Goldman Sachs is soaring after securing a key role in SpaceX’s historic IPO. Elon Musk’s rocket company has chosen the bank for its record-setting public debut, according to a prospectus filed Wednesday. The deal is a financial windfall and could give Goldman’s trading arm a leading role in other major IPOs expected in the near future, including OpenAI and Anthropic. “This is a huge win for Goldman Sachs and confirms its Investing Club stock in pole position among all major companies,” said Jim Cramer. Goldman stock rose nearly 6% on Wednesday. SpaceX’s IPO is expected to be the largest in history, following a recent acquisition that valued the company at $1.25 trillion. With its coveted “lead-left” position in the IPO prospectus, Goldman will likely spearhead the final stock allocation, pricing and valuation, and receive the lion’s share of associated fees. Goldman Sachs declined CNBC’s request for comment. “This is going to be a huge revenue stream,” said Jay Ritter, a University of Florida professor known as “Mr. IPO” for his extensive industry research, adding that Goldman would share the proceeds with other syndicate members Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan. A deal of this size can be difficult to pull off, said Matt Kennedy, senior IPO strategist at Renaissance Capital. “Pricing an IPO is more of an art than a science,” he said. “It depends on the relationships the bank has, the reputation of the equity research team, and the ability of financial institutions to order the IPO, price it appropriately, and handle all the post-IPO transactions. It can be difficult to do that.” It is also in a very advantageous position. SpaceX’s IPO is expected to be at least twice the size of Alibaba’s $25 billion IPO in 2014, people familiar with the matter told CNBC’s Leslie Picker. The Chinese e-commerce company paid banks $304 million in underwriting fees, about 1.2% of the total transaction value. Other large IPOs, including Facebook’s parent company Metaplatform in 2012 and Uber in 2019, also yielded just above 1%. Applying the same calculations, SpaceX’s IPO could result in more than $500 million in underwriting fees to be split among participating banks. For reference, Goldman totaled $535 million in equity underwriting revenue last quarter. GS YTD Mountain Goldman Sachs (GS) Year-to-date Performance This type of trade is central to our investment thesis for Goldman. We initiated our position in January 2025 in hopes that M&A and IPOs would pick up during President Donald Trump’s second term. And so far, Goldman’s trading line has improved. Investment banking fees rose 48% to $2.84 billion last quarter, beating analysts’ expectations by about $340 million. However, some trading activity stalled early in the year due to instability caused by the war between the US and Iran. However, CEO David Solomon said in the company’s April results that “while market conditions hinder the implementation of an IPO, we expect activity levels to recover once conditions stabilize.” This could include two more monster IPOs. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that OpenAI is preparing to secretly file a draft IPO prospectus as early as Friday. Goldman and Morgan Stanley are working with AI startups, people told CNBC. In March, OpenAI announced a record $122 billion funding round at a post-money valuation of $852 billion. Anthropic secured $30 billion in funding in February, giving Claude’s creator a post-funding valuation of $380 billion. Kennedy echoed Jim’s earlier comments, saying SpaceX could give Goldman an advantage over rival investment banks. “If they can pull this off, it will definitely be well-received, especially if they tout a deal with OpenAI and Anthropic.” (Jim Cramer’s charitable trusts are long GS and META. See here for a complete list of stocks.) As a subscriber to Jim Cramer’s CNBC Investment Club, you’ll receive trade alerts before Jim makes a trade. After Jim sends a trade alert, he waits 45 minutes before buying or selling stocks in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim talks about a stock on CNBC TV, he will issue a trade alert and then wait 72 hours before executing the trade. The above investment club information is subject to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, along with our disclaimer. No fiduciary duties or obligations exist or arise from your receipt of information provided in connection with the Investment Club. No specific results or benefits are guaranteed.
