ByREUTERS, TOBIAS HOLCMAN

JUNE 13, 2026 17:49

A wave of relief moved through Wall Street once trading for SpaceX's notable Nasdaq debut ran without incident, creating a fresh standard for the trading firms and exchanges preparing for the major IPOs of OpenAI and Anthropic later this year.

SpaceX's record-setting debut on Friday exceeded the previous largest flotation on US exchanges by nearly three times. The scale of the launch had concerned market participants, who retained some uneasy recollections of Facebook's troubled stock market start in 2012.

Still, trading systems at the banks handling the IPO, exchanges, market makers, clearinghouses, and other market infrastructure firms managed the task of handling millions of client orders.

"Market observers recall the Facebook era and wondered if this would become another difficult case, but I truly believe the US banks performed excellently, the SpaceX team excelled in presenting their narrative during their meetings. And as evident, everything proceeded very smoothly," said Jeff Parks, CEO of Canadian investment firm Stack Capital Group. Nearly a third of Stack's portfolio is SpaceX, in which the company started investing in 2021.

He alluded to the disruptions that accompanied Facebook's problematic IPO, when technical glitches transformed a major listing into one of Wall Street's most infamous trading mishaps. It left investors and brokers uncertain for hours and ultimately cost market makers hundreds of millions of dollars.

SpaceX ranks as largest IPO on record

According to Citadel Securities, the top US retail market maker, SpaceX's debut produced the highest retail order activity for an IPO auction ever. A Citadel Securities spokesperson noted the firm managed the bulk of the retail orders for SpaceX.

Morgan Stanley, the designated stabilization agent for the high-profile market debut, played the central part in overseeing SpaceX's market opening. The bank needed to maintain an orderly start even while dealing with unmatched investor interest. A stabilization agent usually purchases shares in the open market to support stocks that see sharp drops on opening day.

One of the lead underwriters guiding SpaceX, who asked not to be named as the topic remains private, stated the IPO marked a major occasion for the exchanges and the banks and essential to execute properly.

Trading platform Charles Schwab noted it observed well over a million orders in SpaceX in the initial hours of trading, which stands as a notable number compared to earlier IPOs, according to a spokesperson for the company.

Reuters indicated on Thursday that Wall Street traders, brokers, and exchanges had been testing their trading systems for several weeks ahead of the major IPO.

SpaceX shares are not rising in large blocks, but they are edging higher, and much of that stems from a somewhat routine and milder opening print than many anticipated, said Mike Dickson, head of research and quantitative strategies at Horizon Investments. I am somewhat surprised there is not greater volatility, considering the oversubscription reports.

Elon Musk reaches status as world's first trillionaire

After the IPO, Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire by combining his holdings in SpaceX (roughly 42 percent of the company's stake), Tesla (worth approximately $174 billion), Neuralink, and the Boring Company, as well as earlier profits from Tesla share sales.

The main factor in Musk attaining trillionaire status rests in the SpaceX-xAI merger, which traces back to the purchase of Twitter and its rebranding to X.

Musk acquired the social media platform in 2022 for $44 billion, rebranded the company, and eventually introduced Grok, an artificial intelligence model that utilized the platform as its training base.

To build Grok, Musk then created xAI, the AI company that later became X's primary entity in a merger that valued the combined company at approximately $113 billion.

The following merger with SpaceX valued the company at $250 billion, showing a net increase of $206 billion in valuation relative to the $44 billion originally required to acquire Twitter.

Now, both companies are valued at $2.1 trillion, with the stock rising 19 percent on its first day and closing at a unit price of $161, in what experts describe as the biggest IPO ever.