SpaceX Hits Nasdaq at $1.96 Trillion Valuation

The road to this public offering began in March 2002, when Musk founded the company using proceeds from the sale of PayPal. Early struggles defined the first decade, including the failure of the maiden Falcon 1 flight in 2006. Resilience eventually yielded results: by 2008, SpaceX became the first private entity to successfully reach orbit with liquid-fuel propulsion and secured its inaugural NASA cargo contract.

Decades of high-stakes testing followed, ranging from the historic 2015 vertical landing of the Falcon 9 to the development of the ambitious, albeit volatile, Starship program. The company’s scope expanded drastically in 2019 with the launch of Starlink, creating a commercial backbone for its operations. This diversification reached a peak in February 2026, when SpaceX acquired Musk’s xAI startup in a $250 billion deal. This merger effectively merged the rocket-and-satellite manufacturer with the developer of the Grok chatbot, signaling a pivot toward integrated orbital AI.

Despite the IPO’s record-setting scale, the path remains complex. NASA officials noted in March 2026 that the Starship program has faced at least two years of development delays regarding its role as a moon lander. Nevertheless, market appetite proved insatiable. With a share price set at $135 and a new multi-year cloud services agreement with Alphabet’s Google, SpaceX now commands one of the largest market valuations in global history.