SpaceX rings the bell on its Nasdaq debut, and Musk admits he gave it ‘less than a 10% chance’

SpaceX rang the Nasdaq opening bell on Friday, marking its Nasdaq debut as a public company with the largest IPO on record. It did so in typical fashion. Hours earlier, a Falcon 9 rocket had launched a batch of Starlink satellites into orbit.

“What other company would do something like that on the day it opens on the public market?” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell asked from the Nasdaq site in New York. “SpaceX would.”

A near-$1bn vote of confidence

The debut values SpaceX at just under $1.8tn. The company sold 555.6 million shares at $135 each, raising about $75bn, the biggest IPO in history. It trades under the ticker SPCX.

Shotwell said staff backed the listing with their own money. SpaceX employs about 22,000 people, and more than half bought additional stock in the offering, worth almost $1bn between them. “Thank you for that confidence,” she said.

Elon Musk joined...

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