Pension funds and university endowments are among the biggest winners
SpaceX raised US$75 billion in its initial public offering (IPO) on Friday, the largest IPO in market history by funds raised, as early institutional backers including Baron Capital, Ark Invest and Fidelity Investments posted some of the most substantial private-market gains in recent decades.
The company sold 555.6 million shares at US$135 each, valuing Elon Musk’s space and artificial intelligence conglomerate at approximately US$1.77 trillion. SpaceX’s fundraising haul is expected to exceed all US IPO proceeds from 2024 and 2025 combined, according to one market analyst.
For nearly two decades, some of the world’s most prominent investors quietly accumulated stakes in SpaceX while the rocket maker remained largely off-limits to public markets, CNBC reported.
Baron Capital founder Ron Baron began buying SpaceX shares in 2017 when the company was still private, building a US$1.7 billion stake that has since grown to US$15 billion based on the company’s private-market valuation. Baron Capital’s position is expected to be worth approximately US$24 billion following the IPO, assuming the full US$75 billion offering is completed.
Baron told CNBC’s Squawk Box in May that “this is going to become the largest company on the planet” and said he had placed an order for an additional US$1 billion in shares at the IPO price.
Significant gains for Ark, Fidelity and pension funds
Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest also built a substantial position in SpaceX through its Ark Venture Fund. Ark projected SpaceX could reach a US$2.5 trillion enterprise value by 2030, describing the US$1.75 trillion IPO valuation as a plausible outcome driven by Starlink, Starship and AI-related operations. The forecast implies approximately 38% annual growth in enterprise value from the IPO level.
Among the other major beneficiaries is Fidelity Investments. Fidelity, which began acquiring shares around 2015, has disclosed SpaceX as a significant holding in flagship funds including Contrafund and Blue Chip Growth. SpaceX maintained tight control over its capitalization table, offering follow-on allocations primarily to existing investors while many institutions remained locked out.
University endowments have also emerged as major beneficiaries. Washington University in St. Louis invested roughly US$50 million in SpaceX nearly a decade ago, a stake that has appreciated dramatically and now accounts for more than 10% of the university’s approximately US$17 billion endowment, according to Bloomberg News.
Meanwhile, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan reportedly invested more than US$200 million in SpaceX in 2019 through a technology-focused vehicle, citing the company’s potential in satellite broadband.
Valuation concerns emerge
Not all analysts share the bullish outlook. Morningstar initiated coverage of SpaceX with a fair-value estimate of US$780 billion, less than half the approximately US$1.8 trillion valuation the company is targeting.
Analyst Nicolas Owens used a discounted cash flow model to value SpaceX’s core launch and Starlink businesses at about US$611 billion in enterprise value, plus an additional US$170 billion in probability-weighted scenarios tied to the company’s AI operations.
“We think the company has been significantly overvalued and investors will have opportunities to buy the stock at more attractive levels after the IPO,” Owens wrote.
Dan Coatsworth, head of markets at AJ Bell, also flagged valuation risks, noting that a US$1.75 trillion valuation would place SpaceX at roughly 67 times sales, about three times the revenue multiple assigned to Nvidia based on its most recent fiscal year.
SpaceX reported a net loss of US$4.28 billion in the first quarter of 2026, following a US$4.94 billion loss for full-year 2025. Revenue rose 15% to US$4.69 billion during the quarter and increased 33% to US$18.67 billion in 2025. Capital expenditures reached US$10.1 billion in the first quarter, more than double the level a year earlier, with US$7.7 billion directed toward AI initiatives.
