SpaceX begins trading on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX at a valuation topping $2 trillion after shares jump about 20%; company says IPO proceeds will fund Starship development and new AI infrastructureCalcalist|Updated:Elon Musk effectively became the world’s first trillionaire Friday after SpaceX began trading on Wall Street in one of the largest and most closely watched public offerings in market history.The space giant started trading on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX, with shares rising about 20% in early trading to around $160. The jump pushed SpaceX’s market valuation above $2 trillion and lifted the value of Musk’s holdings enough to make him, on paper, the first person in the world to reach trillionaire status.1 View gallery Elon Musk (Photo: TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP)The debut marked a historic day on Wall Street for Musk, who joined the opening of trading from the company’s offices. SpaceX, long one of the world’s most valuable private companies, entered the public market after years of speculation over whether Musk would ever take the company public.The capital raised in the offering is expected to help fund the development of rockets for Starship, SpaceX’s next-generation spacecraft, which remains in the test-flight stage and is not yet operating as a fully reusable system.The company is also expected to use the proceeds to finance AI products and infrastructure, including a planned chip manufacturing plant in Texas that SpaceX intends to build together with Tesla and Intel.SpaceX Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell told CNBC she had not been certain the company would ultimately go public.“Today, the building blocks of a publicly traded company are firmly in place across the company’s various businesses,” she said.Shotwell added that the company’s focus would remain on long-term ambitions rather than short-term market expectations.“I don’t want to focus on quarterly results,” she said. “We are not going to act against our investors, but the people who invested in us need to know that what we are doing is very futuristic.”The IPO gives public investors direct exposure to Musk’s space empire, which includes SpaceX’s rocket business and its satellite internet network, Starlink. It also places new scrutiny on the company’s enormous valuation, its ambitious capital needs and Musk’s ability to deliver on some of the most expensive technological projects ever attempted by a private company.For Musk, however, the immediate result was clear: SpaceX’s Wall Street launch did not only make market history. It pushed his fortune into a category no individual had previously reached.First published: 19:14, 06.12.26