A nine-month story started as a scheduled eight-day stay on the International Space Station for the two NASA astronauts was ended when the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida on Tuesday.
Technical issues hampered the Boeing Co. (BA) Starliner capsule that carried the astronauts to the orbiting space lab in June, forcing NASA to extend their stay on the ISS and finally have them catch a trip home with Boeing competitor SpaceX. In August, the Starliner spacecraft under issue returned to Earth empty-handed.
For SpaceX creator and Chief Executive Elon Musk, Wilmore and Williams’ safe return represented a triumph and concluded an exciting few months for his private space enterprise. SpaceX reached a historic mark in January when it precisely landed the 400th reusable rocket, but its latest seventh and eighth Starship flight tests concluded in explosions. After scheduled more than 130 missions in 2024, including four tests of the Starship megerocket and spacecraft, SpaceX has made 33 launches thus far this year including two tests of the Starship.
“I appreciate @POTUS giving this goal top priority!” Tuesday Musk penned on X, the social media network he also owns.
President Donald Trump’s U.S. space ambitions as well as Musk’s tight relationships to the White House are considered as main benefits for SpaceX.
Although SpaceX is not a publicly traded company, it is the top holding in the publicly traded Destiny Tech100 Inc. fund DXYZ, which provides exposure to well-known private enterprises. At September 30, 2024, SpaceX accounted for 36.9% of the Destiny Tech100 portfolio. Next largest stake in the fund is fintech Revolut at 12.2%; followed by private space company Axiom Space at 5.9%; and ChatGPT maker OpenAI at 5.1%.
Although the fund dropped 34% in 2025, it has increased 331.8% in the past 12 months most famously following Trump’s November election victory and, to a lesser degree, following his inauguration in January. By contrast, Tesla Inc.’s electric-vehicle shares have dropped 42.7% in 2025 and climbed 31.7% over the past 12 months.
Ending Tuesday’s session down 3.1%, the Destiny Tech100 was up 2.9% at 10:30 a.m. Eastern time.
The Baron Partners Fund; retail As of February 28, 2025, BPTRX also has SpaceX exposure and has second-biggest private space company, at 17%,. With 32.8% of the mutual fund, Tesla is its top holding. So far in 2025 the Nasdaq-traded fund is down 21.4%; over the past 12 months it has risen 15.9%. Wednesday morning’s drop is 2.8%.
The crew Dragon spacecraft carried NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov down to Earth in addition to Wilmore and Williams.
