Australian investors are lining up to jump aboard one of the world’s hottest initial public offerings, the launch of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The spaceflight and artificial intelligence company will go public on the US Nasdaq exchange on Friday after raising up to $US75 billion ($A106 billion).
It will have a mammoth $US1.75 trillion ($A2.5 trillion) valuation, making it among the 10 most valuable companies in the world.
CommSec, the lead Australian broker on the float, said on Tuesday it was “experiencing extremely high call volumes” and advised customers to submit an application for the share offer online ahead of the 5pm Wednesday deadline.
CommSec also cautioned hopeful Australian buyers to beware of fake “SpaceX IPO” emails that are phishing scams purporting to be from the broker.
In an unusual move, Australian retail investors have been granted access to the US IPO along with residents of Canada, the eurozone, Japan, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
“Despite Australia having one of the deepest and most sophisticated retail investment markets in the world, historically, access to high-profile IPOs has been reserved for institutional or wholesale investors,” said Leighton Roberts, co-founder of New Zealand-based share-trading platform Sharesies.
Sharesies is making the IPO available to the 150,000 Australian investors on its platform.
“We strongly believe that Australians should have the opportunity to participate in wealth creation moments and are glad we can make this offer available with no minimums,” Mr Roberts said.
There’s no minimum or maximum investment, but there’s an allocation process to determine how many shares each investor will get, he added.
The shares are being marketed at $US135 ($A191) apiece.
SpaceX’s Australian prospectus is full of beautiful photos of satellites and rocket launches as well as grandiose goals.
“Our mission is to build the systems and technologies necessary to make life multiplanetary, to understand the true nature of the universe and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars,” it says.
How SpaceX’s shares will perform after they go public on Friday has been hotly debated.
Morningstar equity analyst Nicolas Owens and equity director Suryansh Sharma expect SpaceX shares to “likely survive separation and even ascent toward orbit, at least for a time”.
The small, initial float is expected to be boosted by almost every investment bank on the planet, buoyant investor appetite for AI infrastructure and an unprecedented path to inclusion in the Nasdaq 100 index after just 15 days of trading, they wrote in a research note.
But in the months to come, more shares would unlock and selling pressure could weigh on the market, so long-term investors eager to participate in SpaceX’s potential success could be better off waiting to buy, Mr Owens and Mr Sharma said.
According to its prospectus, SpaceX generated $US18.7 billion in revenue in 2025, but posted a net loss of $US5 billion and has $US29.1 billion in debt.
Its offer will easily be the world’s biggest, smashing the record $US29.4 billion ($41.7 billion) raised by Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, Saudi Aramco, in 2019.
But that record could potentially be broken again later in 2026, when red-hot AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic go public.