SpaceX surged 19% on stock market debut, lifting Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's stake to nearly $7 bn

SpaceX's landmark stock market debut has delivered a substantial windfall for Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the Saudi billionaire whose listed investment vehicle holds tens of millions of shares in Elon Musk's rocket company, pushing his net worth to a decade-high and sending Kingdom Holding Co. sharply higher at Sunday's open.

SpaceX, the rocket and satellite company formally known as Space Exploration Technologies, closed its first day of trading on Friday up 19% at $160.95 per share after raising $75 billion in what stands as the largest market listing on record. The gains were concentrated among a small number of longstanding investors, with Kingdom Holding emerging as one of the more visible beneficiaries.

The firm disclosed holdings of 42.4 million SpaceX shares, worth $6.8 billion at Friday's closing price, a position that represents roughly half of Kingdom Holding's total market capitalisation.

Shares in the vehicle rose as much as 5% at Sunday's open, taking its valuation to 56 billion riyals ($14.9 billion). Alwaleed's net worth was lifted to just above $27 billion, its highest level in a decade, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Kingdom Holding: SpaceX stake in numbers

According to Fortune report, Alwaleed first built his relationship with Elon Musk in 2022, choosing to roll over his equity in Twitter alongside investors including Larry Ellison and Andreessen Horowitz when Musk completed the social media platform's $44 billion acquisition and rebranded it as X.

That alignment placed Alwaleed within the network of institutional and private capital that has since clustered across Elon Musk's companies, a set of bets whose value has grown substantially as Musk's businesses have expanded in scale and public profile.

Venture capital: the other winners

The SpaceX debut has also generated historic returns for some of the most recognised names in venture capital. Founders Fund, the firm co-founded by Elon Musk's longtime associate Peter Thiel, holds approximately 3% of SpaceX.

Andreessen Horowitz, which backed the company across multiple rounds, is reportedly on course to record the largest single return in its history.

Sequoia Capital, which first took a position at the end of 2019, reportedly owns approximately 1.5% of the company.

Saudi Arabia: PIF, Humain and xAI

The benefits of Friday's listing extend beyond Alwaleed's personal holdings into the structure of Saudi Arabia's broader state investment strategy. The Public Investment Fund, The Kingdom's $1 trillion sovereign wealth vehicle, holds a stake in Kingdom Holding itself, giving it indirect exposure to the SpaceX windfall, according to Fortune report.

The PIF's artificial intelligence subsidiary, Humain, separately committed $3 billion to Elon Musk's AI company xAI earlier this year as part of a $20 billion funding round that gave Humain a significant minority stake, the Fortune report adds.

At the time of the deal, Humain said its holdings in xAI would convert into SpaceX shares, deepening the kingdom's ties to Musk's portfolio.

Saudi Arabia has reportedly placed artificial intelligence at the centre of its long-term economic diversification strategy, seeking to reduce structural reliance on oil revenues through strategic technology investment.

Gulf capitals: building AI positions

Regional Gulf capital has been moving broadly across the technology landscape. According to several media reports, Abu Dhabi's MGX holds stakes in Anthropic, OpenAI and xAI, a combination spanning three of the sector's most closely watched companies. Qatar has adopted a comparable approach, committing capital to both Anthropic and xAI.

The scale of current Gulf AI investment is new, but the region's interest in transformative technology predates the present cycle.

Abu Dhabi's International Holding Company held a SpaceX position as early as 2020, and Aabar Investments took a stake in Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic in 2009, more than a decade before space technology and artificial intelligence became the defining themes of global institutional portfolios.