SpaceX’s Record IPO: Can Reliance Jio Infocomm or Any Other Indian Company Eyeing IPO Repeat Investor Frenzy

Mumbai, June 17: When SpaceX rang the Nasdaq closing bell on June 12, it did not merely execute an initial public offering — it rewrote the record books. Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite conglomerate priced 555.6 million Class A shares at a fixed $135 each, raising $75 billion in the largest public market debut in history. Within a single trading session, SPCX closed at $161, a 19% premium to issue, and the company’s market capitalisation surged past $2.5 trillion — leapfrogging Amazon, Microsoft and every European benchmark in one afternoon. 

The path to listing was swift by any standard. SpaceX filed its S-1 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on May 20 after a confidential submission on April 1. A roadshow launched on June 4, and by June 9 the book had accumulated more than $250 billion in investor demand — roughly 3.5 times the $75 billion target — reflecting an extraordinary appetite for Musk’s portfolio of Starlink broadband, the xAI artificial intelligence unit (merged with SpaceX in February 2026 at a $1.25 trillion combined valuation), and the promise of orbital AI compute satellites by 2028. Goldman Sachs led the deal alongside Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan. 

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Crucially, SpaceX earmarked 30% of the float for retail investors — three times the standard norm for a mega-cap offering — a deliberate gesture toward democratising access to a company Musk had kept private for 24 years. Elon Musk retains over 82% voting control post-listing, a structure that concentrates strategic decision-making firmly with the founder even as public shareholders participate in the upside. 

Now the question resonating through Dalal Street is whether a comparable moment is approaching for India’s most anticipated listing. A Financial Times report on Wednesday said Reliance Jio Infocomm could file its draft red herring prospectus within days — potentially ahead of chairman Mukesh Ambani’s address at Reliance’s 49th AGM on June 19. The Jio IPO, targeting a fundraise of roughly $4 billion, would list a telecom business that added 42 million net subscribers in FY26 alone, taking its total base to 524.4 million — a scale that dwarfs most global peers. 

Valuation estimates vary. Elara Capital pegs Jio Infocomm’s enterprise value at ₹12–13 lakh crore, while YES Securities estimates the business contributes approximately ₹450 per Reliance share in its sum-of-parts model. Reliance’s own stock has gained 6% over the past three sessions on the IPO report — a market endorsement that institutional India sees the listing as value-accretive rather than dilutive. 

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The SpaceX comparison is instructive but imperfect. SpaceX carried $41.3 billion in accumulated losses into its IPO, yet attracted $250 billion in orders on aspiration and strategic scale. Jio is operationally profitable, carries a massive subscriber base, and is pivoting toward monetisation — average revenue per user has been rising as the company moves away from its disruptive low-tariff playbook. If investor appetite for SpaceX was driven by the convergence of connectivity, AI and scale, Jio’s pitch sits on similar ground: India’s largest 5G network, a Jio AI Cloud in development, and a captive audience of over half a billion users. The critical variable is pricing discipline. SpaceX’s $1.75 trillion listing valuation drew scepticism from analysts who placed fair value closer to $780 billion. Ambani’s team will need to calibrate the Jio issue price to attract both domestic institutions — whose sustained DII flows have anchored Indian markets through recent FII turbulence — and global capital now looking for the next landmark emerging-market offering after the SpaceX phenomenon.