SpaceX made its public debut on the Nasdaq Friday, opening at $135 per share before closing at $160.95—a 19 percent jump that valued the rocket company at nearly $1.8 trillion. Founder Elon Musk's stake surpassed $700 billion, theoretically making him the world's first trillionaire.

Thousands of current and former employees became overnight millionaires through the company's stock options plan, rewarding two decades of work building reusable rockets and the Starlink constellation. The IPO instantly ranks SpaceX among the planet's most valuable corporations, though analysts debate whether this represents genuine opportunity or inflated expectations.

SpaceX's S-1 filing reveals the company now positions itself primarily as an AI business, with space operations comprising less than 7 percent of its total addressable market. Management sees the bulk of future value coming from AI services delivered from orbit for enterprise customers rather than traditional space missions.

This pivot toward AI services fundamentally changes how investors will judge SpaceX's performance. Musk retains voting control but faces pressure to deliver returns on the AI promise, potentially redirecting resources away from Mars colonization toward orbital data center infrastructure that could serve machine learning workloads.