Key Takeaways:
Cathie Wood's ARK Invest poured $444 million into SpaceX on its Nasdaq debut day, funded by a sweeping selloff of AMD, Tesla and 20 other stocks across two days.
ARK Invest acquired 3.29 million SpaceX shares across four exchange-traded funds on Friday, the same day the aerospace company began trading on the Nasdaq under ticker SPCX. The $444.3 million purchase was allocated among the ARK Innovation ETF, ARK Autonomous Technology and Robotics ETF, ARK Next Generation Internet ETF and ARK Space Exploration and Innovation ETF.
"The company's ability to re-use rockets results in structurally lower launch costs than competitors that will prove difficult to match," ARK wrote in its investment thesis for SpaceX.
SpaceX raised $75 billion from the sale of 555.6 million shares in the largest initial public offering in history, pricing at $135 per share at a valuation of about $1.77 trillion. The company now commands a market capitalization of $2.11 trillion. Within ARKX, SpaceX immediately became a top-tier holding at 6.89% of the fund.
The bet is a concentrated one. SpaceX already accounted for 11.38% of ARK Venture Fund's net assets as of May 2026, making it the fund's single largest position — ahead of OpenAI and Anthropic. That figure was even higher at 17.02% on March 31 before a subsequent rebalancing. ARK first invested in SpaceX through its Venture Fund in late 2023, when the company was valued below $200 billion.
To make room, ARK cleared positions across its ETF suite
On Friday alone, ARK sold 80,536 shares of Advanced Micro Devices across three ETFs for $39.3 million, and trimmed its Rocket Lab position for $5.8 million. The Rocket Lab sale was notable because SpaceX explicitly named the company as a competitive threat in its S-1 filing, describing it as a firm transitioning from small-lift into medium-lift payload services.
ARK also reduced its Tesla holdings by 39,850 shares worth $15.9 million, sold 98,835 Roku shares for $11.8 million and cut its Baidu position by about 67,400 shares for $7.8 million. Additional sales included CrowdStrike, Cloudflare and Veracyte.
The Friday selloff followed an even larger one a day earlier. On Thursday, ARK liquidated stakes in 20 companies totaling $222.9 million. The largest disposal was Teradyne at $76.6 million, followed by Twist Bioscience, Iridium Communications and Robinhood Markets, which together accounted for $64.2 million.
The SpaceX bet carries both upside and liquidity risk
ARK's internal model values SpaceX at $2.5 trillion in a base-case enterprise value by 2030, with a bull case of $3.1 trillion and a bear case of $1.7 trillion — roughly in line with the IPO target valuation. The firm's core thesis holds that the largest wealth creation occurs before a company goes public, and SpaceX's valuation trajectory from under $200 billion to more than $2 trillion supports that view.
But the concentrated bet carries risk. A single private-company position exceeding 11% of net assets means SpaceX's post-IPO performance will have an outsized impact on the Venture Fund's returns. Unlike public equities, the pre-IPO shares were acquired through private-market negotiations and cannot be traded freely until lockup restrictions expire. The IPO's pricing will serve as the first public test of ARK's $444 million conviction.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
