SpaceX confirmed IPO pricing at $350 per share, valuing the company at approximately $200 billion on a fully diluted basis. The offering allocates 40% of available shares directly to retail investors through Schwab, Fidelity, Robinhood, SoFi, and Morgan Stanley's E-Trade, bypassing the institutional priority structure that has governed U.S. capital markets since the 1980s. The pricing was set without a traditional roadshow. No book-building process. No upward revision from an initial range.
The company structured the offering with three lockup tiers instead of the standard single 180-day hold. Institutional investors face 270 days. Retail allocations carry a 90-day restriction. Employee shares unlock at 180 days, creating a staggered float expansion that prevents the customary lockup-expiration dump. The mechanics favor liquidity management over underwriter control. SpaceX also retained dual-class voting rights, granting Musk 10 votes per founder share against 1 vote per public share. The structure is not novel, but the scale is. At $200 billion, this becomes the largest dual-class IPO in U.S. history, surpassing Meta's $104 billion 2012 debut.
The timing compounds strategic pressure. SpaceX announced a $6.3 billion AI infrastructure contract with Reflection AI less than 48 hours before pricing, committing Nvidia GB300 compute capacity through 2029. The deal was structured as a forward revenue arrangement, not a capital raise, but it provides $6.3 billion in contracted cash flow that anchors valuation assumptions outside of Starlink's subscription model. Allocators now price SpaceX on three revenue streams: launch services, Starlink connectivity, and compute-as-a-service. The AI contract alone implies a 15% revenue uplift against prior-year figures, assuming Reflection AI meets drawdown milestones.
The retail allocation methodology remains opaque. Schwab confirmed a lottery system for oversubscribed demand. Fidelity will prioritize accounts with $100,000 or more in assets. Robinhood has not disclosed its mechanism. The variance creates arbitrage opportunities across platforms and introduces selection risk that institutional allocators avoid by negotiating allocations directly with underwriters. The structure also shifts demand forecasting from underwriters to retail platforms, a delegation of price discovery that has no precedent at this scale. If retail demand undershoots, the underwriters carry no stabilization obligation beyond the standard 30-day green shoe.
Watch the 90-day retail lockup expiration in September. If retail holders flip immediately, the institutional base absorbs the supply or the stock reprices. The Reflection AI contract includes quarterly performance milestones; the first review is scheduled for Q3 2026. Any delay or capacity shortfall will reprice the AI revenue assumption and compress the multiple. Musk has signaled additional Starlink capacity expansion into Southeast Asia by Q4 2026, which would add 12 million addressable subscribers. That timeline determines whether SpaceX grows into its $200 billion valuation or reprices.
The IPO closes Friday. First trade is Monday. The staggered lockups mean true price discovery stretches across nine months, not one day.