SpaceX priced its initial public offering at $135 per share on June 12, achieving a $1.75 trillion valuation and marking the largest debut in aerospace history. The pricing came in at the high end of the $120-$140 range circulated to anchor investors during the roadshow. First-day allocation was heavily oversubscribed, with institutional books closing at 4.7x coverage according to lead underwriters Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
The offering consisted of 12.96 billion shares, with approximately $1.75 trillion in market capitalization on a fully diluted basis. Elon Musk retained 42% of voting control through a dual-class structure that grants 10-to-1 voting rights on Class B shares. The float represents roughly 15% of total equity, with lockup provisions expiring in 180 days for insiders and 90 days for early-stage venture backers including Founders Fund and Sequoia Capital. Pre-IPO secondary transactions in Q1 2025 had valued the company at $1.4 trillion, implying a 25% step-up for public market participants.
The valuation reflects SpaceX's dominance across three revenue verticals: Starlink connectivity ($14.2 billion annualized run rate as of Q1 2025), Starship launch services ($8.6 billion backlog), and national security contracts ($3.1 billion in firm commitments through 2027). The company disclosed $28.7 billion in trailing twelve-month revenue and $6.4 billion in adjusted EBITDA, placing it at 61x EV/EBITDA on the IPO print. Comparable aerospace primes trade at 18-22x, while SaaS infrastructure businesses with similar margin profiles command 35-45x. The premium reflects Starlink's 67% gross margin on subscriber revenue and the strategic scarcity of U.S.-domiciled launch capacity.
Family offices and sovereign allocators had structured pre-commitments in the $400-$600 million range during the institutional roadshow, according to placement agents. The appeal centers on inflation-resistant cash flows from long-duration government contracts and the optionality embedded in Starship's marginal cost structure, which the company projects at under $2 million per launch by 2027 versus $65 million for Falcon Heavy. Hedge funds took 28% of the float, a higher proportion than typical mega-cap debuts, with positioning concentrated in pairs trades against legacy aerospace names and short-duration call spreads anticipating volatility in the first 30-60 days.
Operators should monitor three follow-on events: Starlink's first standalone financial disclosure in the Q3 2025 earnings call, expected in late September; the Federal Aviation Administration's ruling on Starship's orbital launch cadence limits, due by August 15; and the lockup expiration for Sequoia and Founders Fund on December 9, which will test institutional appetite at scale. The company has filed for a $15 billion shelf registration, signaling potential follow-on issuance within 12-18 months to fund Starship production scale-up.
The $1.75 trillion valuation now exceeds the combined market capitalization of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon Technologies by $340 billion. Starship's first crewed mission to Mars remains scheduled for Q2 2027.