Investors rush into Elon Musk-SpaceX’s $25 billion bond sale despite richer-than-normal yields

SpaceX ($SPCX) is selling $25 billion of bonds to big-money investors, and retail buyers are still lining up even though the company is paying more than other borrowers with similar credit scores. Initially, the sale was planned for $20 billion, however, there was such a high demand that bankers raised the sale by $5 billion more. By about noon on Tuesday, the order had reached nearly $90 billion.

SpaceX raised $86 billion on June 11 in the biggest IPO ever, then its shares started acting like a crypto chart on no sleep.

SPCX share price rallied high for its first four trading days, after which it started to fall since investors were looking beyond the hype and were focusing on the numbers. This past week, Moody’s ($MCO) awarded SpaceX an investment-grade Baa1 rating, however, this does not stop bond investors from demanding a higher return.

Investors demand extra yield as SpaceX borrows across five to 30 years

Bonds are expected to yield an extra 1.1% to 1.75% compared to US Treasuries, depending on the tenure of the bonds. The deal spans maturities ranging from five years to 30 years. Yield expectations in initial negotiations stood at 1.4% to 2%, but this was reduced by the very strong demand received.

That lower pricing still does not make SpaceX cheap to fund. Data from Ice Data Services, owned by Intercontinental Exchange ($ICE), showed that similar investment-grade corporate bonds were trading around 0.93 percentage points above Treasuries.

Double-B junk-rated borrowers were around 1.56 percentage points. So yes, SpaceX has an investment-grade stamp, but the market is still charging it like a company with a lot to prove.

The buyers had their preference too. While the five-year bonds attracted demand worth $24 billion, the thirty-year bonds managed to attract only around $15.5 billion. In simple terms, investors want access to SpaceX; however, there is no rush among them to commit to a contract that will last for thirty years.

The company’s pitch to bond investors leaned on its best-known businesses. The roadshow included videos of rocket launches, space missions, and Starlink users connecting to the internet from remote places.

Bret Johnsen, the chief financial officer of SpaceX, told investors before the sale that the company wants to keep its strong investment-grade rating. Bret also said debt should stay below three times EBITDA, meaning earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.

Bank of America ($BAC), Citigroup ($C), Goldman Sachs ($GS), JPMorgan Chase ($JPM), and Morgan Stanley ($MS) are the active bookrunners on the deal.

Retail traders buy SpaceX at record speed while losses keep growing

The bond sale is only one side of the SpaceX money rush. Retail traders bought $405 million of SpaceX ($SPCX) during its first five trading sessions, based on data from Vanda Research. That was the largest first-week retail purchase ever recorded for an IPO.

The second-biggest first-week retail buy was Rivian ($RIVN) in November 2021, at $185 million. That was less than half of the SpaceX total.

Retail buying in SpaceX also topped the combined $158 million that went into the Magnificent Seven stocks over the same period. That group includes Apple ($AAPL), Microsoft ($MSFT), Alphabet ($GOOGL), Amazon ($AMZN), Nvidia ($NVDA), Meta Platforms ($META), and Tesla ($TSLA).

The appetite was bigger than ETF demand too. Retail traders bought more SpaceX than the combined purchases of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust ($SPY) and Invesco QQQ Trust ($QQQ), which reached $352 million last week.

Now comes the less shiny part. SpaceX lost $4.9 billion in 2025 and posted a $4.28 billion operating loss in the first quarter of 2026. The company is still spending hard on AI infrastructure, satellites, launch systems, data centers, chips, and computing power.

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