SpaceX shares begin trading today in what the Financial Times calls the most hyped market debut in history. Grey-market pricing and prediction markets offer conflicting signals, though past IPOs suggest such indicators rarely predict after-market performance. Nasdaq and five joint bookrunners face a critical stress test, haunted by the 2012 Facebook IPO meltdown when systems buckled and the stock plunged. Trading may not start until 1 p.m. New York time given the sheer volume of order matching required.

Retail investors could receive up to 30 percent of the offering — three to six times the typical allocation — reflecting Elon Musk's singular pull with individual shareholders. Institutions routinely inflate orders expecting scale-backs, while Intropic research calculates passive funds must absorb 30 percent of volume within two weeks. FTAV estimates a de facto captive bid of roughly $14.2 billion, or 19 percent of shares on offer, from index-tracking funds with no discretion to decline.

The valuation multiple defies precedent, with Morgan Stanley reportedly modeling projections to 2040. Governance structures have been stripped to the bone, and last-minute changes to Nasdaq 100 and FTSE Russell inclusion rules have raised sharp questions about benchmark integrity. Large deals rarely pop at the open; they require sustained follow-through buying to hold issue price.

After months of dissecting the deal's excesses, even skeptical observers find themselves swept into the spectacle. The crowd, it turns out, still gets its way.