Cathie Wood's Bold Space Play
ARK Invest Buys $444M SpaceX Stake, Trims AMD Position Ahead of Public Listing
Key Points
ARK Invest’s June 12 SpaceX purchases were broken down by specific ETFs: ARKK bought about 1.69 million shares, ARKQ 736,442 shares, ARKW 325,562 shares, and ARKX 538,341 shares (total ~$444.3 million).
One report says SpaceX has already begun trading publicly after pricing its IPO at $135 per share; shares reportedly rose as high as $176.52 and closed at $160.95, implying a market capitalization above $2.1 trillion—along with estimates that Elon Musk became the world’s first “trillionaire.”
SpaceX’s IPO filing is described as targeting a Nasdaq debut: the company filed a confidential draft S-1 (dated April 1 in one account) while preparing for what’s framed as a historic, heavily anticipated listing.
ARK’s pre-IPO accumulation of SpaceX is detailed as a multi-year build: the firm first entered when SpaceX was valued below $200 billion in late 2023, then increased its stake as SpaceX’s valuation rose to about $350 billion by 2024—plus additional exposure through SpaceX’s early-2026 merger with xAI.
SpaceX made history on June 12, 2026, pricing its IPO at $135 per share and raising $75 billion — the largest public offering ever Bloomberg. Shares opened at $150, peaked at $176.52, and closed at $160.95, giving the company a market cap of $2.12 trillion The Guardian.
Cathie Wood's ARK Invest moved fast. The firm bought 3.29 million SpaceX shares for $444.3 million on listing day, while trimming its stake in Advanced Micro Devices by 80,536 shares worth roughly $39.3 million Crypto News.
ARK Splits $444M SpaceX Buy Across Four ETFs
ARK spread its SpaceX bet across four funds. ARKK took the largest slice at 1.69 million shares. ARKQ added 736,442 shares, ARKX picked up 538,341, and ARKW bought 325,562 CoinCentral. Together, the purchases totaled roughly $444.3 million in a single trading session.
Wood called the IPO the "convergence of a lifetime," pointing to the combination of orbital launch, Starlink broadband, and xAI's computing power parameter.io. SpaceX had already been ARK's largest position in its Venture Fund, at about 11.38% of net assets as of May 31.
SpaceX's Road to the Biggest IPO Ever
SpaceX filed a confidential draft S-1 with the SEC on April 1, 2026, targeting a valuation near $1.75 trillion Forbes. Its public prospectus, filed May 20, revealed 2025 revenue of $18.7 billion — with Starlink making up 61% of that total — alongside a $41.3 billion accumulated deficit.
Morgan Stanley ran a one-week roadshow starting June 4. The order book was oversubscribed within 48 hours moneycheck.com. Retail orders alone topped $100 billion, and SpaceX allocated 30% of shares to retail buyers — three times the norm for a mega-cap IPO Bloomberg.
Musk Becomes World's First Trillionaire Overnight
At SpaceX's closing price of $160.95, Elon Musk's net worth hit an estimated $1.14 trillion, making him the first person in history to cross that threshold Forbes. Musk holds roughly 38% of SpaceX equity and controls about 85% of voting power through a super-voting share structure.
Speaking to employees at Starbase, Texas, Musk said: "It is certainly hard to believe that a little company that started in a warehouse... is now going public with the largest IPO ever" Los Angeles Times. Oxfam responded sharply, calling June 12 a "dark day for democracy" and noting Musk's wealth now exceeds the GDP of over 170 nations Oxfam.
Governance Alarms Shadow the Record-Breaking Debut
Not everyone cheered. Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent a 12-page letter to SEC Chair Paul Atkins on June 10, asking regulators to delay the IPO Forbes. She argued the structure gives Musk "unprecedented level of power" and leaves public shareholders with little recourse. The New York State Common Retirement Fund and CalPERS echoed those concerns.
The xAI merger, completed February 2, folded the Grok AI model and the Colossus supercomputer into SpaceX CBS News. ARK's research argues orbital data centers could deliver AI compute 25% cheaper than ground-based ones. But analysts warn that ARK's heavy concentration in a single illiquid name carries real risk — pre-IPO private stakes are far harder to sell than public shares.
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