Robert Greifeld on IPO float
From SpaceX targets June 12 IPO listing: Former Nasdaq CEO Robert Greifeld on what to expect · · CNBC Television
“When you look at the Nasdaq rules, if they have adequate float, right, which is a real concern, and 75 billion does constitute adequate float. And I like to put it in context, when Apple came public, right, the biggest IPO of its time, it raised $100 million. Amazon a decade later raised 54. So the scale of this is so large, you can certainly I don't know what the details are with Anthropic, but I know it's probably large enough to support a public float environment. So without having all the details, I would say I'd be very much in support of that also.”
On , Robert Greifeld, Former Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Nasdaq, Inc., spoke about IPO float during SpaceX targets June 12 IPO listing: Former Nasdaq CEO Robert Greifeld on what to expect on CNBC Television.
About Robert Greifeld
Robert Greifeld, former Nasdaq chairman and CEO, appeared on CNBC's "Squawk Box" on May 27, 2026 to discuss the upcoming SpaceX initial public offering. He argued that a company seeking to raise $75 billion with a 24-year operating history and over 10,000 investors should be included in market indexes "as soon as reasonably possible." Regarding concerns that index inclusion could artificially inflate the stock price, he said the effect would be "marginal" and "not going to be the driver of the stock's price." He described the difference between private and public information disclosure as "astounding" and stated that retail investors "will be better served" by having more information available through public markets, encouraging them to use it. Greifeld also discussed metrics for evaluating the market's quality after the IPO, saying that observers should judge it by the spread—the transaction cost—and by whether the stock has deep liquidity rather than being thinly traded by a single investor. He noted that the public market's function is to allow "all buyers and sellers come together to discover price." Separately, in a podcast appearance from 2019, Greifeld discussed his approach to leadership when he took over Nasdaq in 2003, recalling that he fired two direct reports on his first day, describing the move as "quite autocratic" but "the right answer for that particular point in time."