I bought into the historic SpaceX IPO, then watched Elon Musk lose $350B in a single week
Elon Musk's SpaceX recently made the news for reasons other than exploding rockets and his grand plans to colonize Mars, with it making a historic Wall Street debut on the stock market.
I've written enough stories about Rob Gronkowski making bank on Apple, 50 Cent striking it rich on a forgotten Bitcoin investment, and Lily Allen kicking herself that she didn't get in on cryptocurrency at the start, so not wanting to miss out on becoming the next Elon Musk, I took a punt on the SpaceX IPO.
Putting my money where my mouth is, I splashed $135 on a single share of SpaceX stock and (briefly) watched the dollars roll in. When I last wrote about my SpaceX stock, it had ballooned to a healthy $212.08 and made me a reasonable $77. Scaling that up to someone who might've invested $20,000, I could've been $12,500 up on the deal if I'd sold there and then. Not that I have the money anyway, but safe to say, I didn't invest $20,000...and I'm thankful.
My SpaceX stock starts to tumble
Elon Musk's grand plans to turn SpaceX cafeteria workers into overnight millionaires could still pay off, but for the time being, the opposite seems to be happening. Naysayers said that SpaceX had been massively overvalued, but that didn't stop it from securing an initial valuation of $1.77 trillion. This helped Musk himself become the world's first trillionaire, but unfortunately for me, I'm still some way off that milestone.
At the time of writing, SpaceX stocks continue to wobble, and shares sit at $152.72. Even though it's still 13% up from launch, you only have to look at the graph to see it looks like an adrenaline junkie's idea of a dream roller coaster.
Considering I only put in $135, I'm not too fussed about my $18 profit, and if I'd invested that mythical $20,000, I'd still be up a tasty $2,600. The question is, how long will people hold for, or will they start dumping their SpaceX to ensure they walk away with some sort of profit?
Playing the stock market is a long game, and if you ditch every time a stock starts to dip, it's probably not for you. Then again, me losing $135 is a far cry from having $20,000 wiped out.
SpaceX wipes out billions overnight
As reported by Forbes, SpaceX shares plummeted by 16.4% on June 23 (Monday) and landed at under $155. It's continued to drop since, meaning even more will have been chipped off the stock block. Musk's net worth has taken a $350 billion hammering, with him losing $152 billion on Monday alone. Remembering that Google's Larry Page is the second-richest in the world and has a net worth of $286.5 billion, it's wild to think Musk has lost more than this in the past few days.
Warren Buffett is currently No. 10 on the world's richest list and has a net worth of $144.9 billion, so for Musk to lose the equivalent of that in a single day is baffling to try and wrap our heads around. Don't feel too bad for the world's richest man, as he's still firmly a trillionaire with a reported wealth of $1.1 trillion.
For those further down the pecking order, these SpaceX losses are sure to be sounding alarm bells.
Final thoughts
SpaceX is already making moves, with the megacorp borrowing money in an effort to refinance and pay off the xAI acquisition loan without diluting existing shareholders. Even though SpaceX stocks have dropped for three days in a row, some might see it as a buying opportunity. Remember that SpaceX is still a richly priced stock that's above its $135 opening, so I wouldn't be rushing to buy more right now.
It seems those critics who argued SpaceX was overvalued were right, but for this humble journalist who gambled a bit of money for 'fun', am I really that bothered? I have a tiny stock portfolio with small amounts in the likes of Apple, so it's not like I'm investing thousands here. With that in mind, I'll probably put down my phone, forget about my Trading 212 app, and return in a few days for a pleasant surprise or another shock dip. For now, I'll have to put my plans of being the world's second trillionaire on hold.