In the two trading days following SpaceX’s IPO, retail investors poured nearly as much money into a single stock as they had into every other US equity combined over the prior week.
SpaceX went public on June 12, 2026, raising approximately $75 billion and claiming the title of the largest IPO in US history. Shares were priced at $135 and opened at $150, a gap that tells you everything about the demand imbalance before a single retail order even settled.
The numbers behind the frenzy
Between 20% and 30% of the total shares were allocated to individual buyers through platforms like Robinhood and Fidelity. That’s an unusually generous slice for an offering of this magnitude.
Retail investors responded by submitting over $70 billion worth of orders. To put that in perspective, the entire IPO raised roughly $75 billion. Individual investors essentially tried to buy the whole thing.
