The day has finally arrived. SpaceX trading is set to begin, officially making Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk a trillionaire.
SpaceX is worth more to Musk than Tesla, but which company will turn out more valuable to investors is harder to say.
Tesla stock was up 0.2% in premarket trading at $399.86 Friday, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 0.4% and 0.5%, respectively.
That is a small move for Tesla lately. Shares have moved more than 3%, up or down, for the past five days. Some of that volatility is likely tied to the SpaceX IPO, either with investors selling stock to buy SpaceX, worrying that investors would sell stock to buy SpaceX, or hoping that SpaceX would create a halo effect that drags up Tesla stock on a successful IPO. (Shares have gone up more than 4% on two of the past five days.)
Current prices value Tesla stock at about $1.8 trillion, based on fully diluted shares outstanding. That is eerily close to the roughly $1.75 trillion SpaceX IPO valuation.
Which stock will be worth more at the end of the day is mainly up to SpaceX. Shares, which priced at $135, are likely to rise on Friday. That isn't a bet on SpaceX fundamentals, only history. About 75% of IPOs rise on the first day of trading, according to data compiled by University of Florida professor Jay Ritter.
SpaceX stock futures are trading at $176 on futures exchange Hyperliquid. That level would value SpaceX stock at about $2.3 trillion, more than Tesla.
SpaceX is likely to be more valuable on Friday. That is only a day, though. Which company has better fundamentals is for investors to debate. Both are led by Elon Musk, and both are about AI. Tesla is focused on building physical AI applications such as robo-taxis and robots. SpaceX wants to launch AI data centers in space, while developing AI models to compete with Anthropic and OpenAI.
Tesla has a profitable EV business. SpaceX has a profitable Starlink business. Tesla has more revenue than SpaceX, but EV competition is far more brutal than space launch competition, which SpaceX dominates. SpaceX launches, however, are a nice business and enable the company's AI dreams; they don't justify $1.75 trillion on their own.
Investors may never get an answer on which stock is more valuable. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives expects SpaceX and Tesla to merge in 2027.
As for Musk, his SpaceX stock is worth roughly $870 billion (or $1.1 trillion based on Hyperliquid prices). His Tesla stake is only worth about $275 billion, according to Barron's. SpaceX is worth more to him.