The dot-com era minted millionaires by the thousands. The current AI boom is taking a different approach: fewer companies, fewer people, significantly more zeros.
SpaceX completed its IPO in mid-June 2026, raising $75 billion and landing a valuation of approximately $1.77 trillion. That makes it the largest company ever to go public. For context, that valuation exceeds the GDP of most countries and dwarfs every previous IPO in history by a comfortable margin.
OpenAI and Anthropic are both preparing their own public offerings later this year, with expected valuations of around $852 billion and up to $965 billion respectively. The combined capital raised from all three could exceed $200 billion, a figure that approaches the $265 billion raised across the entire 1995-2000 dot-com boom. Except this time, it’s three companies instead of hundreds.
The SpaceX mega-listing
SpaceX’s path to the public markets came after its merger with xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence venture. The combined entity now spans rocket launches, satellite internet through Starlink, and AI infrastructure.
