SpaceX to list on US stock market today after raising $75bn in largest IPO ever – business live | Business
Key events
Giant inflatable Elon Musk warned of Grok dangers
The SpaceX IPO also led to an unusual protest yesterday in New York.
A 40-foot high giant inflatable of Elon Musk, smiling and shirtless, appeared at Times Square. It was created by the Safe AI Now (SAIN) coalition, to warn of the dangers of SpaceX’s AI assistant Grok.
SAIN say:
The enormous inflatable of Musk is meant to draw attention to a serious issue: SpaceX’s Grok has been widely used to generate illicit images of real people – including children. In fact, a NYT report found that of the 4.4 million images Grok pushed out in a recent nine-day period, an estimated 65% were sexualized or explicit. There are entire online communities, with hundreds of thousands of visitors each week, dedicated to sharing Grok-generated pornography and tips for explicit content generation.
While this inflatable is a fitting metaphor – much like Musk and his companies, it is inflated, full of hot air, and could pop at any minute – it serves as a warning to investors eager to buy into Musk’s SpaceX IPO on Friday morning. Because the reality is, shareholders’ investment in SpaceX means financially supporting a company that has been involved in child exploitation, revenge porn, and worse.
In March, three teenage girls in Tennessee, two of whom are minors, filed a lawsuit against xAI alleging that its Grok image generator used photos of them to produce and distribute child sexual abuse material.
Last week, UK MP Jess Asato took legal action against Elon Musk’s xAI company after saying its Grok tool helped a user produce fake sexualised pictures of her.
Analyst: Space X float is huge
Today may go down in history as the day Elon Musk could become the world’s first trillionaire, and the day SpaceX blasted off into the public markets, says Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote:
The company already made history yesterday by selling 555.6 million shares priced at $135 each, raising the $75 billion that it was looking for and giving the company nearly the $1.8 trillion valuation that it was targeting. It equals the combined value of the 29 biggest IPOs in US history since 2000 – adjusted for inflation – including Meta, Google, Hilton, Airbnb, DoorDash, Uber, Snowflake and GM.
Yes, it’s huge. So today, everyone will be watching SpaceX leave the launchpad. In yesterday’s note, I discussed in detail what to expect from this IPO today, and in the coming weeks and months, for those who are interested in what the future could hold for the company and for the rest of the market.
Introduction: SpaceX raises $75bn in world’s biggest IPO
Good morning. Elon Musk’s SpaceX will touch down on the US stock market today after successfully conducting a record-breaking initial public offering, but will its shares head towards the moon?
Shares in the rockets-to-satellites-to-AI company will begin trading in Wall Street today, after SpaceX raised $75bn through its IPO.
The listing will put SpaceX among the largest public companies, and could see Musk declared the world’s first trillionaire later today.
Last night, SpaceX announced it had has raised $75bn in a record-breaking initial public offering, which values the company at $1.77bn. It successfully sold 555,555,555 shares of its Class A common stock, at $135.00 per share.
Banks underwriting the deal have also been given an “over-allotment option” to buy an extra 83.3m shares, which would pump up the size of the IPO to about $86bn.
SpaceX attracted orders for more than three times the amount on offer, the Financial Times reports – with strong demand from institutions and also retail investors. That could help propel SpaceX’s shares up today, as those who missed out in the IPO (or didn’t get as many shares as they wanted) try to get on board.
This strong demand came despite concerns that the company was overvalued – being sold at 92 times last year’s revenues (a hefty valuation).
Investment research group Morningstar claimed earlier this week that SpaceX was worth only $63 a share – less than half the IPO price of $135 – and warned there is “a major disconnect between market expectations and underlying fundamentals”.
Michael Field, the chief equity strategist at Morningstar, suggests investors should sit out the IPO and wait for “a more attractive entry point down the line”.
All eyes will be on the US markets today to see how SpaceX’s shares perform….
The agenda
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7am BST: UK GDP report for April
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2.30pm BST: US stock market trading begins
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3pm BST: University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey
