Michelle Fleury
New York business correspondent, reporting from Times Square

The SpaceX IPO is closing out its first day of trading in dramatic fashion, taking over three of the major video screens here in Times Square.

And fittingly, Elton John's Rocket Man is once again blasting from the speakers outside the Nasdaq MarketSite.

It was a blockbuster debut. Shares closed well above their initial offering price, as investors placed big bets on the future of space exploration, satellite technology and artificial intelligence.

But analysts tell me the real test starts after the opening day excitement fades.

We are closing our live coverage now, but you can read more in our main news story.

Lily Jamali
North America technology correspondent

Elon Musk isn’t the only one walking away with a massive payday from today’s SpaceX IPO. The investment banks who helped make the company public took home $500m in fees.

The top players were Goldman Sachs – whose CEO David Solomon reportedly secured the business by sliding into Musk’s DMs – and Morgan Stanley. Each will reportedly take home $100mn. Bank of America, Citigroup, and JP Morgan Chase will each receive about $75mn in fees.

In April, the New York Times reported that Musk was requiring Wall Street firms to buy subscriptions to his controversial AI chatbot Grok if they wanted to participate as underwriters, a responsibility that includes serving as its intermediary with the public and setting the company’s share price.

Image source, Reuters

Amid the excitement about the SpaceX IPO and Elon Musk's new status as the world's first trillionaire, there has been some controversy over the scale of his wealth in comparison to levels of global wealth inequality.

Activists gathered last week outside the Nasdaq in protest of Musk and the public listing of SpaceX.

According to the UK-based anti-poverty charity Oxfam, Musk's wealth now "exceeds that of the poorest 3.8 billion people" in the world combined. That’s 46% of the global population.

Hitting $1 trillion means Musk’s wealth grew by over $550 billion over the past year, equivalent to an average rate of over $1 million per minute, Oxfam says.

The charity adds that its statistics show 60% of Britons "think it's unacceptable for any individual to hold more than £1 trillion in personal wealth".

According to its own analysis, Oxfam says a 10% tax on Musk's wealth could lift 800 million people above the extreme poverty line.

"A trillionaire is not a sign of a healthy economy - it is a sign that extraordinary wealth and power are being concentrated in the hands of a tiny few while millions of people struggle to afford the basics,” says Jean Mclean, Chief Influencing Officer at Oxfam GB.

This should be a "wake-up call", she says, adding that "this is a dark day for global democracy".

Kali Hays
US technology reporter

Image source, Reuters

After shares of SpaceX hit the open stock market at around midday in New York at $150 (£112), the price for a single share of SpaceX rose to a high of $176 within the first two hours of trading.

But by late afternoon, the price had fallen, landing at $160.95 by the end of trading on Friday.

At near $161, the closing price represents a roughly 19% increase above SpaceX’s own estimate of $135 per share at its market debut.

The price means Elon Musk's newfound status as a trillionaire is still in place - at least for the weekend.

Yet, the closing price was well below a handful of early analyst estimates that thought SpaceX stock could hit $190 at its debut.

Samuel Kerr, an analyst with Mergermarket, says he was expecting the price to be at least 20% over the SpaceX estimate. But the true test for the company is how its stock fares in the weeks and months ahead.

"The question on SpaceX is less about the immediate trading after IPO and more about how the price holds over the longer term," Kerr says.

Archie Mitchell
Business reporter

Elon Musk’s status as the world’s first trillionaire opens a major gap between him - as the world’s wealthiest man - and the handful of centibillionaires trailing behind him.

And it begs the question, who will become the next trillionaire, and when?

The next wealthiest people in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, are Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, worth a respective $304bn and $283bn each.

Behind them is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos with a net worth of $262bn. A handful of names have been tipped as potential trillionaires this decade, including Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

But, as of Friday, no other billionaire has even half of Musk’s net worth, leaving the race to become the second trillionaire wide open.

Lily Jamali
North America Technology Correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Many Americans will be exposed to SpaceX stock – whether they like it or not. That exposure will likely come primarily from their 401(k) retirement accounts.

These accounts are often made up of diversified funds. With recent changes by the Nasdaq-100 allowing SpaceX to be included much sooner than would have been the case in the past, there could be roughly $20bn in demand from passive funds, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.

That’s worrisome to some given the reviews of SpaceX’s financials, including its string of non-profitable quarters.

And then there’s its claimed “TAM” - or “total addressable market” - whereby the company estimates the size of the market it could one day capture. SpaceX says its TAM is $28.5tn, just a few trillion shy of US GDP last year.

A big chunk of that comes from SpaceX’s volatile artificial intelligence business. To date, the AI segment has been a money loser.

NYU valuation expert Aswath Damodaran has said SpaceX's TAM “borders on fantasy".

We are one hour away from the close of trading at the Nasdaq Stock Exchange in New York.

Regular trading ends at 16:00 EDT (21:00 BST) bringing an end to SpaceX's first day of public trading.

Stay with us as we bring you coverage of the final hour of trading with a keen eye on the closing price for the week.

Currently the share price sits at just over $168 having peaked earlier at $176.

Pallab Ghosh
Science correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Though SpaceX handles many parts of Musk's business empire, one of the divisions it is most famous for is its Mars ambitions. Now that the company has gone public, how far away is that dream really?

The Star Ship Enterprise’s mission, from the Star Trek franchise, was “to boldly go where no one has gone before”. Not to be outshone, Elon Musk has if anything raised the ambition for SpaceX a tad: "to extend the light of consciousness to the stars".

The starting point is to build lunar bases and ultimately colonise Mars. But how realistic is this?

On the plus column: SpaceX launches the large majority of objects reaching orbit, has re-flown its Falcon 9 boosters dozens of times each, and maintains a success rate above 99%. This is a genuine revolution in cheap, reliable access to low-Earth orbit.

On the minus column is Starship. It is the firm's newest and most powerful rocket, and its retro 1950s look deserves to deliver on its science-fiction promise.

But there have been only around a dozen tests of the vehicle on which the firm’s dreams rest. None of them have been an orbital flight around the Earth. Musk's stated plan is for uncrewed Starships to head for Mars sometime between 2026 and 2028, with crews to follow later.

Few independent experts believe that a 2026 Mars mission is credible given the fact that the rocket is still being tested.

Kali Hays
US technology reporter

Image source, Reuters

There are signs that stock market investors have been selling their shares of major tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, and even Tesla, in order to buy shares of SpaceX.

Samuel Kerr, who leads equity capital markets research for Mergermarket, told the BBC there had been noticeable selling in large tech companies as SpaceX was marketing and pricing its IPO.

"That would indicate investors were selling out of liquid tech exposure, like the Mag 7 names, to make room for SpaceX," Kerr said.

Financial analysts use the term "Magnificent 7" as a reference to Alphabet (owner of Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla, which make up most of the world's most valuable companies.

On Friday, the price of shares for Tesla, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon had dipped down slightly, as shares of Meta, Alphabet and Nvidia remained relatively flat.

Image source, Getty Images

Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire today, but he has previously insisted he leads a largely unglamorous lifestyle. Private planes and submarine cars aside.

While he used to own a real-estate portfolio which consisted of seven mansions with swimming pools, tennis courts and a ballroom, Musk had a 'change of heart' in 2020. He tweeted then that he "will own no house" and will be 'devoting' himself to 'Mars and Earth'.

In 2021, Musk tweeted that his "primary home" was a modest prefabricated house that cost him about $50,000 on the southern tip of Texas.

He does own a vast collection of private planes and unusual cars, including one car which transforms into a submarine.The 1976 Lotus Esprit driven by James Bond was featured in the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved Me.

If you want to know more about Musk and his journey to becoming the world's richest person, his story is featured in an episode of the BBC World Service podcast Good Bad Billionaire which you can listen to here.

Jemma Crew
Business reporter

Someone who bought 20 SpaceX shares (at the initial $135 each) in the IPO this week would have invested £2,013.

According to AJ Bell, the 11.1% jump in SpaceX's opening price to $150 means they've already made a £223 gain on paper.

They won’t receive any profit until they sell these shares, for more than they paid. The share price will change as trading continues.

In contrast, AJ Bell says it would take a saver with £2,013 in the bank two years to make the same return, based on a top savings account interest rate of 4.83%.

“The tens of thousands of retail investors who took the risk of buying shares in SpaceX’s IPO offer will be grinning like a Cheshire Cat," says Dan Coatsworth, the investment platform's head of markets.

Image source, Getty Images

Democratic US Senator Elizabeth Warren has called for the implementation of a wealth tax following the news that Elon Musk has become the world's first trillionaire after SpaceX's stock market debut.

Writing on X, the Massachusetts senator says: "The typical American household would have to work more than 11 MILLION years to make Elon Musk's level of wealth. We need a wealth tax."

While Bernie Sanders, independent senator for Vermont, called for the US to "lift the cap on taxable income", stating that Musk "pays the same amount into social security as someone making $184,500".

"If we end that absurdity... we can make social security solvent for 75 years and expand benefits by $2,400," he posts on X.

• For context: In the US, no social security tax payments are made on income above $184,500 per year. There is no cap for income tax

Kali Hays
US technology reporter

Image source, NurPhoto via Getty Images

As the stock market seems to be getting more excited about SpaceX, sending shares of the company to $166 within its first hour of trading, shares of Tesla are dipping.

The electric car company's stock fell almost 2% after SpaceX hit the market.

However, shares of Tesla remain much more valuable than SpaceX, at just over $390 each.

Francisco Velasquez
Business reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Aside from the Wall Street buzz, this IPO stands to be a massive, life-changing lottery ticket for certain investors and actual employees, namely because SpaceX gives company stock.

The listing is expected to mint over 4,000 current and former employees into wealthy individuals, with an estimated 400 projected to hold stakes worth $100 million or more.

And it’s not just the top executives or engineers getting rich — everyday staff like welders, technicians, and even cafeteria workers who held onto their shares stand to gain a big payoff after years of smaller paychecks.

Pallab Ghosh
Science correspondent

SpaceX's rocket business lost money in 2025, posting a $657m operating loss on $4.1bn of revenue. And much of that revenue was, in effect, SpaceX paying itself.

The large majority of its Falcon 9 rocket flights last year carried the company's own Starlink satellites.

So when do Moon bases, Mars colonisation or asteroid mining start paying? SpaceX’s IPO prospectus doesn’t give a date.

But a peer-reviewed study in a journal of the International Academy of Astronautics, Acta Astronautica, has concluded that returning platinum to Earth "appears feasible only under unlikely circumstances", with profitability hinging on technologies not yet developed.

A separate analysis in the US scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that, while falling launch costs could eventually make space mining viable, business activity "remains limited at this point" and the economics depend on advances still to come.

The experts I speak to tell me that while the firm will get plenty of contracts from Nasa, commercial profit returned to Earth is realistically decades away and by no means certain.

Elon Musk's company SpaceX raised $75bn ahead of its initial public offering (IPO) this morning, overtaking the previous record held by oil giant Saudi Aramco, which opened at $25.6bn in 2019.

Below is a breakdown of SpaceX's current operations, along with what it hopes to achieve in the future.

Kali Hays
US technology reporter

Image source, Reuters

Given Musk's significant and controlling stock holding in SpaceX, headlines are flying that he is now the world's first trillionaire.

This is based on an estimate of his total net worth, which is almost entirely based on the value of stock he holds in Tesla, another company he controls, and now SpaceX.

While Musk is unfathomably wealthy, he does not have a bank account showing a balance of $1tn. And he cannot sell his shares in SpaceX for 366 days.

And in order to maintain his brand new status as a trillionaire, the price of SpaceX stock will need to stay high. If it falls below $138, he will again be considered a simple multi-billionaire.

Mark Broad
Business news editor

SpaceX shares have started trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange - opening up over 20% from its initial listing price of $135 a share.

Due to his holdings in the company Elon Musk is now a trillionaire, according to Bloomberg calculations.

Much of Musk's net worth is tied up in SpaceX stock - so his status as a trillionaire could be affected if SpaceX shares were to fall dramatically.

Equally if the SpaceX shares continue to rise so will Musk's net worth.

Michael Race
Business and economics reporter

Elon Musk is now known across the world for much more than being a tech pioneer who owns SpaceX and the electric car company Tesla.

Musk, who today became the first ever trillionaire, has a strong following, but has become a controversial figure. He has been described as both a mad genius and an internet troll who divides public opinion.

Since he bought Twitter, now called X, he has increasingly aired his views on US politics, but also other countries, including the UK.

This is a shift for Musk, who for a long time resisted efforts to label his politics until he endorsed Donald Trump for a second term in 2024 and became one of the campaign's foremost backers and influencers before the two fell out.

The tech tycoon has entered into UK political debates, particularly around immigration, making claims that have been heavily criticised by UK government ministers.