Elon Musk and Gwynne Shotwell Ring Nasdaq Bell as SpaceX Goes Public in Record $75B IPO
SpaceX made history Friday as Elon Musk and company president Gwynne Shotwell rang the Nasdaq opening bell, marking the debut of ticker SPCX and the largest initial public offering ever at $75 billion.
A Split-Screen Celebration
Musk appeared remotely from Texas while Shotwell stood at the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square, New York. The dual-location ceremony underscored SpaceX’s operational split between its Boca Chica launch complex and corporate headquarters.
“This is just the beginning,” Shotwell told reporters after the bell ceremony. “We’re builders. We build launch vehicles, launch sites, and now data centers — on the ground and soon in orbit.”
From Rockets to AI Infrastructure
Shotwell positioned SpaceX as an emerging player in the “neocloud” space — a term describing next-generation AI compute infrastructure that combines terrestrial and orbital data centers.
“We are 100% an emerging competitor in the artificial intelligence neocloud space,” Shotwell said in a CNBC interview. She announced plans for AI1 satellites launching in late 2027, with compute capabilities being added to existing Starlink satellites before then.
The xAI Integration
The February 2026 acquisition of Musk’s xAI brought Grok AI models, the Colossus supercomputer, and the X social platform into the SpaceX fold. Shotwell highlighted Grok as a key investor metric alongside Starship and Starlink growth.
When asked about a potential SpaceX-Tesla merger, Shotwell quipped it “might make Elon’s life a little easier” — a comment that sent Tesla shares briefly higher in pre-market trading.
Celebrity and Cultural Moment
The IPO drew unusual crossover attention beyond finance:
- Musk’s net worth trajectory toward trillionaire status dominated headlines
- Retail investors on Robinhood and SoFi flooded social media with SPCX allocation screenshots
- Hyperliquid and other crypto venues saw explosive activity in SpaceX-tied derivatives ahead of the debut
Market Reception
SpaceX’s first indicated opening price of approximately 135 IPO price. Trading volume expectations suggest SPCX could become one of the most actively traded stocks on debut day.
Settlement is scheduled for June 15, 2026.
Industry Context
The SpaceX debut caps a week that also saw OpenAI and Anthropic file confidential S-1 registrations, signaling an unprecedented cluster of ~$1 trillion AI and infrastructure companies entering public markets in 2026.
Bankers earned an estimated $500 million in fees on the offering — the largest underwriting payday in IPO history.