South Africans Invest R179 Million in SpaceX via EasyEquities

South African retail investors piled into SpaceX within hours of its public debut, with EasyEquities customers trading R179 million (about $10.4 million) worth of the stock over the first two sessions. The frenzy, which began on 12 June, made SpaceX the platform’s second-largest US dollar holding by aggregate value, behind only Tesla.

On the first day alone, EasyEquities users bought R113 million ($7 million) of the newly listed stock, followed by another R55 million ($3.4 million) on the second day. The volume included some early profit-taking, but the net demand was unprecedented for a single stock on the platform.

“SpaceX did over $7 million on day one. That’s insane,” said Charles Savage, CEO of EasyEquities. He noted that the platform typically sees around R10 million in total weekly trading for its most active stock. The previous record for an IPO on EasyEquities was the Boxer listing, which attracted about R60 million.

Demographics and Platform Impact

The buying spree skewed older and more male than the platform’s typical user base, according to Purple Group, the JSE-listed parent of EasyEquities. The median age of SpaceX buyers was 37, compared with 32 for the platform as a whole, and 82% were male versus a gender split of 59% male / 41% female overall. The largest single purchase, worth R1.8 million, was made by a woman.

While the listing did not trigger a surge in new client registrations — EasyEquities regularly adds 30,000 to 40,000 new accounts per month — it sharply lifted engagement among existing users. The number of new active dollar accounts (clients with positive net asset value in their dollar wallet) rose to roughly three to four times the prior run-rate around the IPO date.

May 2026 was a record month for dollar deposits at $22.8 million, a figure EasyEquities matched in the first 15 days of June. May also saw a record $73 million in trading activity; by mid-June, that figure had reached $64 million, with about 17% of it in SpaceX.

Veteran market commentator David Shapiro, deputy chairman of Otto 1890, said the rush reflected a generational shift. “It demonstrates that the younger generation of investors in South Africa want to be part of the exciting growth in technology. They’re far more informed than we think,” he said.

SpaceX’s IPO was the largest in Wall Street history, raising about $75 billion after 24 years as a private company. The stock priced at $135, opened at $150 and closed its first session nearly 20% higher. Carel Nolte, chief marketing officer at Purple Group, said the company expects similar patterns when OpenAI and Anthropic go public, with cross-product adoption as the key driver.