By Edgen Research | 2026-05-28
Everyone is talking about SpaceX right now. The S-1 went public on May 20. Pricing is set for June 11, trading begins June 12 under ticker SPCX, and the deal targets $80 billion raised at a $1.75–2 trillion valuation — the largest IPO in history by a wide margin.
So the natural question coming up in every group chat, every brokerage app, every Reddit thread is: how do I buy SpaceX before it IPOs?
Fair question. There's also a wider one underneath it that's worth a minute of your time.
What most people are really after isn't a specific stock — it's being on the right side of what SpaceX is dragging up: reusable launch becoming the default, Starlink turning satellite connectivity into everyday infrastructure, space turning into the next platform layer for defense, telecom and industrial software. You can absolutely play that by buying SpaceX equity. You can also play it through stocks you can already buy today, sometimes with cleaner risk and without the IPO lottery.
There's more than one way to get on board. Three paths — only one of them is buying the rocket itself.
What SpaceX Is Really About
Underneath the IPO buzz, the SpaceX story is three things stacked.
Reusable launch is the default now, not an experiment. Falcon 9 has flown more than 400 times. The cost-per-kilogram curve has bent so far that other launchers either match it or get squeezed out of the market.
Starlink is becoming infrastructure, not just a product. The constellation is making money across consumer, enterprise, defense, maritime and direct-to-cell, and the unit economics keep improving as more satellites go up. Connectivity that used to require cables or cell towers is now arriving from orbit.
Space is the next platform. Defense agencies, telcos, agriculture, logistics, sensor networks — all of them run on satellite data and bandwidth, and the vendor list keeps widening.
Three ways to get on the right side of all of this.
Way 1: Buy SpaceX Directly
The most direct route is what most retail is already thinking about.
The cleanest version is submitting an Indication of Interest at one of the five brokerages SpaceX explicitly named in its S-1 as retail allocation channels: Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Robinhood, SoFi, and E-Trade by Morgan Stanley. If your IOI gets filled, you pay the same IPO price the big institutions pay. Allocation isn't guaranteed and demand will be heavy, but for retail this kind of access is genuinely rare at this deal size.
The second is the Tema Space Innovators ETF (NASA) at $38.76. SpaceX makes up about 10% of the fund, and the rest is a basket of publicly listed space names. No NAV premium, so what you see is what you pay — but think of it as a space basket with SpaceX as a kicker, not a SpaceX-pure bet.
The third is Destiny Tech100 (DXYZ) at $47.62, where SpaceX is the single largest position at 16.2%. The catch is the price tag: DXYZ trades at 1.94× its reported NAV. You're paying close to double for the underlying private holdings, and that kind of premium has a habit of compressing once the catalyst it was priced for actually arrives.
Way 2: Buy What SpaceX Validates
A SpaceX IPO at $2 trillion does more than price SpaceX. It tells the market the whole space economy is now a real institutional category — and that lifts a whole set of public companies that were already there, waiting.
Rocket Lab (RKLB) is the most credible second launcher. Electron handles small payloads today and Neutron is built for the heavier-lift market SpaceX dominates. Hyperscalers and governments who don't want to rely on a single launch vendor have been steering work to Rocket Lab — and that thesis only gets stronger after a SpaceX IPO.
AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) is the direct-to-cell satellite parallel that AT&T and Verizon backed precisely because they didn't want to rent capacity from a competitor's constellation. If Starlink direct-to-cell wins consumer attention, ASTS becomes the alternative path for telcos who'd rather not be Elon-dependent.
Iridium (IRDM) is the boring, profitable satcom. Mature, cash-generative, defended in government, maritime and IoT. If Starlink takes the premium consumer tier, Iridium just keeps quietly running the legacy backbone it has always run.
You don't need an IPO allocation to buy any of these. You don't pay a 2× NAV premium either. And when SpaceX prices a $2T IPO and re-rates the category, all three benefit — without you having to win an allocation lottery.
Way 3: Buy The Picks And Shovels
The third path is the one most retail spends the least time on, and it's often where institutional money actually places category bets. The pattern is familiar: when a category-defining company goes public at peak valuation, the suppliers and downstream users frequently do well too — sometimes better, on a risk-adjusted basis.
Defense primes with space exposure — L3Harris, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin's space segment. SpaceX validates the commercial space economy, but defense has been the institutional buyer pulling that economy along the whole time. Every contract for satellite ISR, secure comms or missile warning lands on one of these.
Starlink end users you can actually buy — T-Mobile is the consumer-facing name with the direct-to-cell Starlink partnership. Industrial users like maritime shippers, oil & gas operators with offshore connectivity needs, and agricultural data companies are real Starlink revenue lines showing up in their own margin lines.
Suppliers and ground infrastructure — the laser-comms, propulsion, ground-station and component vendors. Smaller and often less liquid, but they sell every time anyone launches.
These names won't trend on Reddit the way SPCX will on June 12. They also won't trade at 1.94× NAV.
What To Know If You Go Direct
If buying SpaceX directly is the path you want, just go in with eyes open.
At $1.75–2 trillion, SpaceX is being priced for things going right almost across the board: Starlink saturates multiple verticals, Starship hits cadence, direct-to-cell takes meaningful share. If one of those slips, the valuation comes back down quickly.
DXYZ at 1.94× NAV is the retail version of that same bet — you're paying close to double for the underlying private holdings on the assumption that the SpaceX IPO prices even higher than the current private mark. That can happen. It also might not.
Looking at past mega-IPOs, the direct buy at peak hype hasn't always been the best trade. Amazon's IPO buyers did well, and so did UPS, FedEx and the payment networks with a fraction of the volatility. Tesla's IPO buyers did beautifully, and so did Panasonic and the charging-infrastructure names. SpaceX may follow either pattern — worth knowing both exist.
The Money Person Take
If there's one thing worth shifting in how you think about this, it's the question. Less how do I buy SpaceX, more where on the SpaceX-validated value chain do I want to be standing on June 13.
If you want the headline name and you're willing to pay the IPO premium: submit IOIs at the five retail brokerages, or live with the DXYZ premium tax.
If you want validated exposure without paying that premium: own RKLB, ASTS and IRDM in whatever proportion fits your view of which thesis hardens fastest.
If you want the calmest risk/reward and don't mind the less-glamorous answer: own the defense primes and the Starlink end users. They benefit either way, and they don't need a perfect IPO to do well.
All three are real ways of investing in SpaceX. Only one of them needs you to actually buy SpaceX.
Edgen Research provides institutional-quality analysis to retail investors. This is not investment advice. SpaceX is a private company until June 12, 2026; pre-IPO valuations are estimates, not guarantees. Features and availability subject to change. Verify current ETF holdings via each issuer's fact sheet before purchasing.
