SpaceX Is Going Public Soon. Here's How to Buy Stock Before Shares Are Widely Available. |

It’s official: SpaceX is planning an initial public offering (IPO) on June 12 that will likely push the company’s valuation to $1.8 trillion when shares begin trading on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker symbol SPCX.

According to reports, the company plans to sell 555.6 million shares at $135 apiece, raising around $75 billion in new capital. Underwriters have the option to purchase an additional 83.33 million shares at the IPO price, which would contribute an additional $11.2 billion in new capital. Of course, underwriters will likely only exercise this option if the trading price exceeds the IPO sale price. With IPO stocks often showing high initial volatility, anything is possible.

But you don’t need to wait for the IPO to get exposure to SpaceX stock. There are two ways in particular to get SpaceX exposure today.

Here’s how to buy into SpaceX before the IPO

According to reports, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk currently owns around 85% of SpaceX’s shares. Employees and various venture capital investors own the rest. The company already has an internal trading program that allows employees and existing investors to sell shares, but this program isn’t available to outside investors.

How, then, can you buy SpaceX stock today? There are a few ways to accomplish this, but most require high fees or restrictions. By far the easiest method is to simply buy into an investment vehicle like the ARK Venture Fund (ARKVX 0.55%) or the ERShares Private-Public Crossover ETF (XOVR +2.56%).

Neither the ARK Venture Fund nor the ERShares Private-Public Crossover ETF is perfect. The former has just 11% of its portfolio invested in SpaceX stock, whereas the latter has roughly 20% exposure. That means that buying these ETFs dilutes your ultimate SpaceX exposure by around 80% to 90%.

Plus, both of these investment vehicles also come with high costs. The ARK Venture fund has an expense ratio of roughly 3%, while the ERShares Private-Public Crossover ETF charges around 0.75% — both of which are higher than fees for broad market index fund ETFs.

Most investors are simply better off waiting for the company’s official IPO to buy shares. In fact, some experts believe that buying shares after the IPO might be the best approach.

“[L]ong-term investors eager ​to participate ⁠in SpaceX’s future endeavors and potential success will have opportunities to do so with a greater margin of safety than the initial offering is likely to ⁠provide,” ​recommends an analyst from Morningstar. “We think the company has been significantly overvalued and investors will have opportunities ​to buy the stock at more attractive levels after the IPO.”

Ryan Vanzo has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Nasdaq. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.