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SpaceX IPO draws $118M in first-day retail buying, the largest for any recent debut
Elon Musk's aerospace giant closed nearly 19% above its IPO price as individual investors piled in and the company revealed a $1.29 billion Bitcoin stash
SpaceX didn’t just go public. It went public in a way that makes every other 2026 IPO look like a lemonade stand.
Retail investors scooped up roughly $118 million worth of SpaceX shares on the company’s first day of trading, making it the largest net purchase by individual traders for any recent IPO. The stock, listed on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX, opened at approximately $150 per share and closed at $160.95, a gain of about 19% from its $135 IPO price. At one point during the session, shares touched $176.
The numbers behind the record
SpaceX priced 555.6 million shares at $135 each, raising $75 billion in total capital. The resulting market capitalization landed somewhere between $1.77 trillion and $1.8 trillion at pricing. By the close of the first trading day, with shares settling near $161, that valuation stretched into the range of $2.1 trillion to $2.3 trillion.
Bitcoin on the balance sheet
Buried in SpaceX’s S-1 filing was a detail that sent ripples through an entirely different market. The company disclosed ownership of 18,712 BTC, valued at approximately $1.29 billion as of March 31, 2026.
That makes SpaceX one of the largest corporate holders of Bitcoin among public companies. The S-1 doesn’t spell out a strategy for the position, which means every quarterly filing will become a Bitcoin market event in its own right.
Musk’s grip on the rocket ship
Following the IPO, Musk retains approximately 84% to 85% of SpaceX’s voting power. Public shareholders own a piece of the economics, but Musk still controls strategic direction. This is a dual-class share structure, consistent with how Musk has operated across his portfolio of companies.
What this means for investors
For crypto-focused investors, the Bitcoin disclosure is the more actionable signal. SpaceX entering public markets with a $1.29 billion BTC position effectively creates a new proxy for Bitcoin exposure inside traditional equity portfolios. Fund managers who can’t or won’t buy Bitcoin directly can now point to SPCX as a holding that provides indirect exposure.