ARK Invest Buys $500 Million Worth of SpaceX Shares in Largest IPO Ever

ARK Invest made a bold move by purchasing nearly 3.3 million shares of SpaceX (SPCX) during Elon Musk’s company’s record-breaking IPO on Friday. The investment firm, owned by Cathie Wood, built a stake worth over $500 million by the end of the day.

The shares were initially priced at $135 for the IPO but closed at $160.95, marking a significant 19.2% increase on their first day of trading.

Prior to the IPO, ARK Invest had liquidated approximately $280 million worth of stock in the week leading up to the listing. On the day of the IPO, the firm also sold around 948,000 shares across 13 other companies, totaling at least $48 million. Some of the companies included in these sales were Advanced Micro Devices, Roku, and Baidu.

The ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) was the primary buyer of SpaceX shares, ending the day with SpaceX accounting for 3.28% of its portfolio.

The impressive 20% first-day increase in the value of SpaceX shares, combined with the fact that this IPO was the largest in history, indicates that institutional investors are willing to pay a premium for high-beta innovation risk once again. The current hot trend in the market seems to be AI and space-related listings, with companies like OpenAI and Anthropic also filing to go public.