Key Points
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For now, institutional ownership of SpaceX is concentrated in early investors rather than ETF operators.
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SpaceX will eventually become a key holding across the world’s largest ETFs.
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Don’t be surprised if some key early SpaceX investors decide to hold their shares even after they are unlocked.
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You can buy Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX) on the Nasdaq, but the vast majority of shares are still locked up. On June 12, the company sold 639 million shares at its initial public offering (IPO) — making roughly 5% of the share count available for sale, with another massive wave of 911.5 million shares becoming eligible for sale on Aug. 6. More shares will be unlocked in the coming months, but that doesn’t mean that early investors have to sell, it just means they can if they want to.
So naturally, SpaceX investors may be curious to know who is holding shares. Second-quarter 2026 Form 13F filings submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission just revealed major SpaceX shareholders, including high-profile corporations, hedge funds, asset managers, venture capital firms, and even endowments, such as Harvard and the University of California.
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With 551,189,500 shares, Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) is the second-largest SpaceX holder behind founder and CEO Elon Musk. Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) is also a top holder with 122,764,805 shares.
As of July 28, SpaceX had 7,696,293,669 Class A shares and 5,485,486,276 Class B shares for 13,181,779,945 total shares — giving Alphabet a 4.2% stake and Nvidia a 0.9% stake. That’s significantly more than BlackRock‘s (NYSE: BLK) 51,037,137 SpaceX shares, Vanguard Capital Management’s 26,556,713 shares, and Vanguard Portfolio Management’s 10,225,389 shares.
Here’s why Alphabet and Nvidia own large stakes in SpaceX, why investors can expect major investment management companies to own significantly more SpaceX in the coming months, and why the highly anticipated unlocking of SpaceX shares may not be as big an event as some investors think.
Image source: Getty Images.
High-profile SpaceX investors
The latest 13F filings don’t necessarily reflect recent purchases, but rather, an up-to-date tally of SpaceX ownership by major holders.
Alphabet invested $900 million in SpaceX back in 2015 — a brilliant move in hindsight. Nvidia invested $10 billion in xAI in January before SpaceX bought xAI in February — converting Nvidia’s xAI shares into SpaceX shares. So, in both cases, Alphabet and Nvidia owned SpaceX stock before the IPO. BlackRock and Vanguard are buying SpaceX on behalf of their clients, many of whom are households loading up on post-IPO shares.
SpaceX’s ownership will soon shift from early investors who backed it years ago (and some decades ago) to new investors buying it on the Nasdaq.
BlackRock and Vanguard are the two largest institutional holders of most stocks because they are the largest issuers of index funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). For context, BlackRock, Vanguard Capital Management, and Vanguard Portfolio Management hold a combined 17% of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and 16.8% of Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL).
A gradual rather than rapid ownership shift
SpaceX’s float will increase as more SpaceX shares are unlocked and begin trading on the Nasdaq. The float is simply the number of shares available for public trading. As the float grows, investment management firms like BlackRock and Vanguard will increase their stakes in SpaceX. Nine Vanguard ETFs opened positions in SpaceX in June, and those positions will likely increase if insiders sell shares and if SpaceX’s market cap increases.
The snowball will really start to grow once SpaceX is added to the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC), which could occur as early as June 2027. When that happens, the S&P 500 index funds and ETFs will begin gobbling up SpaceX shares.
However, investors shouldn’t expect SpaceX’s float to magically balloon overnight. There are plenty of companies where insiders hold considerable positions even though the company has been public for decades, such as Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), where Larry Elisosn still owns roughly 40%.
All SpaceX shares will be unlocked in December, except for insiders like Elon Musk, whose shares will be unlocked in June 2027. Eventually, BlackRock and Vanguard will probably overtake Alphabet and Nvidia’s stakes. But even if the shares were magically unlocked today, I wouldn’t expect Alphabet, Nvidia, or early and local investors like Ron Baron to offload big positions. I’d also expect Musk to keep a sizable stake, and big Tesla investors like Cathie Wood to continue building positions. Rather, I’d expect most of the shares sold on the Nasdaq to come from hedge funds and venture capitalists who bought SpaceX over its multiple funding rounds since its incorporation in 2002 and from employees who received restricted stock units.
All told, unlocking SpaceX shares is a big deal, but it could take a long time for the float to meaningfully increase and for major investment management firms like Vanguard and BlackRock to hold positions on behalf of their clients that rival those held by early investors.
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Daniel Foelber has positions in Nvidia and Oracle and has the following options: long September 2028 $100 calls on Oracle and short August 2026 $240 calls on Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Apple, BlackRock, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
