Most companies going public let Wall Street haggle over the price.
SpaceX skipped the haggling. It told investors the price is $135, take it or leave it.
In a normal IPO, a company gives a price range first. Then it moves the range up or down based on how excited buyers are.
Look at Cerebras, an AI chipmaker that went public last month. It set a range, raised it as buyers piled in, then priced even higher.
The stock jumped 68% on its first day. SpaceX is skipping that whole dance.
It named one number, $135 a share, before its short pitch even wrapped up. That values the rocket maker near $1.77 trillion.
That price would put it among the most valuable companies in the world on day one. All told, SpaceX wants to raise about $75 billion, which would rank among the biggest IPOs ever.
The math is the strange part. SpaceX made $18.7 billion last year, but it lost $4.2 billion running its business.
For scale, the smallest trillion-dollar company by sales pulls in about $58 billion a year. IPO advisor Lise Buyer said plainly that no math makes the price make sense.
SpaceX will also stay under Elon Musk's control. He already runs Tesla, another trillion-dollar company.
Demand has looked strong so far. The roadshow was short, but the orders came in fast.
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The bigger surprise is who gets to buy in. SpaceX wants everyday investors to receive about 30% of the shares it sells.
That works out to around $22.5 billion. For small investors, that is a huge slice.
Retail rarely gets this much of a hot deal. Fidelity says regular investors usually get just 5% to 10%, with the rest going to big funds.
Shares will be offered through brokers like Schwab, Fidelity, Robinhood, SoFi, and E-Trade. Buyers can place orders right in those apps if they get a slice.
Getting a slice is the hard part. The most popular IPOs sell out fast.
Because the price is locked, SpaceX can sort out who gets shares earlier than usual. It plans to stop taking orders on Wednesday, a day early, then map out who gets what before trading starts Friday.
Handing retail a big slice can cut both ways. Robinhood tried something similar when it went public in 2021.
It hoped to sell up to a third of its IPO to small investors, but landed near the low end. The stock then fell 8% on its first day.
SpaceX looks far more wanted than Robinhood was back then. Still, a strong first day is never a sure thing.
SpaceX has set the price and saved a seat for small investors. Friday shows whether they take it.
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