SpaceX goes public today, the largest IPO in history

On Friday, SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell and Elon Musk rang the opening bell. Shotwell was at the Nasdaq in New York City, while Musk was in Texas.

During the IPO, Musk stated on a JPMorgan Chase livestream that SpaceX has been cash-flow positive since about 2015. In order to acquire money for «a significant growth phase,» he stated that he wanted to take SpaceX public right away. Among other things, he planned to launch more than 100,000 satellites for communications and construct artificial intelligence data centers in orbit.

The company was founded as a reusable rocket manufacturer by Musk, who became the first trillionaire in history based on his combined holdings in SpaceX and Tesla. However, the Starlink satellite internet sector is currently the only profitable aspect of the corporation.

Shares allotted to retail investors would be accessible through Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Robinhood, SoFi Technologies, and Morgan Stanley’s ETrade, SpaceX told the SEC. Fidelity increased client access to IPO investment by reducing the minimum brokerage account balance for IPOs from $100,000 to only $2,000. According to the brokerage firm, customers can let Fidelity know that they would like to buy at least one share, up to a maximum of one million shares. To invest in an IPO, Schwab demands a minimum brokerage account balance of $100,000; Robinhood, SoFi, and ETrade don’t have any minimum balance requirements.

SpaceX, Starlink and AI

Following a $4.94 billion loss in 2015, SpaceX recorded a net loss of $4.28 billion in its most recent quarter. Starlink generated $4.69 billion, or around 69% of the company’s quarterly sales. After SpaceX’s space division lost $619 million and its AI division lost $2.5 billion, the company’s only profitable segment is its connection division, which comprises Starlink.

AI accounted for the majority of the $10.1 billion in capital expenditures during the quarter, which was more than twice as much as the previous year. SpaceX invested $1.3 billion in its connectivity business and slightly more than $1 billion in its space division. SpaceX spent $12.7 billion on AI and $3.8 billion on space last year.

Musk, who owns a 42% stake in SpaceX, will become a trillionaire when the company’s stock price reaches $135 per share, valuing his combined shares and options at $688 billion, according to Forbes estimates. Musk has been the world’s richest person since May 2014, and his fortune was valued at $788 billion as of Wednesday.