SpaceX made its public market debut on Friday,pricing 555.6 million shares at $135 each and instantly becoming the largest initial public offering in history with a $1.77 trillion valuation,according to the company's filings and trading data. Approximately $75 billion in stock hit the Nasdaq,creating an estimated 4,000 new millionaires among employees and early investors. elon Musk, already the world's wealthiest person, is now on track to become the first trillionaire based on his combined stakes in SpaceX and Tesla.

The $1.77 trillion valuation: justified by a $28.5 trillion addressable market?

SpaceX's filing claimed a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion, a figure the source notes is nearly 88 percent of the entire U.S. economy. that number encompasses not only launch services and Starlink broadband but also artificial intelligence infrastruucture — Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president and COO, told investors the company competes in AI as a builder of launch vehicles, launch sites, and data centers on Earth and eventually in orbit. Yet analysts quoted in the report caution that the only profitable segment at present is Starlink. John Belton of Gabelli Funds called SpaceX the ultimate growth stock but warned it may take time for the stock to stabilize in public markets.

The valuation makes SpaceX more valuable than Tesla, a company whose own market cap has fluctuated wildly. Ben Narasin of Tenacity Venture Capital described the near-term outcome as a coin flip, noting that many IPO buyers might aim to flip the stock quickly. If shares fail to surge on day one, the report says, it could stall a pipeline of upcoming high-value tech IPOs, including OpenAI and Anthropic later this summer.

4,000 new millionaires and 400 employees who could earn $100 million each

One of the most striking figures to emerge from the IPO is the wealth created inside SpaceX. According to the source, an inner circle of roughly 400 employees could each see payouts of up to $100 million, with dozens potentially receiving more than $500 million. That concentration of insider wealth raises questions about whether the company's public shareholders will see similar returns or whether the best seats were already taken. The report also notes that Musk revealed during a livestream before trading that SpaceX has been cash-flow positive since around 2015, a claim the company's financial statements do not fully detail for the public market.

How Starlink became the profit engine while launch remains a cost center

The source makes clear that SpaceX's profit story is almost entirely a Starlink story. While the launch business remains iconic — every Crew Dragon mission and Starship test generates headlines — it is the satellite internet division that is generating cash. This dynamic mirrors the broader space economy, where infrastructure often provides steadier returns than one-off missions. Wall Street observers in the report compared SpaceX's debut to Meta's troubled IPO, yet some drew parallels to Amazon's long-term success. Nancy Tengler of Laffer Tengler Investments highlighted Amazon's 243,000 percent gain since its IPO, asking investors to consider their time horizon.

But the Amazon analogy has limits: Amazon had a clear path to dominating retail and cloud computing. SpaceX's addressable market for launch services is finite , and Starlink faces competition from Amazon's Project Kuiper and other constellations. Whether the company can monetize its orbital data center ambitions or a future Mars mission remains uncertain.

What the IPO means for OpenAI, Anthropic, and the summer tech IPO pipeline

The performance of SpaceX's first days of trading will set the tone for a slate of high-profile tech IPOs, the source reports. OpenAI and Anthropic are both expected to go public later this summer, and their valuations may hinge on investor appetite for ambitious, capital-intensive technology stories. If SpaceX falters, it could dampen enthusiasm for AI companies that, like SpaceX, are still burning cash to build infrastructure. Conversely, a strong debut could encourage a flood of tech listings. The report also notes speculation about a potential future merger of Tesla into SpaceX, though no formal plans have been announced.