2 minSpaceX on the stock market: the record IPO explained, and what it means for Tesla shareholders
SpaceX listed on Nasdaq in June 2026 in the largest IPO ever. The price, the valuation, Musk's voting control, and the ways Tesla is tied to its sister company.
For years, Tesla was the only Musk company ordinary investors could buy. That changed on June 12, 2026, when SpaceX started trading on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX. Four months later, with Tesla and SpaceX studying a merger, it is worth looking back at what the listing actually involved.
The IPO in numbers
- Price: $135 per share, set on June 11 after a subscription period from June 3.
- Money raised: about $86 billion, according to reports, more than initially expected and the largest stock market debut ever.
- Valuation: about $1.77 trillion at the offer price.
- First day: the shares closed at $161, up 19%, for a market value of about $2.1 trillion.
- Recent price: $146.03 at the close on October 16, above the offer price but below the post-listing peak.
Musk keeps control
SpaceX has two classes of shares. Insiders hold Class B shares with ten votes each. As a result, Musk owns roughly 42% of the shares but controls about 82% of the votes. That structure matters in any merger: whatever happens, Musk is likely to remain firmly in charge.
What the filing revealed about Tesla
The IPO documents gave an unusually detailed look at business between the two companies:
- xAI, now SpaceX's AI division, bought about $1 billion of Tesla Megapacks between 2024 and April 2026.
- SpaceX bought about $131 million of Cybertrucks in 2025.
- Tesla booked about $573 million of revenue from SpaceX and xAI in 2025.
Starlink was by far SpaceX's largest business in 2025, with about $11.4 billion of the roughly $18.7 billion total revenue.
Tesla's own stake
Tesla owns a small piece of SpaceX. It invested $2 billion in xAI in January 2026; when SpaceX absorbed xAI weeks later, that investment was converted into SpaceX shares. Reports put the stake below 1%. The exact size has not been published.
Why this matters now
A listed SpaceX has a daily market price, which makes a merger with Tesla much easier to value than when SpaceX was private. Barclays estimates that in an all-stock deal, Musk would end up with about 37% of the combined equity and 56% of the votes. Neither company has proposed a deal yet.
What to watch
The work of the two merger committees, SpaceX's share price relative to Tesla's, and Tesla's shareholder meeting on December 3.
This article is for information only and is not financial advice.
