Debuting with a "seamless" finish, SpaceX has set an example for companies like OpenAI!
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The largest IPO in history has landed, and AI unicorns are eyeing this report card, each calculating their own listing script.
On June 12, SpaceX completed its public listing on Nasdaq. On this day, Wall Street witnessed the largest IPO ever: the opening price was $150, intraday high reached $176, and the closing market value was fixed at $2.1 trillion.
Beyond the numbers, what's more noteworthy is how this IPO was "accomplished"—because in San Francisco, OpenAI and Anthropic are still waiting in line to go public.
Why was this IPO “so smooth”?
SpaceX’s IPO process was almost trouble-free.
The key behind this lies in timing. According to the latest Axios report, SpaceX and its lead underwriter Goldman Sachs started reaching out to potential investors as early as January this year—almost half a year before the official IPO.
An informed source revealed: "Given the breadth and complexity of the company's business, starting investor education at a very early stage is crucial. Also, the company is announcing major events almost every week—such as acquiring xAI and Cursor, or establishing compute partnerships with Anthropic and Google—so communication is ongoing."
This "pre-heating" led to two direct outcomes:
First, in the week of the IPO, SpaceX did not meet any new investors for the first time, making the roadshow extremely smooth; Second, early valuation feedback allowed SpaceX to confidently set a fixed price of $135 per share, "take it or leave it," instead of the traditional bidding auction model.
CNBC host Jim Cramer specifically commented on Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley’s performance: "The stock opened at a reasonable price relative to the IPO price—neither high enough to trigger arbitrage dumping, nor low enough to cause panic. This is remarkable."
OpenAI and Anthropic: Hopeful but Anxious
SpaceX’s success is good news for OpenAI and Anthropic, but it also harbors a subtle risk.
The good news: The market is willing to pay for 'money-burning but promising' companies.
The New York Times pointed out that SpaceX's strong first-day performance shows that profitability is once again yielding to growth potential and industry status. This is a positive signal for heavily loss-making OpenAI and Anthropic.
OpenAI’s revenue last year was about $13 billion, but it plans to spend about $100 billion over the next four years; Anthropic is also in a long-term loss, though it is expected to achieve adjusted operating profit in the June quarter, but may still lose money for the whole year.
The bad news: Capital is limited.
When multiple large-scale companies of the same type go public in succession, the market appetite might reach its limit. The report explicitly raises this concern: investor enthusiasm for a second or third large IPO may not match that for the first.
Even worse: if SpaceX's shares fall sharply after listing, investors may become hesitant to bet on OpenAI or Anthropic.
If all three companies complete their listings, the combined valuation will exceed $3.6 trillion, taking the top three spots for the largest IPOs in history.
OpenAI Faces Greater Pressure Than Anthropic
In this IPO race, OpenAI is in a relatively passive position.
Anthropic filed its application a week earlier than OpenAI, and its latest private valuation reached $965 billion, surpassing OpenAI's $852 billion for the first time. According to the Wall Street Journal, OpenAI executives have privately expressed concerns about Anthropic going public first, and OpenAI has recently been overtaken by Anthropic in the enterprise client market, with some internal revenue targets unmet.
OpenAI’s fundraising scale is huge: it has completed the largest single fundraising in Silicon Valley from Amazon, Nvidia, SoftBank, etc., with total financing exceeding $180 billion. But according to its disclosures to investors, its cash burn rate will surpass that of any listed company in history.
To clarify “where the money is going” to the market, CEO Sam Altman posted a blog on the day the application was submitted, positioning the company as being in the "third stage":
"The economy is being reshaped around AI. The key question is how to make advanced AI abundant, affordable, safe, useful, and easy enough for everyone and every organization to benefit."
Meanwhile, OpenAI is narrowing its focus internally—shutting down peripheral projects like the short-video app Sora and concentrating resources on enterprise business and programming assistant Codex, which directly competes with Anthropic's Claude Code.
Altman wrote on X this April: “It feels like Codex is having a ChatGPT moment.”
SpaceX’s IPO Script Will Be Directly Replicated
Axios reported that SpaceX’s “educate investors half a year early + set fixed price” model is highly likely to be directly copied by Anthropic and OpenAI.
The reason is simple: the process was just too smooth.
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley jointly served as the lead underwriters for SpaceX’s IPO, and these two banks are very likely to lead OpenAI and Anthropic's IPOs as well.
According to Axios, OpenAI is collaborating with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to push ahead with the listing, possibly as early as this fall.
It is not only AI companies following suit. Korean memory chip giant SK Hynix has also chosen Nasdaq, planning to complete its U.S. listing as soon as August this year, with a fundraising scale of up to $14 billion.
According to Reuters, Meritz Securities analyst Kim Sunwoo explained the logic behind this:
"Passive investment funds now account for a higher share of global investment flows than active funds, and a large portion is concentrated in Nasdaq-listed stocks, making Nasdaq especially attractive for tech companies looking to expand their investor base."
SK Hynix's stock price has risen about 220% this year, and its market value surpassed $1 trillion in May this year.
Where Has Market Logic Returned?
Cramer pointed out current market sentiment directly on CNBC:
"This is a long-term bet on space exploration."
He said, people buying SpaceX are not buying how much it earns now:
"I think they have considered the risks and realize there could be long-term losses with no end in sight."
His conclusion: If the stock price drops, it should be seen as a buying opportunity—“the upside is almost unimaginable.”
This logic is the same as buying Amazon a decade ago. Amazon posted losses for six consecutive years after going public and kept reinvesting most profits into new businesses for years afterward, ultimately becoming one of the world's most valuable companies.
Now, the same question faces OpenAI and Anthropic: are investors willing to wait one more time?
SpaceX’s first-day numbers have given a temporary answer.
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