SpaceX IPO Fuels Tesla Merger Thesis on Wall Street

SpaceX priced a $75 billion initial public offering at $135 per share, valuing the company at $1.75 trillion. The offering was all-primary and began trading on Nasdaq under the SPCX ticker on June 12. Elon Musk is subject to a 366-day lock-up on his shares after the listing.

Institutional demand outpaced supply as banks prepared to close order books, with some managers placing bids of $10 billion or more and reported aggregate demand approaching $150 billion. Crypto markets listed pre-IPO perpetual futures for SPCX, and an ETF issuer planned a 2x daily leveraged SpaceX ETF to start on listing day.

Wolfe Research analyst Emmanuel Rosner set out three reasons investors are treating a merger with Tesla as a core thesis in a June 9 note. A public SpaceX would give Musk liquid stock he could use as transaction currency. An all-stock deal could raise Musk’s voting control in a combined company above 50 percent. A merged firm could link Tesla’s driving data with SpaceX’s growing computing infrastructure and a larger capital base.

Rosner noted that SpaceX absorbed Musk’s xAI earlier this year and wrote that the prospect of a SpaceX-Tesla merger has moved into mainstream investor discussions. He said some institutional investors now cite the potential combination as their primary reason to own Tesla shares.

SpaceX’s S-1 filing disclosed a corporate holding of 18,712 bitcoin purchased in 2021 for about $661 million and valued at $1.29 billion as of March 31. That holding exceeds Tesla’s roughly 11,509 bitcoin and would add direct cryptocurrency exposure to a combined balance sheet.

Wolfe Research flagged obstacles that could delay or block a deal. Tesla would likely need to pay a substantial premium, minority SpaceX shareholders could object, and regulatory reviews tied to Tesla’s operations in China could complicate approvals. Wolfe assessed a deal as unlikely to complete before mid-2027 at the earliest.

SpaceX reported $18.67 billion in revenue for 2025 and a net loss of $4.94 billion. Independent fair-value estimates vary; one firm placed fair value near $780 billion and some analysts say the public float could be worth roughly half the IPO valuation.

Rosner wrote that anticipation of a merger may provide near-term support for Tesla’s share price, and he noted that longer-term performance depends on Tesla meeting milestones for its robotaxi program and Optimus development. Early SPCX trading and investor demand will test whether markets assign a merger premium or treat the idea mainly as narrative.