$100bn scramble for SpaceX shares: Thousands of UK investors pile into record-breaking float - but two in five get less than they asked for

Thousands of Britons missed out on a full allocation of SpaceX shares in its record-breaking stock market float after orders among retail investors topped $100billion.

Elon Musk’s rockets and AI company last night made history as it sold 555.6million shares at $135 each in the largest initial public offering (IPO) of all time.

That raised $75billion and valued SpaceX at $1.77trillion – putting co-founder and boss Musk on course to become the world’s first trillionaire.

Demand for shares far outstripped supply, with retail investors around the world applying for more than $100billion of stock, according to Bloomberg.

That is well above the $15billion to $22.5bn earmarked for individuals rather than institutions.

In total, Britain's armchair investors scooped up 2.7million SpaceX shares in the IPO, costing a total of £270million.

Meanwhile, some of the world’s most powerful institutional investors also piled in, with BlackRock seeking at least $5billion of shares while Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia to Kuwait have applied for between $1billion and $5billion.

The extraordinary level of demand meant many retail investors got just a fraction of what they applied for.

British investors who applied for around £2,000 of shares or less got their full allocation – accounting for 61 per cent or three in five of those who took part.

But those who applied for more than this amount were ‘scaled back’ – with a maximum of 1,000 shares allocated to any one investor.

Anyone buying 1,000 shares would have stumped up around £100,000 each with the stock priced at $135 – or £100.

The booming demand sets the scene for a frenzied session when the shares start trading on the Nasdaq in New York today.

Disappointed investors may battle to buy shares they missed out on – while others may hope to sell at a profit.

Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club, said: ‘There will be plenty of disappointed investors today. They're likely to join in a bunfight for shares when they start trading.’

Jed Ellerbroek, a fund manager at Argent Capital Management in St Louis, in the US, said: ‘Every investment management firm in the country is talking about and considering SpaceX. We all know Friday’s trading day is going to be crazy.’

The listing is set to be followed by those of Claude developer Anthropic and ChatGPT firm OpenAI later this year in a high-stakes test of whether investor appetite for the artificial intelligence revolution can match the sector hype.

Matt Calkins, chief executive of enterprise software company Appian, told CNBC that today’s SpaceX float was also ‘a referendum on Elon and how much faith investors have in this individual entrepreneur’.

Analysts at New Street Research expect SpaceX shares to rise from the listing price of $135 to $165 within 12 months – pushing its value above $2trillion – with a ‘high-end estimate’ suggesting the stock could hit $330 further down the line.

Others are not so sure. David Coombs, a fund manager at Rathbones Asset Management, said yesterday: ‘SpaceX is undoubtedly one of the most innovative companies of our generation, but extraordinary businesses are not attractive investments at any price.

‘The company is overvalued at any metric. Markets can remain enthusiastic for some time, but eventually valuations matter.’

Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in the US, said: ‘It’s an historic event. I hope it trades successfully afterwards, for the market’s sake.

‘If something like this comes out and trades down, not only will it cast a pall over the market in general, but over the other IPOs lining up for the rest of the summer.’