Hi {{first_name}},

In 2019, I could have bought SpaceX. The option to buy came to me three different ways, from people who weren't even talking to each other. All around me, everyone was buying.

I passed.

The mission — making humanity multiplanetary — is one of the most expensive bets in human history. But Elon hated running public companies and said so for years, I couldn't see a path to positive earnings, and SpaceX was already the most expensive private company ever. Every disciplined bone in my body said the same thing: pass.

My $50,000 would be worth approximately $2.6 million today.

But I am not kicking myself. I stay down to earth with my valuations.

The decision was correct. The outcome was something else entirely and those are two different things, and conflating them is one of the most expensive mistakes an investor can make. 

People win the lottery. People also get struck by lightning. Neither one is a strategy. I made a reasoned call with what I knew at the time and the buyers took a swing that happened to connect. I respect it. It doesn't change how I'll weigh the next one.

You have to remember the IPO is a later chapter in a company’s story. Sure, it can feel like the opening line, but it’s so much further into the plot than we realize.  It’s when a private company is finally presented to the world. The real money was made by people who read the story years ago.

I've seen it from the other side, too.  When the Facebook IPO flopped in 2012, I watched the doom and gloom headlines but I saw a different story. I bought as much as I could at $19 a share. That position is worth around 32x today. Same approach, years apart. Let the dust settle, then buy.

SpaceX prices this week. The largest IPO in history. Everyone wants in. And that is exactly the right moment to ask the question nobody is asking: in an IPO, who actually wins?

This issue is about that question.

Let’s look at the numbers.

— Walker Deibel
WSJ & USA Today Bestselling Author of Buy Then Build
Founder, Build Wealth

The research on IPO performance is blunt about one thing. The more excited investors are about a new listing, the worse it tends to perform in the year that follows. A study tracking pre-IPO social media sentiment found that offerings with high investor enthusiasm delivered an average long-run industry-adjusted return of -8.22%. Offerings with lower enthusiasm averaged -0.14%. The hype definitely inflates the offer price. The offer price then struggles to hold on. The enthusiasm the company engineered on the way in becomes the headwind on the way out.

SpaceX is targeting a June 12 listing on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX, shares fixed at $135, valuation at $1.75 trillion. It’s the largest IPO in stock market history. Enthusiasm, as expected, is at an all-time high.

Fifty years of IPO research tells me to be wary.

How the Allocation Works

When a company goes public, shares get divided before a single retail order is filled. The standard split sends roughly 90% to institutions and 10% to individual investors. For the largest deals, that could be even higher for institutions. 

SpaceX is breaking the mold a bit by committing 30% of the float to retail. Triple the norm. Maybe to solidify it as the largest retail tranche in IPO history. Their CFO Bret Johnsen said explicitly that retail is going to be a bigger part of this than any other IPO. That can be a real important change in access.

Access and valuation though are separate issues.

Where an Investor Like You Enters

The investors who have already built their generational wealth on SpaceX entered at roughly $33.3 billion in 2019. The IPO buyer enters at $1.75 trillion. That is a 52x difference in entry valuation. An open door to purchase does not reprice it.

The long-run record makes the cost of forgetting that more obvious. According to an article in the Journal of Finance, covering nearly 5,000 US offerings, an investor would have needed to commit 44% more capital to IPO issuers than to comparable non-issuers to reach the same ending wealth over the following five years. Their conclusion was direct. Investing in firms issuing stock is hazardous to your wealth.

The pattern follows from when companies choose to go public. So before you buy, get clear on what it is.

A private company files when conditions favor the people already holding shares. Think high valuations, positive sentiment, a receptive market. 

Bankers shape the story to lift the offer price, and the roadshow manufactures exactly the kind of enthusiasm that research links to weak long-run returns. By the time the retail window opens, who profits and how much is already settled. The listing is evidence that someone upstream captured the opportunity first.

But IPOs Aren't All Traps. 

Amazon went public at $18 in 1997, and an investor who bought at the bell and held for two decades, even with the 90% plunge from its dot-com peak, earned one of the great returns in market history. The bell can work. It tends to reward patience over excitement though. 

Facebook priced at $38 in May 2012, then spent 16 months underwater, bottoming below $18 that September before it recovered and began its long climb. Day-one buyers waited years just to break even.

The base rate works against whoever pays the entry price, and the excitement around a listing on day one has been the most reliable signal of arriving late. The louder the hype, the later you probably are.

With real money riding on the answer, when a company goes public, should you buy? We put a report together to at least get started answering that. Check out the IPO data report.

Image: A SpaceX Falcon 9, NASA's Kennedy Space Center, October 2021. Credit: NASA

After twenty-four years staying private, SpaceX opened its books on May 20. The S-1 is the most anticipated filing in a generation, and it confirms that this is a genuinely great company, and $1.75 trillion is a really difficult place to buy it.

Both can be true points. The filing is where they meet. The funding stack is outlined below. 

The S-1 breaks the business into three segments which you can see detailed above. Each segment means something different for the price.

Starlink is the engine. It's the cash that pays for everything else, and the reason the valuation holds up at all. That's how Starlink grew revenue nearly 50% last year and still ran a 39% operating margin. Growth and profitability at the same time rarely happens. 

A profitable launch business directing $3 billion into the Starship development will show an operating loss. That’s a bet on the next vehicle which is reasonable given what SpaceX has already demonstrated in its ability to execute at scale.

AI is a pretty significant open question. The February 2026 xAI merger converted a profitable year into a $4.9 billion net loss. R&D more than doubled year over year. The S-1 seems to spend the most time on the segment carrying the least proof.

PitchBook's sum-of-the-parts analysis on the launch and satellite businesses landed between $1.1 trillion and $1.7 trillion. The IPO targets $1.75 trillion, past the top of that range. 

The entry point makes the math pretty intense. 

Sources: PitchBook deal table. For educational purposes only, not investment advice. 

That’s a major number. No company has ever done that. Musk's own Tesla pay plan tops out at an $8.5 trillion milestone, and even that sits well below the number the IPO buyer needs.

For an allocator who wants exposure to SpaceX, the more rational window may be looking much further ahead rather than buying at the bell. 

A standard 180-day lockup would lift around December 2026, releasing insider supply after the listing noise fades. By then the business can be evaluated on whether it actually grew into the price it was given on June 12.

The IPO is the day the people who bought at $33 billion convert their position into cash. Of course, the SpaceX story is still unfolding. 

Every IPO is a secret finish line that is meant to look like the starting line. The company opens up, enthusiasm and anticipation run high. The race begins and the public is invited to join in. At the same time that everything is getting hyped up, the people who earned the return are heading for the door.

The IPO is where private-market returns get cashed out. The earning happened years earlier. For an accredited investor, it’s useful to ask what you can do about that. There’s three moves you can take before an offering happens. 

1 - Get Upstream.

Private-market access runs on a hierarchy. The earlier you sit on it, the better the entry economics.

Note: Chart is for educational purposes only and not investment advice. Build Wealth investments are available to accredited investors only.

THE CORE DISTINCTION

Access and valuation are two separate conversations. SpaceX is offering 30% retail allocation - triple the historical norm. Getting shares at the offer price still means buying at $1.75T. The open door does not change what is written on the price tag.

The investor from the 2019 round and the buyer from the December 2025 secondary both owned SpaceX before June 12. Very different bets. You can map the hierarchy before the next big name arrives, because the next great IPO company is already somewhere on it.

2 - Wait for the Compression Window.

For public exposure to a company with a large IPO valuation, like SpaceX, the lockup expiration is the entry. 

Roughly 180 days after a listing, insider lockups expire and sellable supply jumps. For SpaceX, that's around December 2026. It provides time to let the hype settle down, and restricted employees and early investors can finally sell. Waiting a few months following the IPO allows the company to have either grown into its valuation or you’ll see it hasn’t. That's the easier question than the one asked on listing day with wall-to-wall media coverage.

One filter sharpens the entry point:

3 -  Build the Access Now.

Move two requires patience and a disciplined entry rule. The first move requires access, and access can't be bought on demand, it has to be provided.

Building it takes time:

The people who'll sell the public the next great company have already started working. 

That window is open right now, and it usually closes before anyone has made an announcement about it.

For something more immediate, consider opening an account on one secondary platform and pull up what's trading. You don't have to buy. The point is to see where the upstream market exists and start reading it before the next name arrives. 

“An IPO is like a negotiated transaction – the seller chooses when to come public – and it’s unlikely to be a time that’s favorable to you.” - Warren Buffet.

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This is not financial advice. Illustrative output of a reasoned thought experiment. Not a backtest, guarantee, or prospectus. Actual results vary based on market conditions, fund selection, timing, fees, taxes, and factors not modeled. Private credit, CRE, and leveraged strategies involve significant risk including loss of principal. Consult a qualified financial advisor.