SpaceX IPO Draws More Than $100 Billion in Retail Orders

Retail investors bidding for shares in SpaceX’s initial public offering have submitted more than $100 billion in orders, according to people familiar with the matter, as the potentially record-breaking debut enters the home stretch.

The company is expected to allocate at least 20% of the available shares to the cohort, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information isn’t public. At a $75 billion IPO size, which would be the largest on record, that allocation would leave the bulk of demand from individual investors unfulfilled, according to Bloomberg calculations.

The retail demand figure increased from more than $70 billion, which Bloomberg News reported · earlier Thursday, as the tally of orders continued to rise during the marketing period. The $100 billion-plus figure includes domestic and international retail demand, one of the people said.

Numerous large institutions including sovereign wealth funds have been allocated more than $1 billion each, the person said. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Kuwait Investment Authority have each placed sizable orders, and the Qatar Investment Authority is also likely to make a significant commitment, Bloomberg News has reported .

Leaving large numbers of Elon Musk’s fans with few shares in the IPO, or none, would likely amplify demand for the stock once it begins trading. Musk has attracted a strong following throughout his tenure leading Tesla Inc., with retail owning about 40% of the company’s shares, according to BNP Paribas analyst James Picariello’s estimates.

Read More: SpaceX IPO Whips Musk Fans Into Frenzy: ‘The More, the Better’ ·

“I’m a huge fan of small retail investors,” Musk posted in 2020 on X, known at the time as Twitter, saying at the time that SpaceX would likely do an IPO for Starlink. “Will make sure they get top priority. You can hold me to it,” he said.

The rocket, satellite and artificial intelligence company has received orders from about 1,000 institutional investors, some of the people said.

The terms of the offering such as the $135 per share price and the 555.6 million shares are unlikely to change, some of the people said. SpaceX would raise about $75 billion in a deal valuing the company at around $1.8 trillion, based on the outstanding shares in its filings.

SpaceX is set to allocate less than 10% of the shares in its IPO to international orders, some of the people said. Japan’s allocation was increased earlier this month to $2.5 billion from $2 billion.

Read More: Japan’s Retail Investors Flock to SpaceX After IPO Drought

Deliberations are ongoing and details of the offering including the amount allocated to retail investors could still change, the people said. A spokesperson for SpaceX didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Banks were expected to stop taking orders for SpaceX’s IPO from institutional investors Wednesday, ahead of pricing later Thursday and trading Friday.

The IPO is expected to rank as the biggest ever, topping Saudi Aramco’s $29.4 billion debut in 2019. It will set the stage for potential mega-listings from companies whose AI models compete with SpaceX’s. OpenAI filed confidentially for an IPO on Monday, following Anthropic PBC which filed last week. Together with SpaceX, the three companies could add $3.6 trillion of market value to US exchanges, according to Bloomberg calculations.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are leading SpaceX’s IPO, with 18 other banks participating. The company formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp. expects to make its debut on Nasdaq and Nasdaq Texas Friday under the symbol SPCX.