READ. SCROLL. LISTEN.

Original briefings. Zero spin.

Every story is an original briefing written from 60+ sources across the spectrum — sources linked so you can verify it yourself.

← Back to headlines

SpaceX Shares Are Up 37% Since IPO Priced at $135. Here Is Who Owns the Other Billion-Dollar Stakes.

SpaceX Shares Are Up 37% Since IPO Priced at $135. Here Is Who Owns the Other Billion-Dollar Stakes.
SpaceX's post-IPO market cap settled at $2.43 trillion as of Thursday's close, still up 37% from the $135 IPO price, according to CNBC. Elon Musk's personal stake crossed $1 trillion, but he is far from alone: early investors, company insiders, and longtime associates are sitting on billions.

Since SpaceX listed on public markets last week at $135 per share, the stock has seen a sharp run-up followed by a partial pullback, closing Thursday at a market cap of $2.43 trillion, according to CNBC. That is still 37% above the IPO price. Earlier in the week, SpaceX's market cap briefly surpassed Microsoft, then pulled back. Thursday's close left it below Amazon.

Musk's Stake Crosses

$1 Trillion Founder and CEO Elon Musk holds the largest single position. Based on CNBC's reporting using FactSet data, his stake is now valued at more than $1 trillion. That number represents the paper value of his equity at Thursday's closing price. It is NOT cash in hand. If Musk were to sell a position that size, market impact alone would compress the realized price substantially.

The Other Billionaires at the Table

Valor Equity Partners, led by longtime Musk associate Antonio Gracias, holds a stake worth approximately $96.6 billion, the bulk of which belongs to the firm's clients rather than Gracias personally. Gracias has served on SpaceX's board and previously sat on Tesla's board. He spent time last year working alongside Musk as part of the Trump Administration's DOGE initiative. He now sits on SpaceX's board and, according to CNBC, said he plans to hold his stake "as long as I can." Luke Nosek, a PayPal cofounder and SpaceX board member since 2008, holds a stake worth $6.3 billion, per CNBC. Nosek cofounded Founders Fund alongside Peter Thiel and also cofounded Gigafund, a vehicle specifically built to invest in SpaceX. He was previously a board member at DeepMind before Google's acquisition of that company. Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president and chief operating officer and one of Musk's earliest hires, also holds a stake that crossed the billion-dollar threshold, according to CNBC. Shotwell runs day-to-day operations and has been central to the company's commercial and government launch contracts. CNBC identified additional shareholders in the billion-dollar range using FactSet data, though the full list was not reproduced in the available source excerpt.

The Forbes Reversal Headline

A Forbes headline in the source material reads: "SpaceX Stock Plunge Wipes Out $600 Billion After Cursor Deal Spooks Investors." The CNBC reporting describes Thursday's close at $2.43 trillion, down from the mid-week peak but still up 37% from IPO. Whether the Forbes headline describes Thursday's intraday action, a subsequent session, or something else entirely cannot be confirmed from available sourcing.

The Case for the Bulls

SpaceX's optimists have a legitimate argument. The company holds contracts with NASA, the U.S. military, and a growing list of commercial clients. Its Starlink satellite internet business generates recurring revenue at scale. Musk's stated ambitions, Mars colonization, point-to-point Earth travel, continued Starlink expansion, give the company a growth narrative that few publicly traded firms can match. Early institutional and individual investors who got in at pre-IPO valuations are sitting on enormous gains, and the IPO itself, offered at $135, minted thousands of new millionaires among employees and early backers, per CNBC.

The Case for the Skeptics

The main concern is valuation discipline. At $2.43 trillion, SpaceX trades at a multiple that demands near-perfect execution for years into the future. Amazon, a company with diversified revenue across retail, cloud, and logistics, trades in the same zip code. SpaceX is still a rocket company with a satellite internet business attached. If Starlink growth slows, if a high-profile launch failure damages government contract relationships, or if competitors close the gap in reusable launch technology, the gap between the stock price and underlying fundamentals becomes very hard to justify. The Forbes headline, unverifiable as it is, hints at how fast sentiment can reverse.

What's Actually Unresolved

SpaceX's lock-up period for insiders, which typically runs 180 days after an IPO, has not been publicly detailed in the available sources. When that window opens, the positions held by Gracias, Nosek, Shotwell, and other insiders will face a test that a debut-week rally cannot answer.

Sources used for this briefing

This briefing was written by UBH's AI agent — these are the reporting inputs it draws on, linked so you can verify.

center
ForbesSpaceX Valuation Soars As Musk And Other Billionaires Double Down
center-left
CNBCMusk's SpaceX stake is worth over $1 trillion. Here are the other billionaire shareholders