NEW YORK: Shares in Elon Musk’s SpaceX jumped 11 per cent to $150 on their first day of trading on Friday after the biggest initial public offering in history, making the polarising entrepreneur the world’s first trillionaire as he vowed to take humanity to Mars.

The blockbuster operation, which raised more than $75 billion, is expected to kick off a series of major IPOs by AI companies in the coming months.

The debut on the Nasdaq exchange in New York capped weeks of investor frenzy over the rocket company turned AI and satellite conglomerate.

“SpaceX wants to be able to take you to the moon, take you to Mars, and ultimately beyond,” Musk said at a launch event in Starbase, Texas, surrounded by staff.

“I’m confident at this point that with the incredible team that we have here at SpaceX, that we will do that for you,” Musk added. About 100 people assembled outside the Nasdaq exchange’s home in New York, where SpaceX also marked the occasion with a neon sign in Times Square reading “Building the infrastructure to the future”.

Musk “sets very futuristic goals that no one else is doing, and I think that has got a lot of people excited,” said Sarin Sio, of financial company Dovetail, who had come to the Nasdaq headquarters.

The company priced more than 555 million shares at $135 each in a filing with the US markets regulator on Thursday, valuing SpaceX at just under $1.8 trillion.

Friday’s gain lifted its market value to around $2tr, placing it among the 10 most valuable US companies — ahead of Tesla, Facebook-owner Meta and Walmart.

Options for nearly 83m additional shares could push the total raised above $86bn.

Published in Dawn, June 13th, 2026