On June 2, 2026, Kingdom Holding Company’s share price touched SAR 15.79 on a trading screen in Riyadh. According to LSEG data, this was a ten-year high, driven by the enthusiasm surrounding SpaceX’s IPO, which had been building since late May. So far this year, the stock has already increased by 53%. This was the kind of market moment that validates a long-term thesis for Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who chairs Kingdom Holding and controls 78 percent of its stock.
Kingdom Holding’s 0.34 percent stake in SpaceX and his own 0.29 percent stake, each held separately, add up to 0.63 percent of the firm, which priced its IPO on June 11 at $135 a share and a $1.75 trillion valuation. At that figure, the total stake is estimated to be worth $10.6 billion. The prince estimated the worth closer to $4 billion instead of the $3.2 billion Bloomberg estimates after applying a liquidity discount because his own portion alone was seven times his initial investment.
The story that has followed Alwaleed for decades is well-suited to the SpaceX wager. Due to his early investments in Apple, Amazon, Citigroup, and Twitter, all of which produced significant returns at the appropriate moment, he is referred to in local financial circles as the “Warren Buffett of the Middle East.” According to this account, SpaceX is just the most recent in a long line of early-stage decisions that proved to be accurate.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, his net worth is at a ten-year high, ranging from $22 to $24.5 billion depending on the methodology, with the SpaceX position serving as the main motivator. All of this may be interpreted as confirmation. It is difficult to disagree with that assessment given the trajectory of this specific wager, which began with a private market entry and ended with a $75 billion IPO.
What the SpaceX windfall actually does for the investors in Kingdom Holding itself is the more difficult point, which Semafor directly brought up in the days leading up to the IPO. Before this year’s surge, the company’s listed stock had hardly changed from its 2007 IPO price throughout the previous 19 years.
As of March 31, the equity portfolio was worth SAR 60 billion, while the net profit for the first quarter of 2026 dropped 38% year over year to SAR 269 million, or about $72 million. These are not the figures of a compounder in the vein of Berkshire Hathaway, and the shareholders of Kingdom Holding have not seen returns that are comparable to what the individual stakes—SpaceX, Apple at peak, and Citigroup during recovery—might suggest.
A diversified holding company’s structure absorbs both some wins and many other positions at the same time, and over the course of the entire period, the overall effect has been more flat than compounding. The SpaceX moment is genuine. The question that truly determines if this has any impact on the stockholders rather than the individual in charge of it is what Kingdom Holding does with the momentum.
The SpaceX investment base’s Gulf component goes far beyond Kingdom Holding. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and two Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth funds, Mubadala and ADQ, put billions in orders for the IPO. Additionally, exposure to Musk-related technology firms has been increased by the Oman Investment Authority and the Qatar Investment Authority.
Gulf participation in the SpaceX IPO, according to analysts in Dubai, is more than just a financial transaction; it is access to a defense-critical U.S. company that was not available to nations seen as strategic rivals, acquired through the kind of alliance-building that Gulf states have been methodically doing with U.S. technology ecosystems. To exercise governance, the stakes are too low and passive. However, they are also exposed to something that might be worth significantly more than its current value in ten years, as indicated by Goldman Sachs’ revenue predictions of $474 billion by 2030.
The statistics appear spectacular at Kingdom Holding’s trading displays in Riyadh. Alwaleed’s dilemma is the same as it has always been at his holding company: converting individual investment genius into a system that provides investors below him with steady, compounding returns. SpaceX will assist. It’s less clear if it makes a significant difference in compared to the “Oracle of Omaha” reference that has accompanied him for years.
