Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest purchased approximately 3.29 million shares of SpaceX through a private placement for a total of $4.43 billion, making SpaceX the largest holding in the ARK Venture Fund, accounting for 11.38% of its net assets. Meanwhile, ARK significantly reduced its positions in established tech stocks such as AMD, Tesla, Baidu, and Roku to free up capital and concentrate its bets on the space sector. SpaceX has already submitted a confidential S-1 draft as of April 2026, aiming for a Nasdaq listing with an IPO valuation target of up to $1.75 trillion. ARK first entered the position at the end of 2023 at a valuation below $200 billion and has continued to increase its stake since then. ARK’s internal models project highly aggressive valuations for SpaceX by 2030, with a base case of approximately $2.5 trillion and an upside case of around $3.1 trillion. A single private placement holding exceeding 11% means the success or failure of SpaceX’s IPO will directly impact the fund’s net asset value.Article author and source: Wall Street Journal
Cathie Wood placed her biggest bet on SpaceX.
On June 12, Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest disclosed its latest trading activity. On that day, multiple ARK ETFs collectively purchased approximately 3.29 million shares of SpaceX, totaling approximately $443 million.
Notably, this purchase was made through the ARK Venture Fund, a fund specifically dedicated to investing in private markets. In other words, this is not buying shares on the secondary market, but rather acquiring tokens through a private placement prior to an IPO.
Meanwhile, ARK significantly reduced its positions in established tech stocks such as AMD, Tesla, and Baidu, freeing up capital to concentrate its bets on the space sector. These moves clearly illustrate ARK’s current asset reallocation strategy.
After this purchase, SpaceX has become the largest holding in the ARK Venture Fund, accounting for 11.38% of the fund's net asset value (as of May 31 data).
AI-generated summarySource: ME Selection
What did $440 million buy? ARK purchased SpaceX shares from the private market, not a public exchange.
This means the pricing of these shares depends on private market negotiations rather than continuous public market quotes. Before SpaceX officially goes public, these holdings cannot be bought or sold at any time like regular stocks.
According to Crypto Briefing, SpaceX submitted a confidential S-1 filing on April 1, 2026, aiming to list on Nasdaq with an IPO valuation target of up to $1.75 trillion. If realized, SpaceX would enter the ranks of the world’s most valuable companies on its first day of trading—a scale that many tech giants have taken decades to reach.
ARK first invested in SpaceX at the end of 2023, when the company was valued at less than $200 billion. Since then, ARK has consistently increased its position and further expanded its exposure in early 2026 through the merger of SpaceX and xAI. By 2024, SpaceX’s valuation had risen to $350 billion.
What was sold: ARK significantly reduced positions in AMD, Tesla, and Baidu to make room for SpaceX, resulting in a dense sell list for the day.
According to Reuters, ARK sold approximately 80,000 shares of AMD through its ARKQ, ARKW, and ARKX ETFs, realizing about $39.3 million, continuing its trend of steadily reducing its AMD position.
On the same day, ARK also reduced its holdings of:
- Tesla: Approximately 39,900 shares, involving an amount of approximately $15.9 million
- Baidu: Approximately 67,400 shares, cashing out approximately $7.83 million
- Roku: Approximately 98,800 shares sold, realizing approximately $11.82 million (consecutive two-day减持)
- Rocket Lab: Approximately 50,700 shares, cashing out approximately $5.82 million
- Additionally, positions in multiple stocks, including CrowdStrike, Cloudflare, and Veracyte, were reduced.
Looking at the sell list, ARK has reduced positions across semiconductors (AMD), streaming (Roku), autonomous driving (Tesla), cybersecurity (CrowdStrike, Cloudflare), and genomics (10X Genomics)—essentially a broad-based trimming of its existing tech holdings, with capital concentrated solely on SpaceX.
The largest position, but concentration risk cannot be ignored: SpaceX represents 11.38% of the ARK Venture Fund's net asset value, making it the fund's single largest holding.
Notably, this percentage was higher on March 31 of this year, at 17.02%, and has since declined—possibly due to ARK’s active rebalancing or the relative appreciation of other holdings.
According to Crypto Briefing, ARK’s internal model presents a highly aggressive long-term valuation for SpaceX: under the base case, the enterprise value is approximately $2.5 trillion by 2030; under the bullish case, around $3.1 trillion; and even under the bearish case, approximately $1.7 trillion—roughly in line with its IPO target valuation.
However, concentration is a double-edged sword. A single private placement holding exceeding 11% means the success or failure of SpaceX’s IPO will directly and significantly impact the net asset value of the ARK Venture Fund. If the post-IPO valuation is compressed, this concentration will similarly amplify losses.
ARK Venture Fund: A gateway for retail investors to access the private market. The ARK Venture Fund was designed to enable ordinary investors to participate in the private market.
In the past, pre-IPO shares of companies like SpaceX were almost exclusively available to institutional investors such as pension funds and sovereign wealth funds. ARK has opened a crack in this door to retail investors through ARKVX.
But the cost is liquidity. Private shares cannot be sold at will, and valuations between funding rounds rely more on judgment than market pricing. Investors are buying into a story of “waiting for an IPO,” not a liquid asset they can exit at any time.
The underlying logic of this transaction is ARK's core investment thesis: the greatest wealth creation occurs before a company goes public.
SpaceX’s valuation trajectory serves as a compelling illustration of this logic—rising from less than $200 billion to a targeted IPO valuation of $1.75 trillion, an increase of nearly 9 times. ARK believes that waiting until the company goes public means missing out on the most lucrative portion of the journey.
However, this logic has its limits: private market valuations are more “art” than “science” before an IPO. Public market price discovery often re-evaluates private valuations. SpaceX’s IPO will be the ultimate test of ARK’s $440 million bet.