SpaceX raised roughly $75 billion in the largest IPO ever recorded on June 12. Ten days later, it came back asking for $25 billion more, this time in bonds. The market said yes, then immediately started having second thoughts.

The senior unsecured bond offering, announced on June 22, was technically oversubscribed. Orders piled up to approximately $89 billion, more than three times the deal size, which had already been upsized from an original $20 billion target. But oversubscription and enthusiasm are not the same thing, and what happened next made that distinction painfully clear.

The numbers tell a complicated story

SpaceX’s bonds received investment-grade ratings from all three major agencies: Moody’s assigned Baa1 with a stable outlook, S&P gave it a BBB, and Fitch followed suit.

The bonds priced approximately 0.4 points wide of BBB averages. The five tranches mature between 2031 and 2056, with yields ranging from 5.35% to 6.65%. Shortly after pricing, the bonds recorded around $305 million in paper losses as secondary trading revealed sluggish demand.

The proceeds are earmarked for repaying a bridge loan and funding general corporate purposes, including artificial intelligence initiatives through SpaceX’s xAI unit.

From rocket fuel to market turbulence

SpaceX’s IPO priced shares at $135, giving the company an initial market capitalization exceeding $1.7 trillion. It began trading on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX.

SpaceX’s stock dropped between 16% and 23% in the days following the listing, erasing over $600 billion in market value.

Rating agencies pointed to Starlink’s recurring revenue base and SpaceX’s reusable rocket technology as core strengths supporting their investment-grade assessments.

The company also disclosed holding 18,712 BTC on its corporate treasury as of March 31, 2026, valued between $1.2 billion and $1.3 billion at the time.

What this means for investors

For investors holding both SpaceX equity and debt, the concentration risk is worth noting carefully. A stock that can shed $600 billion in days is volatile enough on its own. Pairing that with bonds already trading below their issue price creates a correlated downside scenario.

The $305 million in paper losses may seem modest relative to a $25 billion offering, roughly 1.2%. But in the investment-grade bond market, where stability is the entire selling proposition, early losses send a signal that lingers.