The script for the past seven months was written by Elon Musk, but Wall Street was never given a copy.

On June 12th, at the Nasdaq exchange in New York, SpaceX completed the largest initial public offering in history.

Musk rang the opening bell from the company's Starbase headquarters in Texas, while CFO Bret Johnsen and President Gwynne Shotwell did the same at the Nasdaq exchange floor. During the ceremony, Musk remarked, "I gave SpaceX less than a 10% chance of succeeding."

That day, every banker and trader on the exchange floor wore green sneakers—a symbolic nod to the IPO's "greenshoe option," or over-allotment provision, reportedly at Musk's personal suggestion. According to Bloomberg, the custom Nike shoes were his idea.

Behind this landmark listing, however, lies a seven-month saga where Wall Street's top investment banks were repeatedly thrown off balance, forced to scramble and adapt. Lead underwriters Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were reportedly kept in the dark on several pivotal moves, including a $60 billion acquisition of Cursor, compelling them to repeatedly rewrite the prospectus and investor presentation materials.

The entire process was characterized by last-minute changes, information asymmetry, and a disregard for convention—all orchestrated by Musk.

The Driving Force Behind the Sudden Listing

The decision to take SpaceX public was not a natural evolution.

For years, Musk and company executives had publicly stated that an IPO would only happen after regular human flights to Mars became a reality. Earlier discussions had only ever considered a potential spin-off of the Starlink satellite internet business.

The turning point was artificial intelligence.

Musk became increasingly convinced that SpaceX must build massive data centers in space, using its Starship rockets to launch computing infrastructure into low-Earth orbit to support AI development. This ambitious plan, with a timeline of four to five years, requires a staggering amount of capital. An IPO shifted from being an option to a necessity.

In its prospectus, SpaceX presented investors with a vision of a $26.5 trillion addressable market for AI, explicitly positioning itself as a cloud and AI infrastructure provider—far more than just a rocket company.

Mandeep Singh, head of global technology research at Bloomberg Intelligence, commented, "They've overnight become a new cloud AI infrastructure player. Nobody really saw that coming."

A Seven-Month Chase for Investment Banks

In early December 2025, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley received a call from SpaceX executives informing them of the company's plan to go public. This in itself was a surprise, as market expectations had centered on a Starlink spin-off, not a full company listing.

Musk then set an aggressive deadline: complete the IPO before his 55th birthday at the end of June. The project was internally codenamed "Project Apex."

According to reports, the banks were forced to scrap and completely rewrite their entire investor narrative at least twice during the process.

The first major rewrite came in January 2026, when Musk decided to merge his AI company, xAI, into SpaceX. Since its founding in 2023, xAI had raised over $45 billion, but Musk believed it needed far more capital to compete with OpenAI and Anthropic. The merger valued xAI at $250 billion and shifted SpaceX from profitability to a loss-making status. Goldman Sachs estimated SpaceX would burn through $120 billion in cash by 2027.

The second rewrite occurred on April 21st during an investor roadshow in Texas, where Musk unexpectedly announced that SpaceX held an option to acquire AI programming tool Cursor for $60 billion. This news reportedly came as a surprise even to the bankers present. It was noted that "they had learned to adapt on the fly."

Subsequently, SpaceX announced deals to sell data center compute access to Anthropic and Google, further expanding its revenue streams. Each new development triggered another round of SEC filings, breaking the conventional IPO practice of avoiding major changes close to the listing date.

In the xAI merger, Morgan Stanley served as financial advisor to *both* SpaceX and xAI—an extremely rare arrangement in M&A, where buyer and seller typically have independent advisors. But with Musk controlling both companies, he set the rules. Morgan Stanley's valuation for the merged entity was $1.25 trillion.

Breaking the Pricing Mold

SpaceX also broke convention during the IPO pricing process.

Typically, large IPOs provide a price range during the roadshow to allow market feedback before setting a final price. SpaceX skipped this step entirely, announcing a single fixed price: $135 per share for 555.6 million shares.

According to Bloomberg, this decision was unprecedented for a U.S. deal of this size but made the process faster and more transparent—especially for retail investors.

Musk had posted in 2020, "I am a big supporter of retail investors and will ensure they get top priority in allocations." This time, he delivered: retail investors were ultimately allocated approximately $15 billion in shares, about 20% of the total offering, with individual investor orders exceeding $100 billion.

By Wednesday afternoon, SpaceX had received subscription orders worth hundreds of billions of dollars. The final pricing meeting with banks was held Thursday at 2 p.m. On Friday morning, Morgan Stanley opened trading at $150 per share, an 11% premium to the offering price.

Musk's Attention to Detail: The Greenshoe

The green sneakers worn on listing day were Musk's idea to symbolize the "greenshoe option."

At Goldman Sachs' Manhattan headquarters, bankers gathered on the 41st floor wearing the custom Nike shoes to watch the opening. Bloomberg reported the Goldman decor gave the feeling of "looking down on the Manhattan skyline from the surface of Mars." The Times Square ball in Nasdaq Plaza was lit Martian red and rose slowly instead of falling.

Notably, SpaceX also struck a rare arrangement with Goldman Sachs: the bank would not receive a fee for exercising the greenshoe option.

Reasons for the Rush

Musk's push for a rapid IPO was driven by three key factors.

A political window: to complete the listing before the U.S. midterm elections, locking it in during a period of relative friendliness from the current administration.

A market window: to go public ahead of OpenAI and Anthropic, capturing investor enthusiasm for AI-themed IPOs first.

A personal milestone: to finish before his 55th birthday at the end of June.

Looking Ahead

Following its IPO, SpaceX's market capitalization has surpassed that of Tesla. Some analysts have begun discussing the possibility of a future merger between the two companies. Others offer a note of caution. Rand Millwood, an investment advisor at Guardian Wealth Advisors, stated, "There are only about 15 companies globally with a market cap over a trillion dollars, and they are all highly successful, cash-flow-positive businesses—SpaceX is not that yet."

Who Is Next?

SpaceX's playbook may be rewriting the rules for large tech company listings.

Index providers like Nasdaq have adjusted rules to allow newly listed companies to be added to indices soon after trading begins—a change that promises faster passive fund inflows for potential IPO candidates like OpenAI and Anthropic.

SpaceX has also demonstrated that executing major mergers concurrently with an IPO process is not only feasible but can be done without slowing down the timeline. This provides a new reference point for other large tech companies preparing to go public.

As Morgan Stanley handled early trade monitoring and Goldman Sachs led the prospectus writing and pricing, bankers from both firms reportedly raised a glass in celebration at Goldman's Manhattan headquarters. Meanwhile, the IPOs of OpenAI and Anthropic are already on the horizon.