When SpaceX listed on Nasdaq in June, it raised about $75 billion the largest stock market debut in history. The record it broke had stood since 2019, and it belonged to Saudi Aramco.
Saudi money was also inside the deal that broke it.
For years, the size of the Kingdom’s stake in Elon Musk’s company was a matter of guesswork. Private companies do not publish shareholder registers, and sovereign investors rarely volunteer the information. The IPO ended that. Since June, anyone can price the position and watch it move.
It has moved a great deal.
Who owns what
Kingdom Holding Co. — 0.34%
The clearest picture comes from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s listed investment firm, because Saudi exchange rules force it to disclose.
In a filing to Tadawul, Kingdom Holding said it owns 42.4 million Class A shares in SpaceX. On its audited accounts as of 31 March 2026, those shares carried a book value of SAR 16.76 billion, or about $4.47 billion. Book value here simply means what the stake was worth on the company’s own accounts before the market got a say.
The market had a lot to say. After the Nasdaq debut, Kingdom Holding told the exchange the holding was worth SAR 25.6 billion, roughly $6.8 billion a paper gain of more than $2 billion in a single week.
Prince Alwaleed personally — 0.29%
Kingdom Holding also disclosed that its chairman owns a further 0.29% of SpaceX in his own name, held separately from the company. Together the two positions come to 0.63%.
The Public Investment Fund — just under 1%
PIF is reported to hold slightly under 1% of SpaceX and to have weighed an anchor commitment of around $5 billion to the offering itself. Unlike Kingdom Holding, the sovereign fund is not required to publish the figure, so this remains reporting rather than disclosure.
There is a second, less obvious link. PIF owns 16.87% of Kingdom Holding, which means the state holds SpaceX exposure twice over — once directly and once through Alwaleed’s company.
Humain — undisclosed
Humain, the artificial intelligence company backed by PIF, invested $3 billion in xAI’s Series E round in February. That was weeks before xAI was folded into SpaceX, and Humain’s holding converted into SpaceX shares when the merger completed. No percentage has been published.
The ride since June
The first day went well. Shares priced at $135 and closed 19% higher at $160.95, pushing SpaceX past a $2 trillion valuation.
Then came the peak: an intraday high of $225.64 on 16 June. At that price, Kingdom Holding’s 42.4 million shares were worth about $9.6 billion.
The fall was faster than the climb. Over the following weeks the stock slid to a low of $104.83 — a level at which the stake was worth roughly $4.4 billion, almost exactly what it had been carried at on the books before the IPO. The entire gain had evaporated.
Second-quarter results in August steadied things. Revenue rose 92% from a year earlier to $7.8 billion, ahead of the $6.81 billion analysts expected. Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation jumped 191% to $3.5 billion, and the net loss narrowed to $541 million.
The connectivity business, which is Starlink, brought in $4.3 billion and added 1.7 million net subscribers. The AI segment, which barely existed a year ago, grew 247% to $2.6 billion.
The company now says it expects to reach a $100 billion annualised revenue run rate by the end of 2026, and has pulled forward its internal target of $1 trillion in revenue to 2030 from 2031.
Shares closed at $140.87 on 27 August, valuing SpaceX at about $1.89 trillion. Kingdom Holding’s stake is worth roughly $6.0 billion at that price still well above book value, but around $3.6 billion below where it stood at the June high.
Why the swings matter more for Riyadh
A retail investor who dislikes the volatility can sell. Kingdom Holding cannot.
The shares are subject to a 180-day lock-up from the listing date, a standard condition of large IPOs that prevents insiders and pre-IPO holders from selling immediately. That places the earliest exit around mid-December.
Until then, the position is marked to market every day and reported every quarter, with no ability to act on it. That is a new experience for Gulf institutions accustomed to holding private stakes quietly for a decade at a time.
The timing cuts both ways. The mark-up is welcome: Gulf funds have seen weaker petrodollar flows since the Iran war, and PIF has approved a minimum 20% spending cut across a portfolio of more than 100 companies, with work on The Line suspended and NEOM’s population target for 2030 reduced to under 300,000 from 1.5 million. Saudi Aramco, which ultimately funds much of this, must pay a base quarterly dividend of $21.89 billion but generated $18.6 billion of free cash flow in the first quarter.
Against that backdrop, a multibillion-dollar gain on an American rocket company is useful. It is also, for now, entirely on paper.
Analysts remain split. Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas has a buy rating and a $300 price target. Wolfe Research rates the stock outperform with a target of $175. Morningstar’s Nicholas Owens had put fair value near $780 billion before the listing, roughly 55% below the IPO price, citing a small public float and unproven profitability.
Somewhere between those numbers sits several billion dollars of Saudi wealth, and the answer arrives in December
