Want a Piece of SpaceX? Here's What Retail Investors Need to Know About the IPO
Elon Musk is selling the most expensive ticket in stock market history, and he's not offering a discount for uncertainty. SpaceX plans to raise $75B in its initial public offering, set for June 12 on the Nasdaq.
That figure would more than double the previous record of Saudi Aramco's raise in 2019 and puts SpaceX's total market value at ~$1.77T, roughly double its valuation from six months ago.
What the valuation actually means
SpaceX generated $18.7B in revenue in 2025. At the $135-per-share price, that implies a price-to-sales ratio of ~93.6 times, according to the Wall Street Journal.
For context, the aggregate price-to-sales ratio for the S&P 500 is 3.38, per FactSet data cited by the Journal. Tesla had a price-to-sales ratio of 16.73 at the end of 2025. SpaceX's multiple is significantly higher than both.
The company was unprofitable in 2025, posting a $4.9B net loss. Investors betting on the IPO are wagering on future growth, not current earnings.
Much of that growth thesis centers on AI. SpaceX now frames AI as representing $26.5T of its total addressable market of $28.5T, per its IPO filing cited by Bloomberg.
The AI segment is burning cash at a significant rate. The xAI unit had an operating loss of $6.4B in 2025 and nearly $2.5B in the first three months of 2026. A new deal with Anthropic PBC, paying SpaceX $1.25B per month through May 2029 for AI computing capacity, is expected to offset some of that drag.
Musk will retain 82% of voting power after the listing through a dual-class share structure, leaving public investors with limited influence over company decisions, according to SEC filings cited by CNN.
How retail investors can access the IPO
Individual investors can place orders through several major brokerages. Fidelity Investments, Charles Schwab, Robinhood Markets, SoFi Technologies, and Morgan Stanley's E*Trade unit are all expected to offer shares to customers, per the Wall Street Journal.
Eligibility requirements vary. Schwab requires a minimum account balance of $100K. Fidelity has historically required between $100K and $500K in brokerage assets, but is lowering its threshold to $2K specifically for the SpaceX IPO, according to people familiar with the matter cited by the Journal. Robinhood, SoFi, and E*Trade have no explicit minimum portfolio requirements.
All brokerages require customers to submit a conditional indication of interest before the offering prices. These are nonbinding and don't guarantee an allocation. Some platforms, including Robinhood and SoFi, may restrict or limit allocations for investors who have previously "flipped" IPO shares within 30 days of prior offerings.
For traders outside the US, Coinbase launched a pre-IPO perpetual futures contract tied to SpaceX this week. The product, settled in USDC stablecoin, lets traders speculate on SpaceX's private-market valuation without holding any actual shares.
"Access to high-conviction, non-correlated exposure has never been more valuable to traders," said Liz Martin, head of derivatives at Coinbase. Once SpaceX begins public trading, the pre-IPO contract will convert to a standard perpetual future, per Coinbase.
Shares will appear in accounts on the morning of June 12. IPO investing carries meaningful risk. Investors should expect that they may receive fewer shares than requested, or none at all.
