Early SpaceX Backers Reap Huge Paper Gains From Massive IPO

SpaceX’s huge public offering has not only drawn intense new demand, it has also created enormous paper gains for early shareholders who backed the company years ago. Among the biggest winners are Cathie Wood’s investment firm, Fidelity Investments, and venture funds including Founders Fund, Sequoia Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz, all of which accumulated stakes before SpaceX became one of the world’s most valuable companies.

Wood has said she invested because she saw SpaceX as more than a rocket-launch company. In an interview with CNBC, she said the company is building integrated AI infrastructure for a future space economy through Starship, Starlink, and the acquisition of xAI.

Fidelity also benefited from timing. It started buying SpaceX shares in 2015, when the company was valued at about $10 billion. Pension funds and other long-term investors also stand to gain from the surge in valuation.

Those include the Ontario pension fund, which invested more than $200 million in 2019, and Washington University in St. Louis, which bought $50 million in shares nearly a decade ago. With the IPO completed at a $1.8 trillion valuation, the value of these holdings rose sharply.