Ark Invest bought more than $51 million in SpaceX stock last week, the firm disclosed in a regulatory filing. The purchase, which targets Elon Musk's private rocket company, came as Ark kept piling into cryptocurrencies—its latest move in a months-long buying spree that has drawn attention across Wall Street and the crypto world.
A $51 million bet on SpaceX
The filing, made public Monday, shows Ark bought shares in SpaceX through one of its actively managed funds. The exact number of shares wasn't disclosed, but the investment is a big one for a firm that's better known for its tech-heavy ETF lineup and its outsize positions in Coinbase and Bitcoin. SpaceX is still private, so Ark had to access the stock through a secondary market or a special-purpose vehicle—details weren't spelled out in the paperwork.
This isn't Ark's first time dabbling in SpaceX. The firm has bought and sold the stock before, but this latest block is the largest single purchase in at least two years. It signals that Cathie Wood and her team see the company's Starlink satellite business and Starship rocket program as long-term plays that fit alongside their tech thesis.
Ark's crypto shopping spree
While the SpaceX buy grabbed headlines, Ark's crypto purchases haven't slowed. The firm has been adding to its Bitcoin holding in the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF and buying Coinbase shares through multiple funds. It's also been scooping up shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust and the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF. The buying has been steady through the summer, even as Bitcoin's price dipped below $60,000 a few weeks ago.
Ark's total crypto exposure across its ETFs now stands at roughly $2.5 billion, according to the firm's latest compliance filings. That's a big number for a firm that manages about $20 billion in assets. The strategy is a bet that digital assets will eventually become a mainstream part of the financial system—and that the current regulatory uncertainty is a temporary hurdle.
Balancing space and digital assets
The two bets share a common thread: both SpaceX and crypto are high-risk, high-reward plays that depend on future adoption. Wood has called Bitcoin a 'financial revolution' and SpaceX a 'transportation revolution.' By putting money into both, Ark is doubling down on the idea that the next decade's winners will come from disruptive technologies, not old-economy stocks.
For now, the market hasn't reacted much. Ark's ETFs are still trading near their lows for the year, and the SpaceX purchase is too small to move the needle on a $150 billion company. But the timing is notable—Ark is buying private stock at a time when many other fund managers are sitting on cash. The firm's next quarterly disclosures will show whether it kept buying more SpaceX shares through July.
