SpaceX Raises $75 B in Record IPO, Valuation Tops $2 T

Gigantic debuts have come before—South Sea Company mania in 1720, the Dutch East India Company’s 1602 flotation, Alibaba’s $25 B raise in 2014—but none matched a $2 T valuation on day one. Like those episodes, today’s frenzy sits at the intersection of new technology hype and abundant capital, reflecting a decade-long trend of private “unicorns” delaying IPOs until they can demand sky-high multiples. The speculative premium (≈93× trailing sales) echoes 1999’s dot-com exuberance, hinting that markets are again willing to overlook earnings in exchange for a narrative of boundless growth—in this case space infrastructure and AI. Whether Musk’s trillion-dollar milestone endures or fades, the event signals a tectonic shift: capital markets now treat space and off-planet computing as core economic arenas, much as oil and railroads re-shaped finance in the 19th century. Over a 100-year horizon, this listing may be remembered less for minting an ultra-rich individual than for normalising trillion-dollar bets on extraterrestrial industry—and for testing how modern governance structures handle near-monarchic control of such strategic assets.