With the Alphabet SpaceX stake $94 billion disclosure, Google records one of the most lucrative tech investments in history.
Alphabet’s early bet on SpaceX has yielded a roughly 100-fold return. The Google parent company disclosed in an SEC filing that its stake in Elon Musk’s rocket firm reached about $94 billion at the end of June, up sharply from its initial $900 million investment in 2015.
Alphabet has emerged as the largest single institutional shareholder in SpaceX following the company’s $86 billion IPO in June, according to a Reuters analysis of recent quarterly filings.
The disclosures offer new clarity on the massive holdings secured by early backers as SpaceX transitioned from a private startup to a public titan. Paired with historic investment data, the filings show how early stakes including Alphabet’s $900 million bet have generated extraordinary long-term gains.
Because Form 13F disclosures are compiled quarterly and filed up to 45 days after quarter-end, the data represents a historical snapshot and does not reflect any buying or selling activity that occurred after June 30.
Additional limitations remain, given the wide range of SpaceX investment vehicles and the staggered timelines for when those shares become eligible for public sale.
“It’s very, very difficult to tease out which of these institutions were holding pre-IPO shares,” said Steve Sosnick, market strategist at Interactive Brokers, highlighting the challenge of distinguishing long-term backers from post-IPO buyers.
Alphabet serves as a rare exception: because the tech giant publicly disclosed its original $900 million investment in SpaceX back in 2015, analysts have a clear benchmark to calculate the exact return on its current holding.
Alphabet did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Sosnick added that the 13F filings do not disclose investors’ lockup schedules or whether pre-IPO backers intend to cash in on their gains.
Alphabet held 551.2 million SpaceX shares at the end of the second quarter. Valued at $170.86 per share on June 30, the position was worth approximately $94.2 billion.
Based on Thursday’s stock price, Alphabet’s disclosed stake was worth approximately $77.9 billion still roughly 86.5 times Google’s initial $900 million investment.
Fidelity Investments ranked as the second-largest reported institutional shareholder with 302.6 million SpaceX shares, followed by Gigafund Management (171.8 million), Baillie Gifford (51.4 million) and BlackRock (51.0 million).
Alphabet, Fidelity, Gigafund Management, Baillie Gifford and BlackRock the five largest reported institutional holders accounted for nearly three-quarters of all disclosed SpaceX shares, underscoring how heavily ownership remains concentrated among a tiny group of mega-investors.
Separately, SpaceX disclosed in a regulatory filing that Chief Executive Elon Musk holds a 48.4% stake in the company, giving him dominant equity ownership alongside over 82% voting control.
SpaceX went public on June 12 at $135 per share. While the stock has pulled back from its late-June highs, it closed at $141.29 on Thursday up 4.7% from its IPO price though down 17.3% from its June 30 peak.
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Sosnick told Reuters that SpaceX remains among the most actively traded equities at Interactive Brokers, noting a “fresh jolt of buying last week when market fears about what would happen when the first lockup expiry arrived proved to be unfounded.”
Retail investors who are exempt from SEC filing requirements turned into net sellers of SpaceX stock on Friday for the first time since the company’s IPO according to data from Vanda Research.
According to Vanda Research, self-directed retail investors posted $4.5 million in net sales that day. Although SpaceX shares dropped 3% on Thursday, the stock has rallied 30% overall since August 5.
