SpaceX has gone public, according to Axios, entering what analysts call the trillion-dollar IPO era. But the company took an unusual approach: only about 5% of shares are available for trading, far less than the typical 10-20% float in standard IPOs. The reason is practical—a full offering of a two-trillion-dollar company could destabilize the entire market. The ripples will spread. Retail investors showed extraordinary enthusiasm, with SpaceX recording the largest single day of retail buying in IPO history at nearly 118 million dollars in net purchases. Forty actively managed ETFs already hold the stock. When SpaceX joins the Nasdaq 100 index around July 6th, passive index funds will be forced to add it, creating another wave of demand. Here's the tension: with such a small float, today's valuations are largely theoretical. Market history shows IPO hype peaks on day one and often fades within a year. But if SpaceX's smooth debut opens doors for other mega-IPOs—Anthropic and OpenAI prominent among them—the stock market could look fundamentally different by year's end.

Listen to this story

Hear this and more stories in a personalized audio briefing.

Open The Chonkerton