SpaceX surges past $US2 trillion in Nasdaq debut, closing in on Amazon as Elon Musk becomes world's first trillionaire

Elon Musk has become the world's first trillionaire after SpaceX shares surged following the company's Wall Street trading debut.

SpaceX shares began trading just before 12pm local time (2am AEST) at $US150, rising 11 per cent shortly after their long-awaited Nasdaq debut.

The share price later climbed to $US176.52 ($250.60) before closing at $US160.95, putting the company's market value at about $US2.1 trillion.

Ultimately, more than 510 million shares worth about $US84 billion changed hands, even though SpaceX is currently unprofitable and generating only a fraction of the revenue brought in by similarly valued tech giants.

SpaceX is now the sixth-largest company by value in the United States, overtaking Broadcom and bearing down on Amazon, which is next in line at $US2.6 trillion.

Investors across the spectrum, from large institutions to retail fans of Mr Musk, ended the day euphoric after what proved to be the biggest initial public offering (IPO) in history.

Seth Hickle, chief investment officer at an Indianapolis wealth management firm, likened the experience for many investors to "the closest thing to investing in the railroads during the Industrial Revolution".

However, analysts and investors said investors should brace for volatility, particularly early in SpaceX's life as a public company, due to its small relative float and expensive valuation after it lost nearly $US5 billion last year.

Its $US18.7 billion in revenue gives the company a price-to-revenue ratio of roughly 112, far above other mega-cap stocks.

"Right now, people want to bid the stock higher because it's a winner at this point. Whether it stays that way, that remains to be seen," said Todd Schoenberger, chief investment officer at Crosscheck Management in Washington, DC.

SpaceX executives, including president Gwynne Shotwell and chief financial officer Bret Johnsen, celebrated at the Nasdaq market site in New York's Times Square after ringing the opening bell on Friday.

Mr Musk, however, held a separate event for employees in Starbase, SpaceX's company town in Texas, where he took the opportunity to promise to take humanity to Mars.

“Not just a few astronauts, I mean literally you."

Mr Musk's rocket startup, founded in 2022, has expanded into a major satellite operator and has also folded in Mr Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI, which includes the social media platform X.

"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," Mr Musk said.

"If people had told me this was going to happen, I was like 'Man, you must be smoking some really good crack' because I think this company's going to fail."

Before the launch, about 100 people assembled outside the Nasdaq exchange's home in New York, where SpaceX also marked the occasion with a neon sign in Times Square reading: "Building the infrastructure to the future."

Exchanges, market makers and underwriters had been bracing for extraordinary order volumes after the company sold $US75 billion ($106.5 billion) in shares prior to the launch.

But for SpaceX to reach its goal "to make life multi-planetary", it needs billions more than it currently takes in from its rocket and satellite business. 

Between the start of 2025 and March 31 this year, the company lost $US8.7 billion ($12.4 billion).

It was a test as to whether unprecedented investor demand could translate into a blockbuster opening for the world's biggest IPO. 

SpaceX is the first of three large artificial intelligence companies expected to start selling their shares on the US market with OpenAI and Anthropic recently filing initial documents with regulators.

But not all investors were thrilled about SpaceX potentially showing up in their holdings of index funds. 

Officials from pension funds for firefighters, teachers and other workers in California and New York sent a letter to SpaceX last month decrying some of the provisions in its IPO, including the "super voting shares", mandatory arbitration of shareholder claims instead of the possibility of lawsuits and how much power Mr Musk will hold over the company.

Oxfam America said that Mr Musk was now richer than the poorest 46 per cent of the world population, or 3.8 billion people, combined. 

Nabil Ahmed, Oxfam America's senior director of economic justice, called it a "dark day for democracy" earlier this week.

"Musk will be a government-backed trillionaire whose fortune was fuelled by an era of regressive public policy choices — decisions rigged by a tiny few to fuel their fortunes, and overwhelmingly supported by political leaders," he said.

Mr Musk was appointed to US President Donald Trump's administration last year as a "special government employee", leading an ultimately fruitless attempt to slash government spending before falling out with Mr Trump.

But he accompanied the US president on his state visit to China last month.

ABC/Wires