SpaceX Just Had the Biggest IPO in History. Two More Giants Could Be Right Behind It.

For years, Elon Musk insisted SpaceX would stay private until it was “flying regularly to Mars.” Then, on June 12, 2026, that changed. SpaceX rang the opening bell on the Nasdaq, and by the time the dust settled, it wasn’t just a big IPO — it was the biggest one ever recorded.

But SpaceX isn’t the whole story of 2026. Two of the most closely watched companies in tech — OpenAI and Anthropic — have also filed confidential paperwork to go public, and Wall Street is treating this year as the start of a once-in-a-generation wave of mega-IPOs. Here’s what happened, and what’s coming next.

SpaceX: The Largest IPO in History

SpaceX priced its shares at $135, raising $75 billion and valuing the company at roughly $1.77 trillion — instantly making it the largest initial public offering ever completed, eclipsing Saudi Aramco’s $29 billion raise and Alibaba’s $25 billion debut by a wide margin.

The stock didn’t just hold that valuation — it took off. Shares opened around $150, climbed toward $161.75 shortly after debut, and by the close of trading, the company was valued at more than $2 trillion. That surge reportedly made Musk the world’s first trillionaire, and pushed SpaceX past Tesla, Saudi Aramco, and Broadcom to become one of the most valuable companies on Earth.

A few things made this IPO especially unusual:

Retail investors got a real seat at the table. SpaceX aimed to allocate roughly 30% of shares to individual investors — triple to six times the 5-10% that’s typical for a big offering — with shares available through Schwab, Fidelity, Robinhood, SoFi, and E*Trade.
Demand was enormous. Retail investors alone placed orders for more than $100 billion in shares ahead of the debut, and the overall offering was reportedly oversubscribed by roughly four times.
The business is bigger than rockets now. SpaceX completed its acquisition of Musk’s AI venture xAI in February 2026, meaning the IPO wasn’t just a bet on Falcon rockets and Starship — it was a bet on Starlink’s satellite internet business (which generated $11.4 billion in 2025, up about 50% from the year before) and a fast-growing AI division.
It’s not all upside. SpaceX posted a nearly $5 billion net loss in 2025, and not every analyst is a believer — CFRA opened coverage with a “sell” rating, arguing the valuation doesn’t match the company’s spending and risk.

Whatever your read on the fundamentals, the symbolic impact was immediate. As one economist put it, a well-received mega-IPO like this tends to encourage other large private companies to “ride the wave of investor enthusiasm by going public” — and that’s exactly what seems to be happening.

The Other Two Giants Circling an IPO: OpenAI and Anthropic

SpaceX may have grabbed the headlines, but it’s not the only trillion-dollar story unfolding in 2026. Two of the most valuable private AI companies in the world have both taken formal steps toward going public within weeks of SpaceX’s own filing.

Anthropic

Anthropic filed for an IPO on June 1, 2026, shortly after closing a funding round that valued the company at $965 billion. The Claude maker has built a business model that leans heavily on enterprise adoption — its Claude Code and Cowork products have attracted more than 300,000 corporate customers, including Microsoft, IBM, Deloitte, and Salesforce. By April 2026, the company’s annual revenue run rate had reportedly surpassed $30 billion, a dramatic jump from roughly $9 billion in revenue for all of 2025.

Unlike some of its peers, Anthropic has signaled it isn’t in a rush. The company is structured as a public benefit corporation, and CEO Dario Amodei has been vocal about wanting to move carefully rather than race to market — telling reporters ahead of SpaceX’s debut that the responsibility for getting it right rests with Anthropic itself. No IPO date or ticker has been set; some analysts speculate a listing could come as early as this fall.

OpenAI

OpenAI confidentially filed for its own IPO on June 8, 2026 — just one week after Anthropic and about three weeks after SpaceX’s S-1. The ChatGPT maker was valued at roughly $852 billion in its most recent private round, and bankers are reportedly discussing a public valuation approaching $1 trillion.

The scale of OpenAI’s user base is hard to overstate: ChatGPT crossed 1 billion monthly active users in May 2026, a milestone it reached faster than Google Maps, TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube. That said, the company is still burning significant cash — analysts expect OpenAI’s net loss to reach roughly $14 billion by the end of 2026, with profitability not projected until around 2029. OpenAI itself has been coy about timing, noting there are things it wants to do that are “easier as a private company,” but that filing gives it the option to go public sooner if that ends up making sense.

Why This Matters

Three companies collectively worth trillions of dollars, all moving toward public markets within the same few months, is not normal. According to Renaissance Capital, IPO activity was already surging well before any of this — $34.2 billion raised through the end of May 2026, up over 160% year-over-year — and Goldman Sachs has forecast that total IPO proceeds could roughly quadruple to $160 billion this year.

SpaceX’s debut is widely seen as the bellwether for that broader wave. If Anthropic and OpenAI follow through, 2026 won’t just be remembered as the year of the biggest IPO ever — it could be remembered as the year the market’s most valuable private companies, across rockets, satellites, and AI, all decided it was finally time to go public.

This article reflects publicly reported information as of early July 2026. IPO timing, valuations, and pricing for Anthropic and OpenAI remain unconfirmed and subject to change.