While retail investors should always conduct their own due diligence before purchasing any stock, it can be helpful to know who is or isn’t investing alongside them.
Seeing a big company or institution invest in the same stock can serve as validation for one’s thesis. It can also help frame another company’s relationship. For instance, Nvidia has been scrutinized for investing in key suppliers and customers.
Given that Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SPCX -1.44%) had the largest initial public offering ever and will make its way into many retirement folders, whether investors like it or not, it’s worth knowing who else is investing in SpaceX.
These were the three largest investors at the end of the second quarter.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
1. Alphabet: $94.2 billion
At the end of the second quarter, Alphabet owned over 551 million shares of SpaceX valued at nearly $94.2 billion. Many of SpaceX’s largest investors, including Alphabet, invested in early venture rounds.
Alphabet first invested $900 million in SpaceX in 2015, meaning that investment is now up 100-fold.
“Space-based applications like imaging satellites can help people more easily access important information, so we’re excited to support SpaceX’s growth as it develops new launch technologies,” Google’s Vice President for Corporate Development, Don Harrison, said in a statement at the time of the investment.
Today’s Change
(0.83%) $2.84
Current Price
$344.59
Key Data Points
Market Cap
Day’s Range
$339.62 – $348.08
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$206.39 – $404.47
Volume
188K
Avg Vol
22M
Gross Margin
60.94%
Dividend Yield
0.25%
While Alphabet was likely interested in space, the concept of Starlink, SpaceX’s low-Earth-orbit satellite network, may have been the distinguishing factor. After all, the company wants more people using Google, which is only possible if more people have high-speed internet.
This would also help Alphabet’s other businesses, like YouTube and Waymo.
Earlier this year, Alphabet also announced that it would lease a substantial amount of SpaceX’s terrestrial data center capacity. Google will soon pay $920 million per month to lease 110,000 Nvidia graphics processing units, central processing units, and memory, all within SpaceX data centers.
2. Valor Management LLC: $86 billion
SpaceX Founder Elon Musk has garnered much criticism over his career, but also many fans, who he has helped make a lot of money along the way.
Musk’s close friend, Antonio Gracias, owns the firm Valor Equity Partners, which, at the end of the second quarter, disclosed a stake in SpaceX valued at over $86 billion. Gracias is also one of Musk’s biggest cheerleaders.
He’s served on SpaceX’s board since 2010 and has also served on the board of directors of Tesla and other private companies Musk has launched. The Wall Street Journal also reported that Gracias was a groomsman at Kimbal Musk’s wedding and has previously lent Elon Musk money. Kimbal is Elon’s brother.
3. FMR LLC (Fidelity): $51.6 billion
At the end of the second quarter, FMR LLC disclosed a $51.6 billion position in SpaceX. FMR is the legal name for Fidelity Investments, one of the largest financial custodians, investment brokerages, and distributors of retirement plans in the U.S.
Fidelity was also an early investor in SpaceX. The Wall Street Journal has reported that the investment was made by Gavin Baker, who at the time was one of the standout investors at Fidelity.
Baker left Fidelity in 2019 to launch his own hedge fund, called Atreides Management, which reported a $4.67 billion position in SpaceX at the end of the second quarter. Baker clearly has plenty of faith in Musk.
“Elon has always made investors money. He treats it like a sacred covenant,” Baker said on a podcast back in May.
Like some of SpaceX’s staunchest advocates, Baker has said SpaceX has the potential to become “the most important enterprise in human history,” adding that it could turn into the “British East India Company of the solar system era.”