Kenneth Glad
The public listing has given markets a new company to measure. Its early rise also leaves investors weighing growth against dependence on one leader.
SpaceX’s first days as a publicly traded company showed strong investor appetite for high-risk technology stocks. According to TV 2 Denmark, the shares rose 19 percent on their first trading day, climbed another 20 percent on Monday and were indicated 10.2 percent higher before Tuesday’s open.
SpaceX priced its initial public offering (IPO) at 135 dollars per share. Fortune reported that the stock opened at 150 dollars on Friday and reached 171 dollars by midday.
Reuters described the offering as the largest stock market debut in history, saying SpaceX raised 75 billion dollars.
The rally could put SpaceX among the world’s most valuable companies. TV 2 said that, if the latest gains held, the company would be positioned to overtake Amazon by market value and move closer to Microsoft.
Investors are paying for more than rockets
SpaceX’s appeal reaches beyond launches. Starlink, its satellite internet business, is widely viewed as the company’s clearest commercial engine, while reusable rockets remain the larger technological bet.
Lars Skovgaard Andersen, an investment strategist at Danske Bank, one of Denmark’s largest financial institutions, told the Danish broadcaster: “Everything depends on Elon Musk.”
Andersen said the stock carries unusual founder risk because much of the valuation rests on Musk’s reputation and future plans.
Reuters cited analysts describing an “Elon Musk premium” around SpaceX. That means investors may be valuing the company partly on Musk’s record at Tesla and SpaceX, not only on present earnings.
Michael Friis Jørgensen, head of equities at Danish investment firm HC Andersen Capital – named after famed writer Hans Christian Andersen – told TV 2 that the engineering challenge remains significant. If rockets can launch and land more like commercial aircraft, he said, operating costs could be reduced dramatically.
Musk’s fortune is large but hard to unlock
The IPO also pushed Musk’s personal wealth into unprecedented territory. Forbes estimated that his net worth reached about 1.1 trillion dollars after the SpaceX share sale.
That wealth is mostly tied to stock, not cash. BBC reported that roughly three-quarters of Musk’s fortune comes from SpaceX and about one-quarter from Tesla.
That creates a difficult financial problem. Fortune noted that wealth at this scale can affect markets, taxes, company control and public confidence.
T.L. Turnipseed, head of estate and tax planning at Alta Trust Company, a U.S. wealth-management firm that advises high-net-worth clients, told Fortune: “At a trillion dollars, a 1% inefficiency is roughly $10 billion.”
Next test is earnings
Early buyers have already seen sharp gains. Later investors face a tougher calculation, because much of SpaceX’s market value now depends on what the company can deliver years from now.
SpaceX has powerful assets: A record-setting stock market debut, the Starlink satellite internet business and a founder with a history of turning unlikely ideas into major companies.
But it also has heavy costs, long development timelines and a valuation built on expectations that may take years to prove.
That makes future earnings especially important. Investors will want to see whether Starlink can keep growing, whether launch costs can fall and whether reusable rockets can become profitable at a much larger scale.
The stock has risen on belief in what SpaceX could become. The company now has to show that its business can support the price, not just the story behind it.
Sources: TV 2 Denmark, Fortune, Reuters, BBC, Forbes
