At roughly midday on Friday, Elton John's "Rocket Man" echoed across the floor of the Nasdaq exchange in New York City as SpaceX executives rang the opening bell — and the largest initial public offering in stock-market history began. Shares opened at $150, already $15 above their pre-market guidance price of $135, and climbed as high as $176 before settling at $160 by the close of trading. That final figure represented a gain of more than 19% on the opening price and pushed the company's total valuation to $2.1 trillion, a number that had never before been attached to a newly listed firm on its first day.

The financial consequences for SpaceX's founder and majority shareholder, Elon Musk, were equally unprecedented. As investor demand drove the valuation past the $2 trillion threshold and held it there, Forbes estimated Musk's personal net worth at $1.1 trillion by market close — making him, by that calculation, the world's first individual ever to reach trillionaire status. His holdings are spread across multiple ventures: his stake in Tesla, which carries a separate market capitalisation of $1.

2 trillion, is alone valued at approximately $300 billion. Speaking at SpaceX's headquarters before trading opened, Musk acknowledged the improbability of the journey. "It is certainly hard to believe that a little company that started in a warehouse in El Segundo is now going public with the largest IPO ever," he told staff. SpaceX's president, Gwynne Shotwell, added her own milestone from the Nasdaq building: the company had launched a Falcon 9 rocket that very morning from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying 29 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit — a reminder that the business operates on two timelines simultaneously.