NEW YORK (AP) — SpaceX jumped 11% as the rocket maker’s stock opened for trading. That price gives the company a market value of $1.96 trillion and is enough to make CEO Elon Musk the first-ever trillionaire. Institutional and retail investors jumped at the opportunity to buy 555.6 million shares of SpaceX at the offering price of $135 apiece, making it the biggest IPO in history with proceeds of $75 billion. Musk says the company is going public because it needs money to fund its ambitions of putting satellites and data centers in space and eventually establishing a colony of people on Mars.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
NEW YORK (AP) — Elon Musk may never colonize Mars as promised, but enough investors consider the SpaceX founder to be a sort of miracle man that they’ll help him reach another fantastic goal Friday when he takes the rocket company public.
The world’s richest man is set to become its first trillionaire.
Musk on Friday marked the opening of trading on Nasdaq, where the company’s shares will be listed, by joining a ceremonial bell ringing from Starbase, the South Texas home of SpaceX.