SpaceX shares are set to start trading on 12 June, and whether you want them or not, they may end up in your portfolio. Here's what you need to know before that happens.
What is SpaceX?
SpaceX is Elon Musk's space company. Its business runs across three areas: launch services, with Falcon rockets carrying cargo and people into orbit; satellite internet via Starlink, which provides internet access to remote and underserved locations; and artificial intelligence, through the xAI division that owns the Grok chatbot and X, formerly known as Twitter.
Starlink is the part currently generating most of the revenue, but the whole of SpaceX recorded $18.7bn in sales in 2025 and a $4.9bn loss. At its target valuation of $1.8trn, it would be priced at 95x last year's revenue, around 4 times Nvidia's equivalent rating.
What is an IPO?
An initial public offering (IPO) is the first time a company sells shares to the public. Before an IPO, ownership is held by founders, early employees and private investors such as venture capital funds. Going public allows a company to raise money from a broader pool of investors and gives existing shareholders a route to sell.
SpaceX's offer period is open now. Shares are expected to be admitted to trading at 2.30pm UK time on 12 June, though actual trading may not begin until several hours later while a price discovery process plays out – a period in which buy and sell orders are submitted and the market settles on a value before continuous trading begins. Investors applying during the offer period are getting in ahead of that process, but at no guaranteed price. If demand is high, they may end up paying more than the indicated range.
Why does this impact nearly all investors?
The IPO is consequential not just for those who want to gain direct exposure to SpaceX or who invest in funds that already hold the name, but to everyone who has a broad-based passive investment in global markets.
Upon becoming public, the company will become one of the biggest worldwide and hence be part of most major indices.
Index providers have changed their rules to allow SpaceX into the Nasdaq 100 and FTSE Russell indices without the usual seasoning period – typically a year or more on the market before index inclusion. These tracker funds will therefore be forced buyers in the first weeks of trading. The S&P 500 has not followed suit, so S&P index funds will not be compelled to buy on day one.
The anticipated passive demand is so great that active managers who would otherwise avoid SpaceX are considering buying at IPO and selling to passive funds once they are forced in at whatever price the market sets, as Downing’s multi-manager Simon Evan-Cook noted in his Substack column last week.
What are the growth opportunities?
According to AJ Bell head of markets Dan Coatsworth, two stand out. The first is Starship, SpaceX's next-generation reusable rocket, currently in test flights.
SpaceX calls it the most powerful launch vehicle ever developed. If it becomes fully operational, it would extend the company's capability to carry larger satellites and to reach the Moon and Mars.
The second is US government defence work. SpaceX has won a $2bn contract to build a satellite constellation as part of early-stage work on the Golden Dome, Donald Trump's proposed missile defence system. That contract puts SpaceX alongside established defence contractors should the project progress.
What are the main risks?
Coatsworth listed launch failures, regulatory changes and competition as operational risks. On xAI specifically, he said it is a second-tier player compared with Anthropic and OpenAI, with a risk of falling further behind. Building orbital data centres brings its own difficulties: space weather, debris and the near-impossibility of repairing equipment remotely.
There is also dilution risk. SpaceX's ambitions require sustained capital and further fundraising rounds would reduce existing shareholders' stakes.
And then there is the Musk factor. His involvement in Donald Trump's department of government efficiency earlier this year hit Tesla's share price and European sales. SpaceX has the same person at the top, with more concentrated control, at a considerably higher valuation.
“Investing in individual companies is higher risk than investing in funds or trusts comprised of a collection of companies, bonds and other instruments,” Coatsworth said. “While there is a lot of buzz around the IPO, it is important to understand that shares can fall in value as well as go up.”
Who is the competition?
AJ Bell identified four companies are worth watching. Blue Origin, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has reusable rockets and is building its own satellite communications network. Amazon is separately buying Globalstar and developing its Amazon Leo satellite venture. ArianeGroup, the joint venture between Airbus and Safran, is already carrying Amazon's satellites into orbit. And Rocket Lab operates across launch services and spacecraft – a smaller operation in the same space. Its shares have risen 365% over one year and 2,759% over two years, according to Google Finance data to 1 June 2026.
Why is the IPO controversial?
The valuation is the first question. At $1.8trn and 95x sales, SpaceX would sit among the six most valuable companies on the Nasdaq 100 before it has turned a profit.
“Bulls might argue SpaceX's earnings growth potential is so great that valuing it using 2027 or 2028 forecast earnings could make the equity rating look less rich,” Coatsworth said. “Bears could respond by saying that SpaceX is too immature or too high-risk a business to warrant a sky-high valuation.”
A related concern for Evan-Cook is who is selling the IPO. Goldman Sachs is the lead underwriter, standing to earn a share of what Wall Street will collect in fees from the listing. Evan-Cook argued that gives Goldman a direct financial interest in the IPO succeeding.
“In my book, if Goldman Sachs thinks I should do something, that’s good reason not to do it. Goldman is alleged to have referred to, and treated, its customers as ‘muppets’ and was fined for helping a hedge fund manager sell dodgy mortgage securities to Goldman clients before the financial crisis,” he said.
“If you’re buying SpaceX’s shares at IPO, you are relying on Goldman’s recommendation that $1.8tn is what the company is worth.”
Morningstar analysts valued the company at $780bn, less than half the asking price.
The second controversy is about governance. Musk will be chief executive, chief technical officer and chair simultaneously, as well as controlling the election of directors. He holds class B stock with 10 votes per share against the 1 vote per share available to public investors, giving him roughly 85% of voting power while owning around 41% of the stock, as recently covered on Trustnet. Public investors would be buying into a company where the founder's judgment cannot formally be challenged and his continuity is built into the legal structure. This isn’t new: an increasing number of US IPOs follow a version of this structure.
A third concern is the lock-up. SpaceX is not following the standard 180-day restriction that prevents pre-IPO investors from selling immediately. Instead, it has a staggered arrangement allowing sales at set points across the first 180 days, including after its first quarterly results as a listed company. Early backers sitting on large gains will have multiple windows to exit.
What should investors do?
Those who want to buy should only buy an amount that – if it went up in smoke – would feel somewhere between ‘I hardly noticed’ and ‘ouch! that smarted’, said Evan-Cook.
“If you’re thinking of putting in an amount that would sit anywhere beyond, say, between ‘I feel sick’ and ‘I’m ruined!’, then you might want to reconsider. Because no matter what you hear – for or against – nobody knows what SpaceX is worth, or what the future has in store for it,” he concluded.