Robinhood Sees Record Traffic After SpaceX Stock Debut

Robinhood said it has seen 'record-breaking' traffic on its trading platform Friday in the hours after SpaceX's historic public markets debut. The company shared in a post on X that 'some customers experienced latency and intermittent issues' with trading but that the platform quickly recovered. SpaceX's shares started trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange at around 11:47 a.m.

ET. Those shares immediately started trading up around 11%, pushing the company's valuation past $2 trillion — and making Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire. In just one hour, around 263 million shares have traded, according to Nasdaq, representing around $42 billion worth of SpaceX stock changing hands.

SpaceX only made about 4% of its shares available for trading in the IPO, putting it in a position for wild swings in its stock price as it begins life as a public company. Why this matters: The surge in traffic on Robinhood's platform highlights the intense interest in SpaceX's stock debut and the growing appetite for trading in high-profile tech companies. For developers and businesses, this underscores the need for robust and scalable trading infrastructure to handle unprecedented demand.

For consumers, it means that platforms must prioritize reliability and transparency to maintain trust during periods of high volatility. As the fintech and trading industries continue to evolve, questions remain about the long-term implications of such spikes in traffic and the potential for market disruption. Will platforms like Robinhood be able to sustain their performance under pressure, and what does this mean for the future of retail trading?