The setup
SpaceX went public on June 12, 2026 in the largest stock-market debut in history, and the same investors most exposed to what happens next sit in Seoul. Korean retail traders — the seohak gaemi, or "Western-stock ants" who trade US equities directly — hold Tesla (TSLA) as their single largest overseas position: USD 24.74 billion (roughly 36.72 trillion won) as of April 22, the most of any foreign stock, according to Korea's Seoul Economic Daily. With SpaceX now listed and merger speculation building by the day, the value of that 36.72-trillion-won bet increasingly hinges on a corporate combination that has not yet been formally proposed.
What happened
SpaceX priced 555,555,555 shares at USD 135 each, raising USD 75 billion and valuing the company at roughly USD 1.77 trillion at the offer price, per Bloomberg. The raise eclipsed Saudi Aramco's USD 29.4 billion offering in 2019 as the biggest IPO ever. The stock opened about 11% above its IPO price (Bloomberg), and NPR reported a roughly 19% first-day gain — a move that made Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire. Musk, who owns about half of SpaceX, retains 82.4% of the voting power after the offering through special shares, per Bloomberg.
Why a Tesla merger is suddenly the dominant question
The debut has hardened, rather than settled, speculation that Musk will fold SpaceX and Tesla together. Bloomberg reported that Alexandra Merz, a longtime Tesla investor, deliberately skipped the SpaceX IPO because she expects Musk to move quickly to combine the two companies. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell offered another public hint at a tie-up, TechCrunch reported. And Ross Gerber, CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth & Investment Management, told Bloomberg he views a merger as a "foregone conclusion," arguing the prospect of owning SpaceX has been helping support Tesla's share price as holders wait for an entry point.
For a fund manager, the mechanism matters: if a merger were structured as a share exchange, Tesla holders — Korean retail among the largest blocs — could end up with exposure to SpaceX's launch and Starlink businesses without ever buying the IPO. That is precisely the bet Merz described.
Sizing the Korean exposure
The retail channel is the most direct. Tesla is not just held in Korea; it is the benchmark overseas holding. Korean investors net bought USD 278.77 million (about 413.3 billion won) of Tesla over March 24–April 23 alone, pushing it back to the top of overseas net-buying rankings, per Seoul Economic Daily. Any re-rating of Tesla equity tied to a SpaceX merger flows straight into that 36.72-trillion-won position.
The second channel is industrial. Tesla's energy-storage roadmap runs through Korean battery makers. LG Energy Solution, Korea's largest EV battery manufacturer, secured a USD 4.3 billion LFP cell deal to power Tesla's Megapack 3 systems, running August 2027 through July 2030 — a contract the US Department of the Interior publicly confirmed, per Electrek. Samsung SDI, Korea's No. 2 battery maker, landed a roughly USD 2.1 billion supply agreement for about 10 GWh per year of LFP cells in November 2025, per Electrek. A combined Musk entity that pools Tesla's energy business with SpaceX's capital base would sit at the top of these suppliers' customer lists.
The precedent every governance desk will cite
Musk has merged companies he controls before. Tesla acquired SolarCity in 2016 for USD 2.6 billion in an all-stock deal; both were Musk-chaired. Shareholders sued, alleging Musk dominated the Tesla board and overpaid, and sought USD 13 billion in damages. The Delaware Court of Chancery ruled for Musk in April 2022, and the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed in June 2023 under the "entire fairness" standard, per law-firm summaries of the case (Cravath; McGuireWoods). The episode is the template — and the warning — for how a Tesla-SpaceX combination, with Musk on both sides, would be scrutinized.
What to watch
The speculation remains exactly that: as of June 12, no formal merger proposal had been disclosed by either company. The confirming data point is a definitive agreement or an exchange ratio — anything that converts "foregone conclusion" commentary into terms a Korean Tesla holder can actually price. Tesla's next quarterly results and any 8-K disclosure are the near-term venues where a real proposal would surface. Until then, the largest foreign-equity position in Korean retail portfolios is being valued partly on a deal that exists only in Musk's intentions.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. Figures are sourced as cited and were accurate as of publication.
Sources
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-12/tesla-holder-merz-sits-out-spacex-ipo-in-bet-on-musk-merger-bid
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/12/spacex-president-gwynne-shotwell-just-gave-another-hint-at-a-tesla-merger/
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2026-06-12/spacex-tesla-merger-a-forgone-conclusion-says-gerber-video
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2026-06-12/open-interest-6-12-2026-video
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-11/elon-musk-s-spacex-set-to-make-history-with-record-breaking-ipo
- https://www.npr.org/2026/06/12/nx-s1-5855004/stock-ai-spacex-ipo-elon-musk
