Friday’s debut share surge for SpaceX is bolstering the fortunes of one of Saudi Arabia’s richest men.
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s investment firm Kingdom Holding Co. surged at Sunday’s open after SpaceX’s share gains on its first day of trading drove the value of the Saudi firm’s holding to almost $7 billion, or roughly half its market capitalization.
Kingdom Holding said it holds 42.4 million shares in SpaceX, valued at $6.8 billion based on the company’s closing price. Kingdom shares rose as much as 5%, valuing the company at 56 billion riyals ($14.9 billion).
SpaceX, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies, began trading on Friday after raising $75 billion in the largest listing of all time. Its stock closed up 19% at $160.95, netting tens of billions of dollars in returns for a small number of firms.
Founders Fund, a venture firm led by Musk’s longtime associate Peter Thiel, owns a roughly 3% stake, while Andreessen Horowitz will get the biggest return in its history, Bloomberg News has reported. Sequoia Capital, which first backed SpaceX at the end of 2019, owns about 1.5% of the company.
