SpaceX Stock Rises 11% in Largest IPO Ever

SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket and artificial intelligence company, rose 11 percent as it began trading on Friday, cementing the power of the world’s richest man and setting the stage for fast-growing A.I.companies to reach the stock market in a once-in-a-lifetime bonanza.SpaceX shares opened trading at $150, up from their initial public offering price of $135 a share.

That valued the company at nearly $2 trillion, exceeding the market capitalizations of other titans of American industry, including Walmart and General Motors combined.It was the biggest I.P.O.ever, dethroning Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, which was valued at $1.7 trillion and raised more than $29 billion when it went public in 2019.

SpaceX raised $75 billion from its offering, more than the combined amount amassed by every other U.S.I.P.O.

over the past two years, according to Renaissance Capital, a research and advisory firm.The pop in SpaceX’s share price also catapulted Mr.Musk, 54, to become the world’s first trillionaire.

The entrepreneur, who not only leads SpaceX but also runs the electric carmaker Tesla and other businesses, has long been the planet’s wealthiest person.But passing the trillionaire milestone is significant, further augmenting Mr.

Musk’s fortune and influence.The offering also enriched a coterie of Mr.Musk’s friends and venture capital and private investment firms.

Thousands of SpaceX employees also instantly became millionaires.Mr.Musk spent Friday at the company’s headquarters in Starbase, Texas, where he celebrated with employees, family, friends and investors.

“It is certainly hard to believe that a little company that started in a warehouse in El Segundo is now going public,” he told them, referring to SpaceX’s founding in 2002 in Southern California.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader...