Level 1 — Absolute Beginner

SpaceX is a company that builds rockets and sends them to space. The company is owned by Elon Musk. SpaceX wants to sell parts of the company to regular people.

SpaceX will sell its shares at $135 each. It wants to raise $75 billion. This makes SpaceX worth about $1.77 trillion dollars.

SpaceX will join the Nasdaq stock market this Thursday. The short name for the stock is SPCX. This will be the biggest sale of company shares in all of history.

rocket

a vehicle powered by engines that can fly into space

share

a small piece of ownership in a company that can be bought and sold

stock market

a place where people buy and sell shares in companies

billion

one thousand million (1,000,000,000)

trillion

one thousand billion (1,000,000,000,000)

valuation

an estimate of how much a company is worth in money

list

to make a company's shares available to buy on a stock market

investor

a person who puts money into a company hoping to earn more money back

Level 2 — Elementary

SpaceX, the rocket and space company owned by Elon Musk, has set its IPO price at $135 per share. An IPO, or initial public offering, is when a private company sells shares to the public for the first time. SpaceX plans to raise $75 billion from the sale.

At $135 per share, SpaceX is valued at about $1.77 trillion. That makes it the seventh-largest company in the United States by value. The company will begin trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange this Thursday under the ticker symbol SPCX.

This IPO is expected to be the largest in history, more than three times bigger than Alibaba's 2014 offering, which raised around $25 billion. Goldman Sachs is leading the offering. Some investors are very excited, while others, like investor Steve Eisman, say they will avoid the stock.

IPO

initial public offering; the first time a private company sells its shares to the public

private company

a company whose shares are not available for the public to buy on a stock market

ticker symbol

a short code, usually two to five letters, used to identify a company on a stock market

valuation

the total estimated value of a company in money

underwriter

a bank that manages the process of selling a company's shares to investors

institutional investor

a large organization, such as a pension fund, that invests large amounts of money

offering

the act of making shares available for investors to buy during an IPO

capital

money raised and used to fund a company's operations and growth

Level 3 — Intermediate

Elon Musk's SpaceX formally set its IPO price at $135 per share on Tuesday, targeting a $75 billion capital raise that would give the company a fully diluted valuation of $1.77 trillion. The offering is led by Goldman Sachs with Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase as co-underwriters. Trading begins on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX on Thursday, June 12.

The pricing values SpaceX as the seventh-largest company in the United States, surpassing Tesla's current market capitalization of roughly $1.6 trillion. The offering is approximately three times larger than Alibaba's $25 billion IPO in 2014, which had long held the world record. Demand from institutional investors reportedly exceeded available shares by a factor of 20, forcing underwriters to set the price at the very top of the indicated range.

Analysts are divided on the stock's prospects. SpaceX posted strong revenue and profitability last year, driven in large part by a 47-percent net margin on its Starlink satellite internet business and a multi-year NASA commercial crew contract. However, prominent investor Steve Eisman announced he would avoid the stock, citing growing capital requirements and uncertainty about the long-term economics of Elon Musk's Mars colonization ambitions. IPO proceeds will be used to advance the next-generation Starship launch system and expand the Starlink constellation.

fully diluted valuation

the total value of a company assuming all possible shares, including those not yet issued, are in circulation

co-underwriter

a bank that supports the lead bank in managing and distributing shares during an IPO

market capitalization

the total market value of all a company's shares currently traded on the stock market

oversubscribed

when investor demand for shares in an IPO far exceeds the number of shares available

net margin

the percentage of revenue that a company keeps as profit after all costs are paid

short-seller

an investor who bets that a stock's price will fall rather than rise

capital requirement

the amount of money a company needs to fund its operations and future growth plans

constellation

a large network of satellites operating together in orbit around the Earth

Level 4 — Advanced

SpaceX priced its long-anticipated IPO at $135 per share on Tuesday, locking in a $75 billion gross proceeds target across 555.6 million primary shares with an 83.3 million over-allotment option still open, and a fully diluted valuation of $1.77 trillion that places the company seventh among all U.S. equities by market capitalization. Goldman Sachs, acting as global coordinator alongside Morgan Stanley as joint bookrunner, set the offering at the ceiling of a twice-revised range after an extraordinary 20-times oversubscription that compressed the roadshow's duration and forced the syndicate to implement pro-rata allocation cuts for all but the largest anchor accounts.

The offering eclipses Alibaba's $25 billion 2014 record by a factor exceeding three, redefining benchmarks for private-to-public transitions in the technology era. The valuation also overtakes Tesla's $1.6 trillion market capitalization, a fact that generated significant commentary given Musk's concurrent chairmanship of both companies. Underwriters grounded the case for investors in SpaceX's standalone financial profile: strong revenue, positive free cash flow, a 47-percent Starlink net margin anchored by a growing subscriber base, and a multi-year NASA Commercial Crew contract providing durable government revenue. Elon Musk retains approximately 37 percent of the post-offering diluted share count under a dual-class structure that preserves his voting control.

Skepticism is not absent from the demand side. Steve Eisman, whose prescient short position on subprime-mortgage lenders before the 2008 financial crisis established his long-term credibility as a contrarian analyst, publicly declined to invest, citing mounting Starship developmental expenditure, unresolved interplanetary-colonization economics, and satellite-constellation licensing uncertainty in non-U.S. jurisdictions. The company plans to deploy IPO proceeds toward Starship's full reusability program and toward a Starlink V2 densification tranche intended to provide global sub-20-millisecond latency service by the end of 2027, an operational milestone that would unlock enterprise and sovereign-government contract tiers currently beyond reach of the existing V1.5 architecture.

over-allotment option

an arrangement allowing underwriters to sell additional shares beyond the base offering if demand is exceptionally high; also called a greenshoe

bookrunner

the lead investment bank that manages the order book and pricing process for a stock offering

anchor account

a major institutional investor that commits early in an IPO to stabilize the offering and signal quality to other buyers

pro-rata allocation cut

a proportional reduction applied to each investor's share request when demand for an IPO exceeds supply

free cash flow

the cash a company generates after paying for all capital expenditures, available for debt repayment or reinvestment