SpaceX’s initial public offering on 12 June raised $75bn, the largest in history, instantly creating an estimated 4,000 millionaires among current and former employees and propelling founder Elon Musk to trillionaire status. The wealth shock is already rippling through Southern California’s luxury housing market, where agents from Hawthorne to Santa Monica report early inquiries on properties above $5m, and one buyer has been tracking a $32m Brentwood listing for months. Shares, priced at $135, touched an intraday high of $225.64 on 16 June before retreating to around $153, still above the offer price. The company will enter the Nasdaq-100 on 7 July, triggering an estimated $4bn in forced buying by passive funds tracking the index, according to JPMorgan, while Russell index funds already need to purchase nearly $3bn.

The IPO is the most visible marker of a technology boom that is also reshaping global energy systems. The International Energy Agency projects that electricity demand from data centres will double within four years, reaching 3% of global consumption, as AI workloads require round-the-clock power. Speaking at a Milan conference, IEA’s Simon Bennett noted a ‘much greater interest’ in nuclear power, including small modular reactors, to meet that need.

In the United States, where data-centre buildout is a primary driver of load growth, new modelling by Energy Innovation shows that meeting demand with a fossil-fuel-heavy approach consistent with current federal policy would add $30bn annually to customer bills by 2030, on top of a 16% rise over the past 18 months. A shift to accelerated clean-energy deployment could cut those costs by $5.1bn per year, or $13.5bn in a fuel-price spike scenario. Some large customers are already proposing behind-the-meter gas plants, a move analysts warn could further inflate prices.

Governments are beginning to ration grid access. Denmark announced on 29 June that it will place data centres at the bottom of a new four-tier priority list for electricity connections, after the grid operator revealed that pending projects totalled 60 gigawatts against a system designed for 7 GW peaks. The emergency legislation, to be introduced in the autumn, aims to protect households, defence, and essential services. Industry groups called the plan a short-term fix that does not address long-term capacity.

The next milestone for markets is the 7 July Nasdaq-100 inclusion, which will test whether passive flows can stabilise SpaceX shares after their volatile debut. In Denmark, the autumn parliamentary session will determine how strictly the new grid-access hierarchy is enforced.