narrative.
The Filing and Valuation
On June 1, 2026, Anthropic formally submitted a confidential S-1 registration statement to the SEC — making it the first AI lab to formally enter the IPO process. The filing came four days after the company closed a $65 billion Series H financing round at a $965 billion post-money valuation, surpassing OpenAI in private market value for the first time.
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley are confirmed as lead underwriters. Pre-IPO shares on secondary platforms like Hiive have traded at approximately $572 per share, though these markets are restricted to accredited investors.
Target Listing Date
October 2026 is the target, according to multiple sources and TradingView filings data. The IPO would come approximately four months after SpaceX, giving markets time to absorb the SPCX float before a second major offering hits.
Key Risks
• Google and Amazon concentration: Both companies hold significant stakes in Anthropic, which creates potential antitrust review exposure when the company goes public.
• Valuation versus peers: At $965 billion, Anthropic would be asking for a higher valuation than OpenAI despite being a smaller company by some revenue measures — a premium it would need to justify through superior growth or margin profile.
• PBC structure: Some institutional investors have limited mandates to own Public Benefit Corporations, which could constrain the eligible buyer pool.
• Prediction market skepticism: Polymarket and Kalshi currently price a 2026 Anthropic listing at low single-digit probabilities, with the majority of prediction market activity concentrated on a 2027 debut. This is worth noting as a counterweight to the October 2026 target.
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OpenAI IPO: The ChatGPT Maker Enters the Race
Who Is OpenAI?
OpenAI is the San Francisco-based AI lab behind ChatGPT — the fastest-growing consumer application in history by user adoption. ChatGPT reached approximately 900 million weekly active users as of early 2026, a figure that dwarfs most consumer internet platforms outside of Google and Meta properties. OpenAI also operates the GPT family of API models used by tens of thousands of enterprise customers.
The Filing
On June 8, 2026 — one week after Anthropic and three days after SpaceX began its roadshow — OpenAI confirmed it had submitted a confidential draft S-1 to the SEC. In an unusual move, the company announced the filing itself via a public blog post, writing that it had “recently submitted a confidential S-1.” Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are advising on the offering, the same banks leading Anthropic’s process.
OpenAI itself cautioned in its announcement that a listing “may be a while” — a notable piece of investor relations messaging that suggests the company is not yet committing to a specific timeline.
The Financials
• End of 2023: ~$2 billion annualized revenue
• End of 2025: $20+ billion annualized revenue (confirmed by OpenAI’s CFO)
• Current valuation (March 2026 funding round): ~$852 billion
• Target IPO valuation: $730 billion to $1 trillion+, depending on the source
The financial picture has a significant complication: OpenAI is burning cash at a rate that far outpaces its revenue growth. The company lost approximately $1.22 for every dollar it earned in a recent quarter, and internal projections suggest losses of approximately $14 billion in 2026 alone. HSBC analysts have estimated OpenAI may require over $207 billion in additional capital by 2030 to sustain operations, even accounting for projected revenue growth. The company does not expect to reach profitability until around 2030.
Target Listing Date
Reports cluster around a September to November 2026 window, with September as the earliest realistic target pending SEC review and market conditions. The company has explicitly stated that timing remains undecided and could be delayed.
Key Risks
• Burn rate vs. valuation: Asking public markets to absorb a $1 trillion valuation on a company with $14 billion in projected annual losses requires extraordinary confidence in the 2030 and beyond revenue trajectory.
• Circular financing concerns: Critics have raised questions about the interconnection of Nvidia (a potential $100 billion OpenAI investor), OpenAI (a massive Nvidia chip customer), and Oracle (data center builder and OpenAI anchor customer). If the same capital is inflating valuations across multiple companies simultaneously, public market scrutiny of the S-1 could be damaging.
• Competition from Anthropic: The two companies are targeting overlapping investor pools in a compressed timeframe. If both list within 90 days of each other, institutional appetite may be stretched — potentially forcing one or both to cut their valuation targets.
• Microsoft’s 27% stake: Microsoft holds a significant ownership position and board influence. The dynamics of that relationship — including potential conflicts of interest, revenue-sharing arrangements, and compute commitments — will face intense scrutiny in the public S-1 disclosure.
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The $200 Billion Question: Can the Market Absorb All Three?
The combined capital ask from SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI could exceed $200 billion — in a year where the entire US IPO market raised only $45 billion in all of 2025.
Goldman Sachs analysts have projected 2026 total IPO proceeds could reach approximately $160 billion — a figure that was already a dramatic projection before the current wave fully materialized. The liquidity argument from bulls: there is an estimated $8 trillion sitting in US money market funds, and institutional investors have spent years accessing AI exposure through proxies like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Alphabet. Direct ownership of the underlying companies — SpaceX for satellite and space infrastructure, Anthropic for enterprise AI, OpenAI for consumer AI — represents a qualitatively different asset than the indirect exposure investors have had until now.
The concern from skeptics: three companies simultaneously coming to market at combined valuations of $3+ trillion, all at significant revenue multiples, all in the same sector, with the same handful of lead underwriters — creates concentration risk that the market has not seen before.
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A Summary View: The AI IPO Calendar for H2 2026
Company Ticker Exchange Target Date Target Valuation Status
SpaceX SPCX Nasdaq Trading Now $1.77T ✅ Listed June 12
Anthropic TBD Nasdaq October 2026 ~$965B Confidential S-1 filed June 1
OpenAI TBD TBD Sept–Nov 2026 $730B–$1T+ Confidential S-1 filed June 8
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What Investors Should Do Now
For SPCX: If you missed the IPO allocation, avoid the temptation to chase the open. The 4% float means today’s price could move dramatically in either direction. The November 2026 earnings print is a far more rational entry signal for long-term investors.
For Anthropic: Watch for the S-1 to become public approximately 15 days before the roadshow, expected sometime in September ahead of an October listing. The gross margin line and enterprise customer growth rate will be the two metrics to focus on.
For OpenAI: Treat this as a late 2026 or early 2027 event. The company itself has flagged that timing is uncertain. When the public S-1 drops, the burn rate and the gross margin trajectory will be the defining data points for whether the valuation ask is defensible.
The second half of 2026 is shaping up to be the most consequential IPO window since the dot-com era. The difference this time: these companies have real revenue. The question public markets will answer is whether the valuations reflect what they are — or what they need to become.
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This article is provided for informational purposes only. Please see our Investment Disclaimer.