Andrew Bary

One little-known holder of SpaceX stock is Blue Owl Technology Finance, a depressed business development company focused on high-yield technology lending in the private credit market.

The fund, managed by Blue Owl, a leading private-credit specialist, owned about 500,000 shares of SpaceX that were valued at around $195 million at year-end. The investment is disclosed in its filings including the 2025 10-K.

The current value could be much higher because Blue Owl was carrying the stake at a SpaceX valuation of about $720 billion, against a potential IPO valuation of $1.75 trillion. At that higher valuation, the Blue Owl stake could be worth close to $500 million.

There has been rising investor enthusiasm Wednesday for SpaceX after a report in the Information that the Elon Musk-controlled company could file a prospectus for its IPO as early as this week.

Investors may not be giving the Blue Owl fund credit for the SpaceX investment, which is admittedly small relative to the Blue Owl Technology Finance's investment portfolio of $14 billion. At a $1.75 billion valuation, the SpaceX investment would be worth about $1 a share given some 464 million shares outstanding.

Blue Owl Technology Finance shares $(OTF)$ are up 2.4% to $12.70 Wednesday but are down 13% this year and trade for a roughly 27% discount to the BDC's net asset value o f more than $17 a share on Dec. 31. Private-credit BDCs issue shares to investors which then trade publicly at a premium or discount to NAV based on demand.

EchoStar, which owns a much more sizable stake in SpaceX that is valued at more than $25 billion, has seen its shares gain almost 9% Wednesday to $120.51. SpaceX accounts for much of the value in EchoStar.

Investors have shunned the Blue Owl BDC -- and private-credit BDCs generally -- this year because of concerns about private credit and technology loans in particular.

Blue Owl Technology Finance executives talked about the SpaceX investment on the fund's earnings conference call this quarter. The fund made a well-times investment of $27 million in SpaceX in 2021, leaving it with a huge gain. The fund mostly owns private-credit loans and also holds preferred and common shares investments as do many private-credit BDCs both public and private.

Erik Bissonnette, the company's president, said on the February call:

"So I believe it's marked at around $720 billion or so today. That obviously does not contemplate the merger of SpaceX and xAI, which was consummated in Q1 at a $1.25 trillion value. I keep stumbling over that word because it's such a staggeringly large number. So we would obviously expect to see some meaningful -- expect to see a meaningful uptick in that position in Q1 as well."

Write to Andrew Bary at andrew.bary@barrons.com

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March 25, 2026 15:44 ET (19:44 GMT)

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