SpaceX Will Have Its IPO Tomorrow: 12 Things Retail Investors Should Know

The SpaceX initial public offering (IPO) is nearly here, and there couldn't be more hype. The company has captivated the market as a pioneer of the space economy. It is expected to start trading under the ticker SPCX on the Nasdaq Composite on June 12.

The company's founder and CEO, Elon Musk, also has a cultlike following from the companies he has founded and his status as the richest person in the world, with the potential to become the world's first trillionaire.

SpaceX is expected to be the largest IPO ever. The company will likely raise at least $75 billion at a valuation of $1.78 trillion. It's a huge day for the market and retail investors, who will get to play an outsize role in the IPO. Here are 12 things they should know.

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1. SpaceX has three businesses

Investors should understand SpaceX's three businesses, which have similarities but are also very different.

The first business is the space launch unit, in which SpaceX builds rockets that can transport astronauts into space. The company's special sauce is its ability to reuse rockets, which enables it to launch at a much lower cost than ever before. As of March 31 of this year, it had completed 650 orbital launches.

SpaceX's second unit is connectivity: its Starlink low-Earth-orbit satellite internet business, which provides high-speed internet worldwide, even in areas with limited access to traditional internet infrastructure. The company has achieved this by launching over 10,000 satellites into orbit, aiming to eventually reach over 40,000. Starlink now has over 10 million subscribers.

The third unit is its artificial intelligence (AI) division, which it acquired when the company bought another company Musk owned, xAI, in a deal valued at $250 billion. xAI comprises the social media platform X, Grok intelligence, and several data centers. The unit also plans to develop a huge factory for its Terafab chip manufacturing in partnership with Tesla and Intel.

2. Starlink is the most profitable

Of the three units, Starlink is the most profitable thus far. The unit generated a $4.4 billion operating profit in 2025 and nearly $7.2 billion in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA). In the first month of 2026, it generated a $1.2 billion operating profit and nearly $2.1 billion of adjusted EBITDA.

The financial strength makes sense given that Starlink has a subscription model that generates monthly recurring revenue. The company did see monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) decline from $86 in the first quarter of 2025 to $66 in the first quarter of 2026 as it rolled out lower-priced plans internationally.

3. AI has the most potential with a $26.5 trillion total addressable market

While Starlink has performed the best so far, the AI unit has performed the worst. In 2025, it generated an operating loss of roughly $6.4 billion and an adjusted EBITDA loss of $1.2 billion. The unit also had over $20 billion of capital expenditures in 2025 and the first quarter of 2026.

However, Musk has ambitions to put data centers into space, and if the Terafab facility comes to fruition, it would be one step closer to sovereign AI, in which the company has complete control over the AI stack from the intelligence to the chips to the data centers.

SpaceX, in its registration statement, said it believes the company has a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion, which is within shouting distance of the total U.S. gross domestic product. Of that number, $26.5 trillion is attributed to the AI unit, largely due to enterprise applications, which seem to broadly encompass AI solutions for consumers, businesses, and governments.

4. Goldman has reportedly said AI could multiply revenue by a factor of 100 by 2030

AI has so much potential that investment bankers at Goldman Sachs, one of the lead underwriters on the IPO, supposedly told prospective investors during SpaceX's road show that the AI unit is projected to grow revenue 100-fold by 2030.

Citing anonymous sources, the Financial Times reported that Goldman expects the AI unit to grow revenue from $3.2 billion in 2025 to $322 billion by 2030. Collectively, Goldman projects that SpaceX's revenue would grow from $18.7 billion in 2025 to $474 billion in 2030.

If that were true, investors would be buying SpaceX at slightly under four times 2030 revenue, which sounds a lot better than 96 times 2025 revenue.

5. SpaceX has begun to flex its muscles in its AI division

While Goldman's projection sounds outlandish, SpaceX has begun to show just how quickly it can ramp up revenue. In its prospectus, management unveiled a deal with Anthropic in which it will rent computing capacity in its data centers to Anthropic for $1.25 billion per month over the next three years.

More recently, SpaceX announced a deal with Alphabet's Google to lease computing capacity for $920 million per month. Combined with the Anthropic deal, that's already $2.2 billion per month, or over $26 billion per year.

Keep in mind that the deals aren't binding. Google can cancel the agreement with 90 days' notice starting in 2027, but this shows the potential power of the AI unit.

SpaceX has over 1 gigawatt of computing capacity, so it would likely need to build new data centers to keep scaling up. It's also unclear if its capacity will be this constrained forever, but Musk and the company have broad ambitions to launch data centers into space.

6. Musk will have unprecedented control

Prospective investors would be wise to make sure they like Musk at the helm of the company, because he'll be virtually impossible to remove as CEO. Largely through Class B super-voting shares, Musk controls over 85% of the company's combined voting power. After the IPO, he'll still control 82%.

7. The IPO is reportedly oversubscribed by twofold

Citing anonymous sources, Reuters recently reported that SpaceX's road show has been a success, with the IPO running two times oversubscribed, meaning there is $150 billion of investor demand.

In addition to its $75 billion raise, the underwriters have the option to purchase another $11.7 billion in shares. While it sounds great, being over two times subscribed on a popular IPO is not actually uncommon or that impressive.

However, considering it raised more than double that of Saudi Arabian Oil's IPO, the largest one until SpaceX, it certainly seems impressive, given the amount of capital being raised.

8. SpaceX is setting aside 30% of the IPO for retail investors

In another unprecedented move, SpaceX is allocating as much as 30% of the IPO to retail investors, who have previously been big fans of Musk and Tesla. Normally, companies will only allocate 5% to 10% to retail.

Investors will be able to request shares on five major brokerages, according to Barron's, including Robinhood, SoFi, Charles Schwab, Fidelity, and Morgan Stanley's E*TRADE.

The ability for so many retail investors to get shares is exciting, but it could also make the stock more volatile, so they should be prepared for that.

9. The stock will be in most major market indexes within weeks of trading

Due to SpaceX's size, most market indexes have implemented new fast-track entry rules and waived profitability requirements to allow the company to join quickly.

Jacob Friedman, an investment manager at Focused Wealth Management, said the stock could be in nearly every major U.S. equity index within about three weeks of trading, according to MarketWatch. That means that every index fund and exchange-traded fund tracking these indexes must buy the stock.

It also means these funds are going to absorb a considerable amount of the shares sold in the IPO early, which could support the stock and take it high in the early weeks of trading.

10. It will have to wait to join the S&P 500

The broader benchmark S&P 500 index considered adopting new rules to fast-track SpaceX's entry, but ultimately chose not to pass them, meaning it will not be able to join the index until one year after it begins trading. The company will also have to be profitable.

11. Experts expect SpaceX to suck up liquidity from the market

While there seems to be strong demand for the IPO, at least given its size, all the flows into SpaceX may come from outflows from other names. With so much potentially going into retail portfolios, it's possible this cohort sells other stocks to make room for the IPO. This could put pressure on the market.

"Selling flows in recent winners and levered products from retail to invest in SpaceX could be very large," Greg Boutle, head of U.S. equity derivative strategy at BNP Paribas, said in a recent research note, according to Fortune.

Boutle projects that retail and passive investors could unload $50 billion of other stocks to raise capital for SpaceX.

12. Insiders and company employees have a staggered lockup period

Lockup provisions prevent company insiders with a large stake in the company -- as well as employees with shares -- from selling their shares immediately after a company goes public. The standard lockup policy is about 180 days.

However, SpaceX has a staggered lockup policy. On the day of trading after SpaceX reports its earnings results for the quarter ended June 30, those subject to the lockup period will be able to sell 20% of their shares. Another 10% can be sold if the stock is up at least 30% from the IPO price.

After that, insiders and employees will be able to sell an additional 7% of their shares on the 70th, 90th, 105th, 120th, and 135th days after the IPO. All shares will be eligible for sale 180 days after the IPO. The lockup does not apply to Musk, who must wait one year to sell any of his stock.

Charles Schwab is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Bram Berkowitz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Goldman Sachs Group, Intel, and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends Charles Schwab and recommends the following options: short June 2026 $97.50 calls on Charles Schwab. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.