Harvard SpaceX Stake Hits $2.2B as Endowment VC Bets Pay Off

A filing that put a number on a decade of venture bets

Harvard Management Company, which runs the largest university endowment in the United States, has reported that it owned SpaceX stock worth $2.2 billion. The position appeared in the fund's quarterly 13F filing to the SEC, and it is the largest single stock holding the filing discloses.34 As of June 30, HMC held 12,935,100 SpaceX shares valued at $2.21 billion. That was more than half of the roughly $4.3 billion in securities on the filing and more than all of HMC's other reported holdings put together.4 The next-largest position was about $350 million in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, so the SpaceX stake was more than six times bigger.4

The headline number needs some context. The filing shows what the holding was worth on June 30. It does not show that Harvard recently put $2.2 billion into SpaceX, and it gives no purchase date or cost.74 SpaceX was a private company until June, so its shares could not have appeared in HMC's earlier quarterly filings.4 That is why the disclosure looks large. It does not show Harvard making a new bet. It shows a holding built over years of private ownership becoming visible once SpaceX listed.

How endowments got into SpaceX's private rounds

For anyone following venture funding, the important part is how the universities got in. Coverage consistently says that endowments with SpaceX stakes bought them through venture capital firms, in some cases more than ten years before the IPO.512 Harvard's position may include shares it owned directly, stock passed to it by private funds, or both. An HMC spokesman declined to discuss individual investments.5

Other schools have been more open about where their stakes came from, and their numbers show how much early private rounds can return:

• Washington University in St. Louis put about $50 million into SpaceX roughly ten years ago. Before the IPO, that stake had grown to more than 10% of the university's $17 billion in assets.14 The endowment later reported a 37.3% return for the year ended in June, and the SpaceX position added more than $2 billion in value.16
• University of North Carolina bought into SpaceX more than 15 years ago through a fund that held the company, starting with only a few million dollars.13 UNC's way in was Founders Fund, the Peter Thiel-backed venture firm.15 UNC sold about $1 billion of shares before the IPO, still held more than $1 billion of stock in August, and reported a 37.8% return for the fiscal year.13
• University of Colorado Foundation first invested $150,000 in 2009, and its commitments grew to $4.2 million over time. That exposure was worth $289 million by June 30, about 57 times the money put in, and it drove a 20.34% fiscal-year return.19
• University of California's investment office reported a SpaceX position worth about $1 billion.12 Vanderbilt's stake is about $171 million.11

These results come from two different approaches. Washington University's CIO, Scott Wilson, puts money with a small group of managers and keeps adding capital to companies he likes. About 40% of the endowment is managed through co-investments with private equity and venture firms. Harvard and Yale, by contrast, spread their money across hundreds of funds.14 Harvard's stake is the largest in dollars. The concentrated approach, though, has had a much bigger effect on overall fund returns. At Harvard, SpaceX is a large share of a small public-equity portfolio. Private equity and hedge funds made up about 72% of the endowment in fiscal 2025.9

How much the IPO raised and what SpaceX was worth

SpaceX listed on June 12 at $135 a share.4 Reports disagree on how much the company raised. The Harvard Crimson and later reports put it at about $75 billion, the largest IPO ever.417 Other outlets gave figures above $85 billion.720 The reported valuation also varies, from about $1.8 trillion to more than $2 trillion, mostly depending on the date of the share price used.2017 Either way, the deal was far bigger than Saudi Aramco's 2019 listing, the previous record, which raised $25.6 billion.6

The share price has swung a lot since the listing. The stock hit about $225.64 in mid-June and then fell to $104.83 in early August, after a lockup expiration released as many as 911.5 million shares.17 On June 30, when HMC's holdings were valued, the stock was about $170. When the filing became public in mid-August, it was around $140. At that price, the same number of shares would have been worth about $1.8 billion.4 By mid-September the stock had recovered to $152.71, about 13% above the IPO price.13

Not everyone thinks the price is justified. Before the listing, Morningstar estimated that SpaceX's launch and Starlink businesses plus its early AI efforts were worth about $780 billion. That was less than half the IPO target. Morningstar pointed to unproven orbital data-center technology and doubts about how Grok compares with leading AI models.6 Spending is also a concern. SpaceX reported $7.8 billion in second-quarter revenue, up 92% from a year earlier, but spent $15.8 billion on capital projects tied to AI and Starship.4

Why it matters now for university budgets

The gains arrive while universities are under financial pressure: federal research funding is uncertain, the number of college-age students is shrinking, and private equity returns have been weak.122 Taxes are also rising. Congress raised the tax on investment income at large private endowments from 1.4% to as much as 8%, which will take a bigger cut of gains like these.14 Washington University estimates the change will cost it $37 million a year.17

The SpaceX gains are also helping to answer a long-running criticism. Over the previous three years, large endowments returned 7.8% a year on average while the S&P 500 returned 19.7%. Cambridge Associates now expects several endowments to beat the index this fiscal year, largely because of venture stakes in SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic.15 Among endowments with more than $500 million, the median return before fees was 18.9% for the year ended in June.12

Harvard has not yet reported its fiscal 2026 results.2324 Its last reported figures are an 11.9% return in fiscal 2025 and an endowment of $56.9 billion.22 Because SpaceX was valued at around $170 a share at the June 30 year-end, the IPO should help Harvard's numbers. The effect on a fund dominated by private assets will probably be smaller than at UNC or Washington University.

Paper gains are not cash

Several reports warn that these gains are mostly on paper. Endowments face legal limits on how freely they can spend profits.11 Many schools hold their stakes through venture and growth funds that hand out shares over time. A University of Virginia board official said that process typically takes at least 12 to 15 months, and the stock can rise or fall sharply before the endowment is able to sell.20 The Colorado foundation told donors that its position is subject to lockups that expire in stages and that this could make results more volatile in the short term.19

Concentration is the other risk. Chief investment officers will likely want to trim or hedge positions that grew faster than their portfolios could absorb.11 UNC's sale of about $1 billion before the IPO now looks well timed, since the stock has at times traded below its offer price.6

Harvard's portfolio is leaning toward AI

The filing also shows HMC buying more AI hardware. In the same quarter it opened a position of nearly $239 million in chipmaker Cerebras Systems, now its third-largest disclosed holding, and added to its Nvidia and TSMC stakes. It sold all of its Ethereum and reduced its Bitcoin holdings.4 It also took new positions in Fervo Energy and Lumentum.4 There is a political awkwardness as well: Harvard now has a large financial stake in a company run by Elon Musk, who in 2023 called for the university to be defunded.4

The takeaway

The clearest lesson from the coverage is that Harvard's $2.2 billion figure tells us less than the smaller deals behind it. The biggest windfalls came from long-held positions in SpaceX's private rounds made through venture firms, such as Colorado's $150,000 first check and UNC's few million dollars through Founders Fund. They were not the result of trading after the IPO. For the venture market, this will likely push endowments to put more money into private growth companies and give more weight to the access that firms like Founders Fund provide. It also leaves schools needing to sell down stakes that are now too large, under rising taxes and with a volatile stock price. The fiscal 2026 reports coming out this fall, including Harvard's, will show how much of the IPO gain endowments actually kept.