Ron Baron bought $1 billion of SpaceX shares in IPO, lifting stake to $25 billion

Early SpaceX investor Ron Baron wasn’t taking profits during its blockbuster stock-market debut. He was buying more.

The billionaire investor said Baron Capital purchased an additional $1 billion worth of SpaceX shares Friday during the company’s initial public offering, increasing the firm’s position in Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite company to roughly $25 billion.

The purchase marks a fresh vote of confidence from one of SpaceX’s earliest and most enthusiastic institutional backers, even after the company’s valuation soared to $2 trillion.

“I think we’re going to make hundreds of billions of dollars,” Baron said Monday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “What they’ve done isn’t possible for anyone else to accomplish. Not possible. And so he’s at least 10 years ahead of everyone else, as far as making satellites, as far as making rockets, as far as building networks.”

Baron said he participated in the IPO to maintain his firm’s ownership percentage as the company sold new shares to the public.

“I didn’t want to get diluted,” Baron said. “I wanted a billion dollars to keep our percentage the same…I’m an investor in a business. I’m not buying and selling or trading.”

Baron first invested in SpaceX in 2017 through employee tender offers when the company was valued at less than $22 billion and has since participated in 27 funding rounds.

As of March 31, SpaceX accounted for 33% of assets in the $10.4 billion Baron Partners Fund and 25.5% of the Baron Asset Fund. Combined with the firm’s sizable position in Tesla, about half of the assets in some Baron portfolios are tied to companies led by Musk.

Baron acknowledged that SpaceX’s valuation has climbed dramatically since his initial investment, but said he believes the company’s growth potential remains vastly underappreciated.

“I think that with now being valued at $2 trillion, I think it’s going to be valued in 10 years at $20 trillion, $30 trillion, $40 trillion,” Baron said.

The veteran investor argued that Musk’s ambitions extend beyond building a successful aerospace company.

“Normally, our economy doubles roughly every 10 years,” he said. “What he thinks is, by the innovations and the work that he’s doing, he’s going to make the economy grow 10 times in 10 years, not double.”