SpaceX Hits $3 Trillion Market Cap in After-Hours Trading, Options Launch Today, and a $60 Billion Cursor Acquisition Lands Mid-Rally

Since SpaceX's June 12 IPO at $135 per share, the stock has not stopped moving. As of Tuesday morning pre-market, SPCX was indicated around $208, roughly 54% above its offering price, according to CNBC's live markets coverage. That's before today's regular session has even opened.

The After-Hours Push Past $3 Trillion

Monday evening, the rally accelerated sharply. ZeroHedge reported that SpaceX hit approximately $230 in after-hours trading, implying a market capitalization near $3 trillion and briefly pushing it above Microsoft's valuation. The move was concentrated in after-hours, where thin liquidity amplified the price action.

Vanda Track, cited by ZeroHedge, noted that SpaceX topped the leaderboard as the most-bought stock by retail investors for a second consecutive day, with net retail buying potentially clearing $100 million for the second session in a row. Vanda's data showed that Monday's $93.8 million in net retail buying of SPCX accounted for roughly 73% of all retail net buying across single stocks that day.

Vanda's own conclusion was measured: "SpaceX has not sparked a retail buying frenzy across the market. Instead, retail investors continue to direct capital into this one name, while maintaining a relatively cautious stance elsewhere." Leveraged bearish ETFs like SQQQ and SOXS were also among the most-bought securities, which tells you retail is not uniformly bullish. They're concentrated on one trade.

Options Start Today

SpaceX options are set to begin trading today, June 16. ZeroHedge flagged this directly, noting that the combination of a small public float and the first day of options availability creates conditions for a potential gamma squeeze, where market makers buying underlying shares to hedge options positions can amplify upward price moves mechanically. Whether that happens depends on strike prices, volume, and how dealers are positioned.

The stock is already up more than 50% in under a week. Adding options to that setup is a legitimate wildcard.

SpaceX Acquires Cursor for $60 Billion

In the middle of this rally, SpaceX announced it will acquire AI coding startup Cursor by purchasing its parent company, Anysphere, for $60 billion. CNBC reported the deal Tuesday morning. Cursor is a widely-used AI code editor that has gained significant traction among software developers. No closing timeline was given in the available sources.

The acquisition raises an immediate question about strategic fit. SpaceX is a rocket company. Gwynne Shotwell, who runs day-to-day operations, spent her career on launch vehicles, NASA contracts, and satellite networks. A $60 billion bet on AI developer tooling is a meaningful pivot into territory Musk is pursuing separately through xAI. Whether this is a synergistic play — using Cursor's tooling to accelerate SpaceX's own engineering — or a Musk-driven acquisition that blurs corporate lines is not answered in the current disclosures.

Who Actually Built This Company

CNBC ran a detailed profile Monday on Gwynne Shotwell, 62, SpaceX's president and COO. She was hired by Musk in 2002 as one of his earliest employees, originally as VP of business development, and was promoted to president in 2008. She holds approximately $2 billion in SpaceX shares based on Friday's closing price.

Nathan Silvernail, a SpaceX engineer from 2014 to 2021, told CNBC: "While Elon's setting the vision, she's the one making sure it gets delivered. She handles the operational execution that actually keeps the business running and brings in the funding." Shotwell rang the Nasdaq bell on IPO day.

Shotwell herself described the working arrangement plainly in a CNBC interview on June 12: "When Elon asked me to be president we made very clear what is my job jar and what is his job jar."

Investors are pricing a company where the operational engine is someone other than the headline personality. If Musk's time and attention are split across Tesla, xAI, DOGE, and whatever comes next, Shotwell is the continuity.

The Case for Caution

The strongest concern from skeptics is straightforward: a company that priced at $135, implied a roughly $2 trillion valuation at the open, and is now touching $3 trillion in after-hours trading inside five trading days is moving faster than any fundamental analysis can justify. Revenue, margins, and the path to Mars colonization profitability have not changed in a week. What changed is float, retail momentum, and now options availability.

Analysts who raised valuation concerns after the IPO — covered in prior Unbiased Headlines reporting from June 15 — have not reversed those views. The Cursor acquisition at $60 billion adds another layer: that price assumes AI coding tools will generate enormous future value, and SpaceX is paying for that assumption before the broader market has priced it.

Those concerns are not proven wrong. Momentum and fundamentals can diverge for a long time, or they can converge quickly. Neither outcome is guaranteed.

The Broader Market Context

Monday's Dow close was a record, up 468.77 points, or 0.92%, according to CNBC. The S&P 500 gained more than 1% and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 3.1%. The catalyst was President Trump's announcement of a U.S.-Iran deal, with a formal signing ceremony scheduled for this Friday in Switzerland. VP JD Vance told CNBC's Squawk Box that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen "in a toll-free way for the long term," sending oil prices down nearly 5% Monday.

As of Tuesday morning, S&P 500 futures were up 0.1% and Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.3%, per CNBC's pre-market data.

The open question sitting over all of this: when SpaceX options market makers begin hedging positions today, does the gamma dynamic add fuel to a stock already running on fumes of retail momentum, or does the ability to buy puts finally give skeptics a tool to express the other side of the trade?