SpaceX shares jumped on Tuesday, putting the firm on track to overtake both Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. to become the fourth largest publicly traded company in the world just days after its blockbuster debut.
Shares rose as much as 17 per cent, extending gains since SpaceX's record initial public offering. That pushed the market value of Elon Musk's rocket and AI company to nearly US$3 trillion, roughly US$300 billion higher than Amazon's and about US$20 billion more than Microsoft's.
The gains are a sign of consistent investor demand for the stock, calming fears that the record IPO would be too large for the market to digest. The performance paves the way for potential public offerings this year from artificial intelligence competitors Anthropic PBC and OpenAI, both expected to be in the US$1 trillion valuation range.
SpaceX announced Tuesday that it has formally agreed to take over Cursor in a deal that values the AI coding startup at US$60 billion. Cursor investors will have the right to receive SpaceX stock based on the implied equity value of Cursor, according to a company filing.
“We are seeing signals that investors remain willing to fund high-growth capital intensive businesses that trade at elevated valuations,” said Angelo Kourkafas, senior global investment strategist at Edward Jones. “So it is in a way, a pro-risk or risk-on signal that we're not seeing any signs of fatigue about growth-oriented names.”
Retail traders have been a key driver of the rally, buying as much SpaceX stock over its first two days of trading as they purchased across the entire United States stock market last week, according to data from Vanda Research.
“There is only one stock retail care about right now… SpaceX,” Vanda wrote in a note. “Retail investors continue to direct capital into this one name, while maintaining a relatively cautious stance elsewhere.”
To be sure, at least some of the price action has been driven by the relatively small number of SpaceX shares available to trade, with only about 4.2 per cent accessible on day one. Market watchers anticipate shares will face increased downside pressure once insiders are able to sell more stock as so-called lock-up agreements begin to expire later this year.
Options contracts on SpaceX will begin trading Tuesday on exchanges including Cboe Global Markets Inc. and Nasdaq Inc., an event that could stoke even more volatility in the stock. Other options exchanges, including those owned by Intercontinental Exchange Inc.'s NYSE and Miami International Holdings Inc., are also expected to list early next week.
