Ontario Teachers Made Billions on SpaceX Through Wild Stock Price Swings

Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan booked billions of dollars from its stake in Elon Musk’s SpaceX this year, even as that stake swung through a sharp decline, and a partial recovery, in the weeks since the pension fund’s mid-year mark.

The Canadian pension manager reported a 9.5% net return for the first half of 2026, driven largely by its venture growth portfolio, which includes an early bet on Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Teachers posted $26.6 billion in net investment income for the six months ended June 30, more than four times the $6.0 billion it earned over the same period in 2025.

A Seven-Year Head Start

The gain traces back to 2019, when the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (Teachers) invested about $300 million in SpaceX through its venture arm, at a time the company was valued near $33.3 billion.

SpaceX went public in June, pricing shares at US$135 and raising US$75 billion in what became the largest U.S. initial public offering (IPO) on record, valuing the company at roughly US$1.77 trillion.

That jump in valuation, from Teachers’ entry point to the IPO price, is the real source of the windfall, regardless of what the stock has done since.

By June 30, a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) showed Teachers’ stake worth close to US$8.7 billion.

The Number Is Already Out of Date

That US$8.7 billion figure is a snapshot, not a live price. SpaceX shares fell sharply in the weeks after the filing, and the pension fund’s stake lost close to 20% of its June 30 value within about six weeks, even as the fund’s headline return still reflects the higher mid-year mark.

Teachers’ venture growth portfolio overall grew from $15.3 billion to $25.9 billion in the first half, a 69% jump that pushed the strategy to 9% of total assets, up from 6% six months earlier.

The stock has since clawed back most of that decline. As of Monday trading, SpaceX shares are up 4% on the day and 23% over the past five days, trading around $138 and back above the company’s $135 IPO price after spending roughly a month below it.

Governance Doubts, Quiet Selling

CEO Jo Taylor acknowledged the fund is reassessing its exposure now that early lockup restrictions on selling SpaceX stock have started to expire. Teachers has already sold part of its position, though Taylor declined to say how much.

He also raised concerns about the company’s governance structure, which gives Musk near total control through special voting shares. The Globe and Mail reported Taylor’s comments directly.

“It would be false for us to say, either as an investor or from a member perspective, that we think the governance of SpaceX is perfect. It’s not, and we bear that in mind in all of the investments we make. Over time we’re going to have to look at that position and say, what is the right size for the portfolio? And part of that’s going to be looking at opportunities where we’re free to sell.”

Teachers’ venture book also includes stakes in artificial intelligence (AI) companies Anthropic and Databricks. The fund’s 10-year annualized return stands at 7.8%.

The math still favors Teachers by a wide margin. But the gap between the mark-to-market gain it is reporting and the stock’s current trajectory is a reminder that pension returns tied to a single, newly public stock can move fast in both directions.