Late last month, a crowd gathered in South Padre Island, Texas, to watch the nearby launch of a new SpaceX rocket.
Thousands showed up, far more than the hundreds drawn to previous SpaceX launches. On livestreams of the event, people were heard asking one another if they were investing in the company’s blockbuster initial public offering, which is set to take place this month.
“Major shout-out to Elon,” the rapper Nicki Minaj said on one livestream, referring to SpaceX’s chief executive, Elon Musk. Ms. Minaj, who wore a black “Starship” T-shirt, bearing the name of SpaceX’s biggest rocket, said that it was her first time attending a launch and that she was “very excited.”
As SpaceX prepares for one of the largest I.P.O.s ever, few are as thrilled as the community of people who lovingly call themselves space nerds.
On Reddit forums dedicated to rocket science and astronomy, enthusiasts have posted about how the offering could help space exploration. On podcasts that dissect images of deep space, hosts have fielded questions about investing in the stock market. And on X, Mr. Musk’s social media platform, livestreams featuring SpaceX rockets have discussed how high the company’s stock price could go on the first day of trading.
The I.P.O. is expected to create generational wealth. On Wednesday, SpaceX set a $135 share price for the deal that would give the company a value of $1.77 trillion. As the first “mega offering” this year, before the expected I.P.O.s of the artificial intelligence companies OpenAI and Anthropic, SpaceX’s stock market debut has generated excitement from Wall Street to Silicon Valley.
But for space buffs, the event is about much more than money. People who spent their summers at NASA camp and their evenings at observatories to glimpse the stars said the chance to invest in a company that built rockets and satellites was a moment to advance global efforts for space discovery.
“This I.P.O. is brilliant because it democratizes access to space for individuals around the world like me, not just in America,” said Royden D’Souza, 49, an independent journalist and podcast host in Doha, Qatar, who has focused on the cosmos for nearly three decades. “Space is the ultimate dream, right? And the new space economy is the future of the global economy.”
Mr. D’Souza said he had seen global interest in the I.P.O. surge and had devoted several episodes of his podcast, “Over the Horizon,” to how to invest in the company. People around the world are afraid they cannot get in on the offering, he said.
“It’s a feeding frenzy right now,” Mr. D’Souza added.
He said that he had taught his 13-year-old daughter, who has invested in Mr. Musk’s electric carmaker, Tesla, about SpaceX’s offering, and that “she’s pretty much clued in on the entire I.P.O. and the buzz around it.”
Space enthusiasts are a generally optimistic bunch. Nurtured on science fiction and captivated by the mysteries of the cosmos, many have celebrated every new development in engine design and rocket fuel for bringing humans closer to exploring deep space.
Mr. Musk, 54, who founded SpaceX in 2002, has long been a hero to the community. The mogul has popularized private spaceflight, set a goal of reaching Mars and created the dominant satellite internet service Starlink. Space fans often hang on Mr. Musk’s every word. Last week, when Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded, enthusiasts chose to highlight a social media post by Mr. Musk in which he wrote: “Most unfortunate. Rockets are hard.”
SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.
The I.P.O. has lifted other space companies, too. RocketLabs, an aerospace manufacturer, and Intuitive Machines, a firm dedicated to moon exploration, have seen their stocks rise as the offering nears.
“A successful I.P.O. is good for the entire ecosystem,” said Jack Kuhr, the research director of Payload, a space industry publication.
Mr. Kuhr added that the excitement was palpable even for people who were not fans of SpaceX or Mr. Musk. “It will encourage investors to invest in space, invest in companies that explore space and draw eyeballs to the industry,” he said.
Will Bruey, a co-founder of Varda, a company that aims to manufacture pharmaceuticals in space, uses SpaceX’s rockets to get its capsules of chemical compounds into orbit. The company’s headquarters in El Segundo, Calif., are staffed with many SpaceX alumni, including Mr. Bruey, who worked at Mr. Musk’s firm until 2018.
“When I was at SpaceX, we were the underdogs,” Mr. Bruey said. “This I.P.O. is just a huge legitimizer of commercial space endeavors.”
He grew up dreaming of going to space and thought it was “fundamentally more awesome to explore space than not,” he added. “I am in it for the awesome.”
Others are in it just to support Mr. Musk. On a podcast hosted by Aviation Weekly, which covers the aerospace, defense and aviation industries, the editor Michael Bruno noted that while Mr. Musk was not always successful in his business ventures, when things went right for him they went “really, really right.”
“What people are going to be buying, in the end, is Elon Musk,” Mr. Bruno said.
That sentiment was echoed on X, where some of Mr. Musk’s fans recently reposted a quote that was first attributed to his fellow billionaire Peter Thiel: “Never bet against Elon.”
Sheera Frenkel is a reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area, covering the ways technology affects everyday lives with a focus on social media companies, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Telegram and WhatsApp.
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