🚀 SpaceX’s $50 Billion IPO Could Rewrite Wall Street’s Calendar — And Crowd Out Everyone Else

In what could become the largest initial public offering in history, SpaceX is preparing to storm public markets — and while the blockbuster listing promises windfalls for early investors and banks, it’s sending a ripple of anxiety through companies waiting in line to go public.

At the center of it all is billionaire founder Elon Musk, whose rocket and satellite giant is reportedly exploring a U.S. IPO that could raise as much as $50 billion, a scale so massive that market insiders say it may temporarily reshape how capital flows across Wall Street.

Mega-listings have always drawn attention — but SpaceX’s potential debut is different. Its sheer size threatens to dominate investor focus, potentially crowding out mid-sized offerings that rely on the same institutional capital.

Executives across private equity and advisory firms are already gaming out how to avoid launching deals too close to the SpaceX window, widely expected as early as June.

Magnus Törnling, global head of equity capital markets at EQT AB, warned that smaller IPO candidates risk being overlooked entirely if they collide with a tech deal of this magnitude.

SpaceX’s offering may also act as a launchpad — literally and financially — for public debuts by artificial intelligence heavyweights Anthropic and OpenAI, two of the world’s most valuable private firms, both of which have taken steps toward potential IPOs this year.

Together, these companies represent a new generation of tech titans whose private valuations already rival most of corporate America.

In fact, SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI are each larger — on paper — than roughly 95% of companies in the S&P 500, underscoring how unusual their public arrivals would be.

The timing is delicate. After a prolonged drought following the pandemic-era fundraising boom, the IPO market has only recently begun to recover.

Global listings raised about $170 billion in 2025, the strongest showing in three years — yet still far below the record $492 billion surge of 2021.

For companies aging out of venture capital funding or private equity ownership cycles, that fragile rebound had offered a long-awaited exit window. Now, advisers say, scheduling a listing has suddenly become more complicated.

Per Chilstrom, a partner at Baker McKenzie, said there is an “ongoing debate” about whether mega-IPOs will siphon away capital that would otherwise flow into smaller deals.

Large institutional investors — pension funds, mutual funds, and asset managers — may be effectively forced to participate in these mega-deals to avoid underperforming benchmarks.

Dan Klausner of Houlihan Lokey described the looming pressure on portfolio managers:

To make room, funds may need to sell existing winners, creating knock-on effects across public markets as capital rotates into the new giants.

Unlike smaller IPOs, a SpaceX listing could demand allocations measured in billions — cash many funds don’t keep idle.

That means trimming positions elsewhere, potentially adding volatility to unrelated equities as managers rebalance.

Still, bankers insist liquidity can be found when conviction is strong.

Matt Warren, co-head of Americas ECM at Bank of America, noted that when transformative opportunities arise, funds “make room for what they want to buy.”

Not everyone sees disruption as a negative.

If SpaceX and subsequent tech listings perform well, they could restore enthusiasm for equities broadly — drawing fresh capital into IPOs that follow.

Stephane Gruffat of Deutsche Bank said successful large-cap offerings often create a “halo effect,” encouraging participation across deals that might otherwise attract limited attention.

Private equity firms are already reshuffling their schedules.

EQT is preparing potential U.S. listings for waste-management company Reworld and school bus operator First Student, while also exploring strategic options — including a possible IPO — for cyber insurer CFC.

Their strategy: launch before the giants arrive, not after.

Wall Street has seen blockbuster IPOs before. But the coming wave — led by SpaceX and potentially followed by AI pioneers — represents something different:

companies so large, they bend the market’s gravitational pull around them.

If SpaceX’s debut succeeds, it could mark the start of an IPO supercycle dominated not by dozens of mid-sized entrants, but by a handful of colossal listings redefining public-market scale.

And for every company hoping to go public in 2026, the question is no longer just if the window is open.

It’s whether there’s still room on the launchpad.