Here's how SpaceX is pitching its IPO to everyday investors

By William Gavin

SpaceX has the ability to 'achieve what others think is really the impossible,' CFO Bret Johnsen declared in a video message to shareholders

Many retail investors are drawn to the record of Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla (and the owner of X, the former Twitter).

SpaceX on Thursday revealed its latest push to get retail investors involved in its upcoming public debut.

The soon-to-be public company has published a new website to help individual investors understand SpaceX and how to potentially get access to the stock. This comes just a day after SpaceX said it expects to offer its stock at a $135 initial-public-offering price and confirmed its plans to raise around $75 billion at a $1.75 trillion valuation.

"Elon started SpaceX with the goal to change mankind and make us a multiplanetary species," SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen said in a 17-minute video hosted on the website, referring to CEO Elon Musk. "What's been very exciting is we have been able to expand that mission with our Starlink constellation as well as with our AI solutions."

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SpaceX also posted a copy of its roadshow slide deck, which executives can be expected to use over the coming days to persuade investors to participate in its IPO. The company intends to announce the final pricing on Thursday, June 11, with shares (SPCX) beginning to trade the following day on the Nasdaq.

SpaceX's presentation, in which Johnsen highlights SpaceX's ability to "achieve what others think is really the impossible," is as geared toward the wallets of major institutions as it is toward the mom-and-pop investors expected to flock to the IPO.

"Retail investor participation is important to SpaceX," the company said on its website. SpaceX is expected to follow the lead of Musk's Tesla (TSLA), which has a significant base of retail shareholders who often side with the company on even controversial votes.

Fidelity on Thursday said it would make SpaceX IPO shares available to any customer with $2,000 or more in a brokerage account. That's because SpaceX has decided to reserve up to 30% of its IPO shares for retail investors, the firm said. Most IPOs allocate between 5% and 10% of shares to individual investors.

SpaceX has offered a list of other firms that can help investors gain access to its IPO, including Charles Schwab (SCHW), Robinhood (HOOD) and SoFi (SOFI), as well as the Morgan Stanley unit (MS) E-Trade. Some international retail investors can also participate in the IPO.

Australia's Commsec is the country's lead retail broker on the offering, while Marex Financial is helping coordinate things in the United Kingdom. On Wednesday, the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (COIN) said it would launch pre-IPO perpetual futures, which it says gives eligible non-U.S. traders exposure before a company goes public. Coinbase is beginning this new product offering with SpaceX.

The SpaceX presentation highlights Musk's ambitions, from traveling to Mars to putting data centers in space. It also features a nod to Musk's business philosophy, touting his "algorithm" for efficiency, and his focus on developing "truth-seeking" artificial-intelligence.

In a slide titled "WHY WE WIN," SpaceX boasts of its "incredibly difficult to replicate" business models and "extreme vertical integration." It's made up of three distinct businesses: a rocket-launch business, a connectivity division and an AI segment.

"That unique ability to scale into new trillion-dollar markets across space, connectivity and AI is certainly a reason that we think we're going to win and continue to be this mission-driven culture that is enabled by our world-class talent," Johnsen said.

SpaceX also details a few targets it plans to eventually achieve at an unspecified time in the future, such as raising its gross margin to about 70% from 49% in 2025. It aims to show "significantly higher" revenue growth than it did in 2025 and turn its net-income margin positive.

See more: Looking to buy into the SpaceX IPO? This scary chart might make you think twice.

-William Gavin

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06-04-26 1251ET