NEW YORK (AP) — When SpaceX makes its debut on the U.S. stock market, it wants smaller-pocketed, mom-and-pop investors to play a big role in what may be the biggest IPO ever.
Elon Musk’s rocket company, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is steering some of its initial public offering of stock directly to what are called “retail” investors. These are people who buy stocks in a brokerage account on their phone, not pension funds or other big “institutional” investors routing orders to their professional trading desks.
Here are some things to keep in mind as the IPO approaches:
Most IPOs offer only 5% to 10% of the total offering to retail investors, according to Fidelity. In this case, though, it could be up to 30%. SpaceX expects retail investors to participate in its IPO through Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Robinhood, SoFi and E-Trade by Morgan Stanley.
At Fidelity, investors with as little as $2,000 in their accounts could potentially snag SpaceX shares in the IPO. That’s down from account minimums of $100,000 or even $500,000 that Fidelity has for other equity offerings.
Demand from investors may be so high in this IPO that not everyone indicating interest will actually get a share.
Given all the hype around SpaceX, temptation could be high to grab shares in the IPO and sell them quickly if a frenzy sends its price spiking. But brokerages have policies to block investors from future offerings if they dump shares bought in an IPO quickly, like within a couple weeks.
Potentially high interest from retail investors following the IPO is one reason SpaceX is warning that its stock price could be volatile. These investors aren’t known for moving as meticulously as a pension fund, which is trying to build money for payments it must make years or decades in the future.
It’s retail investors, after all, who helped drive GameStop and other “meme stocks” to market-bending heights in 2021 that professional investors called irrational.
The typical IPO has seen a 7% jump in its first day of trading, from 1980 through 2025, according to Jay Ritter, an IPO expert and a professor at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business.
But IPOs tend to lag similar-sized peers in the ensuing five years, not including their first day of trading. They do so by an average of 3.6% per year, according to Ritter.
It’s very expensive to launch things out of the earth’s atmosphere and to construct huge AI data centers, and SpaceX has built up $29.1 billion in debt, as of the end of March.
The company also lost $4.9 billion last year and another $4.3 billion through the first three months of 2026. It acknowledges that it “may not achieve profitability in the future.”
Over the long term, a stock’s price tends to track with how much profit the company is making.
You could end up owning some of SpaceX even if you never intended to. Consider the many people who own shares of the popular QQQ exchange-traded fund, which tracks the Nasdaq 100 index and has roughly $460 billion in total assets.
Historically, the Nasdaq 100 index would wait until each December to add new members in an annual reconstitution to make sure it includes the 100 largest non-financial companies on the Nasdaq. But Nasdaq recently made changes to allow some big companies to enter the Nasdaq 100 index after just 15 trading days.
That means if SpaceX’s IPO is as successful as expected, it could quickly join both the Nasdaq 100 and QQQ fund, all while QQQ holders do nothing on their own.
The company behind the more popular S&P 500 index, though, is not making changes that would allow SpaceX faster entry.
In its IPO, SpaceX is offering 555.6 million shares of its “Class A” stock. Each of these shares gives an investor one vote on matters that shareholders decide. That includes such weighty things as who is on the board of directors overseeing the CEO.
This IPO is not offering what are called “Class B” shares, each of which give its holder 10 votes. Musk, meanwhile, owns so many of those shares that he by himself could control more than 82% of all the stock’s voting power following the IPO.
In filings with U.S. securities regulators, SpaceX acknowledges the potential for conflicts of interest between it and Musk, along with other companies he owns, such as Tesla.
Officials from pension funds for firefighters, teachers and other workers in California and New York sent a letter to SpaceX last month decrying some of the provisions in its IPO, including “super voting shares,” mandatory arbitration of shareholder claims instead of the possibility of lawsuits and how much power Musk will hold over the company.
They said they could become owners of SpaceX stock because they hold index funds, which automatically buy stocks after they get included in certain indexes.
If Musk is able to control so much of the voting power on the board of directors, it would make him tremendously powerful atop SpaceX, “essentially making him unfireable without his own consent,” the CEO of California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the New York state comptroller and the New York City comptroller wrote in their letter.
“This level of insulation from accountability is virtually unheard of among any other large U.S. issuer whose governing documents foreclose accountability to public owners on these terms.”
SpaceX plans to trade under the ticker symbol “SPCX.” That’s very close to “SPCE,” which is the symbol for Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Holdings.
FILE - Elon Musk attends the finals for the NCAA wrestling championship, March 22, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
FILE - A Falcon 9 SpaceX heavy rocket lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2018. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — The Sagrada Familia basilica features sandcastle-like spires, stone carved to look like lush flora, a kaleidoscopic interior and a trove of treasures, some hiding in plain sight. Even regular worshippers at Barcelona’s world-famous landmark find themselves dumbstruck with wonder.
Josep Turull, the Catalan rector of the Sagrada Familia and the priest in charge of its parish activities, recently granted The Associated Press a private tour to show off his favorite gems ahead of Pope Leo XIV's highly anticipated Mass on Wednesday night.
“We say that one of the elements of the Sagrada Familia Basilica is that you never exhaust it,” Turull said. “I have spent the last eight years as its rector, and each day I discover something new.”
Each morning, Turull approaches the basilica's elaborately decorated façades. They are packed with an abundance of religious scenes and symbols, some easy to interpret for anyone with a basic understanding of Christianity, while others are mysterious and even shocking to see in a church.
The westward-looking Façade of the Passion is stark, its figures tormented, their bodies strained in angular poses. That was how architect Antoni Gaudí wanted it — “harsh and cruel, as if made of bones,” to show the pain and torment of Christ’s final days.
Decades after Gaudí's own death, sculptor Josep Subirachs tempered the façade's misery with some playful elements. There's Gaudí himself, above the central door, staring across at Jesus carrying his cross to Calvary. And what's that suduko-like numbered grid next to Judas kissing Jesus before his betrayal?
The “magic square” symbolizes the inevitability of Christ's death; adding the numbers in any direction always produces 33, Jesus's age at his crucifixion.
Another puzzle awaits the patient eye that drifts across to the scene of Peter denying Christ: a small, square-shaped labyrinth. Turull said that it alludes to the need to keep faith in God when we feel lost.
After celebrating Mass, Leo will step outside to offer a blessing for the Tower of Jesus Christ that made the Sagrada Familia the world’s tallest church when it was raised in October.
The basilica's heights are bursting with nature, from the rooster who crowed while Peter denied Christ to reptiles doing the job of gargoyles, and piles of fruit that crown its spires.
There are also flesh-and-blood beasts; a family of peregrine falcons nest in the tower dedicated to St. James, keeping away pigeons and, more importantly, their excrement.
Gaudí's masterpiece was chosen as one of the ideal spots to reintroduce the species, as it was one of the last locations in town where these birds nested before disappearing during the 1970s. The falcons have been breeding successfully at the basilica for over two decades.
Turull said that these lightning-fast birds of prey “recover the cycle of natural life.”
For the millions of annual visitors who admire the colored light filtering through the basilica's stained-glass windows, jostle for position to snap selfies and huddle around tour guides, it is easy to overlook what Turull calls its “spiritual heart." That requires going through a modest side entrance and descending a staircase.
Underground is a much smaller, more intimate chapel, where dozens of worshippers silently attend Mass and faith manages to keep sightseeing at bay.
Fittingly, it is here where Gaudí, a fervent Catholic, rests in a discreet tomb set inside a nook. He died exactly 100 years ago after being hit by a streetcar.
“People come to ask for his intercession,” Turull said, gesturing to the tomb interred in the floor. “That’s why there are so many candles. Because people place their trust in him. Many people have received favors for having prayed at the tomb of Gaudí.”
The Vatican is in the midst of a decades-long process that could eventually make Gaudí a saint. After Pope Francis named Gaudí “venerable” in 2025, the Vatican must now confirm a miracle attributed to his intercession for him to be beatified, then a second miracle for him to be canonized.
The basilica has proposed that the pope pray at Gaudí’s tomb during his visit, but whether he does remains to be seen.
Before ascending, Turull pauses at an enormous seashell — a real one, not made of stone — that serves as a basin for holy water. He said that Gaudí had the seashell from the Philippines set in wrought iron and fixed to the column.
“Gaudí always takes nature as an example,” Turull said, referencing the way the natural world inspired his designs and decorations.
Up a twisting staircase, a private room bathed in sunlight houses two freestanding oak cabinets laced with intricate ironwork. Designed by Gaudí, they hold the basilica’s most precious relics and most important clerical clothing. Among them is Pope Benedict XVI's chasuble — a cloak that clergy wear when celebrating Mass — from when he consecrated the Sagrada Familia in 2010.
This is where Pope Leo will change into a chasuble that is being sewn at a workshop just for this occasion.
Turull said the vestment will feature details symbolizing the day’s importance and a design related to the basilica's recently raised Cross of Jesus Christ. But he won't say anything more for now; some things need to stay secret.
AP videojournalist Hernán Muñoz contributed to this report.
A small square-shaped labyrinth is photographed at the Passion Façade at the basilica's Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain, Spain, May 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
A changing room where Pope Leo XIV will vest before presiding over Mass is seen at the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain, May 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Josep Maria Turull, rector of the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia, holds a cross-shaped relic beside cabinets containing some of the basilica's most precious relics and liturgical vestments in Barcelona, May 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
A detail of the Passion Façade shows the basilica's famous magic square at the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain, May 15, 2026. Unlike a sudoku, every row, column and diagonal adds up to 33, symbolizing the age of Christ at his death.(AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Antoni Gaudí's tomb is photographed inside crypt of Gaudí beneath the Sagrada Família as crowds of visitors fill the basilica above in Barcelona, Spain, May 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
A priest celebrates Mass in the crypt of Antoni Gaudí beneath the Sagrada Familia while crowds of visitors fill the basilica above in Barcelona, Spain, May 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
