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You’re about to witness something that has never happened before in financial markets. On June 12, SpaceX plans to go public at $135 a share—raising $75 billion in a single day. That’s not a typo. Seventy-five billion. The previous record was Saudi Aramco in 2019, at $29 billion. SpaceX is asking for 2.5 times that.
Now... everyone you know is going to want in. The excitement is real. Rockets, Starlink, AI—SpaceX is the kind of company people dream about owning. And at a $1.75 trillion valuation, it would instantly become one of the five or six most valuable public companies on Earth.
Here’s what most people get wrong about mega-IPOs: they assume the biggest offerings are the best investments. The record says otherwise. Saudi Aramco still trades below its IPO price—six years later. Alibaba went public in 2014 as the largest U.S. IPO ever, and the stock has gone basically nowhere in the decade since. Facebook crashed 50% in its first four months. The pattern is consistent: when a deal is this hyped, years of future success get priced in on Day One. There’s no cushion left if anything goes even slightly sideways.
And there’s a wrinkle most people haven’t thought about. SpaceX posted a $4.9 billion net loss last year. Its AI division—from the xAI merger—is burning $2.5 billion a quarter. The revenue growth is strong ($18.7 billion, up 33%), but at a $1.75 trillion valuation, you’re paying roughly 94 times revenue for a company that lost money last year.
None of this means SpaceX is a bad company. It might be a great one. But a great company at the wrong price is a bad investment. The $75 billion raise alone will pull capital out of other stocks. Index funds will have to buy in. That’s a lot of money being rearranged—and that kind of reshuffling has consequences for every portfolio, including yours.
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