Instant View: SpaceX files long awaited IPO, creating a fresh AI play

NEW YORK, May 20 (Reuters) –  Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite maker ​SpaceX filed on Wednesday for its widely awaited initial public offering, which stands to raise the most ever in an initial offering.

The firm said it has picked the Nasdaq as the ‌trading venue for its blockbuster market debut, confirming what people familiar with the matter told Reuters this month.

COMMENTS:

DAN IVES, HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH AT WEDBUSH SECURITIES, NEW YORK: 

“SpaceX officially filed its S-1 to go public via IPO under the ticker symbol SPCX representing the largest IPO in stock market history, as the company remains at the center of two of the largest growth opportunities over the coming decades. 

“We continue to believe that SpaceX and Tesla will eventually merge into one company in 2027 with the groundwork already in place for both operations to become one organization.

“Musk wants to own and control more of the AI ecosystem and step by step the holy grail could be combining SpaceX and Tesla in some way to give the connected tissue between both disruptive tech stalwarts looking to lead the AI revolution.” 

DENNIS DICK, PROPRIETARY TRADER, ​TRIPLE D TRADING, BARRIE, ONTARIO, CANADA:

“It’s a little scary to come in and say, ‘Yeah, let’s go invest in a $2 trillion company,” hoping that they’ll reach the stars. I’ll probably trade SpaceX but I don’t know that I’d be an investor.

“You have to think about what this means for Tesla. Once SpaceX is public, does some of the luster around Tesla start to fade? Now you’re going to have another way to play Elon Musk.”

CAROL SCHLEIF, CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST, BMO PRIVATE WEALTH, MINNEAPOLIS:

“Space in general is attractive to investors. They like optimistic themes and it’s another iteration of the importance and sustainability of not just the AI trend, but the technology transformation, because it’s robots, it’s space. It’s advanced manufacturing. Its advances in scientific discovery and drug discovery and medical equipment. It’s our ability to basically push knowledge work into a new era.

“The Artemis mission excited a lot of people. It was overshadowed, unfortunately, by so many events that were going on in the Middle East. But a lot of clients I talk to are super excited about the concept of Artemis 2 going back to the moon and doing preparatory work to manufacture stuff on the moon.”

(Reporting by Anirban Sen, Noel Randewich, Sinead Carew; editing by Colin Barr)