Imagine standing on red soil.

The sky above glows a dusky orange.

Your boots crunch through fine Martian dust as you walk inside a glass-encased tunnel – pressurized, humming quietly with recycled oxygen.

Beyond the tunnel walls, you see a glint of solar panels stretching across the horizon.

Rocket gantries tower in the distance. Rows of Earth crops bloom inside climate-controlled greenhouses.

You're not on Earth anymore.

You're on Mars – one of the first 10,000 humans to leave the planet behind.

This isn’t a sci-fi movie trailer. This is Elon Musk’s plan, and over the weekend, he laid out exactly how we’ll get there.

From SpaceX’s Starbase – a company town in South Texas – Musk described the bold blueprint to make life multi-planetary. His roadmap to Mars includes:

• 1,000 fully reusable Starships built faster than Boeing builds 737s

• Orbital refueling stations that extend the reach of rockets deep into the solar system

• One million tons of cargo delivered to Mars every two years during planetary alignment

• A self-sustaining Martian city powered by Starlink, supplied by Earth, and designed for permanent human life

It’s outrageous. It’s audacious. And yet, considering SpaceX is already launching rockets at record pace, producing them at scale (one every 2-3 weeks), and running the most successful satellite internet network on Earth – it’s not crazy anymore.

But here’s the catch…

You can’t buy SpaceX stock.

It’s a private company.

Musk has said he doesn’t plan to take it public anytime soon, particularly while Mars ambitions and Starlink expansion are still in heavy R&D mode.

So… where does that leave you if you want to invest in the Mars mission?

Option 1: Secondary Markets

If you're an accredited investor, you might be able to buy shares through private equity marketplaces like:

• Forge Global

• EquityZen

• Rainmaker Securities

These platforms occasionally offer SpaceX shares from employees or early investors.

Deals are infrequent, expensive, and require $10,000–$100,000+ minimums – but they’re a real shot at exposure.

Note: An accredited investor is someone who meets certain income or net worth thresholds – typically having over $1 million in net assets (excluding their primary home) or earning at least $200,000 annually ($300,000 with a spouse).

This status allows them to invest in private offerings like hedge funds, venture capital, or pre-IPO shares.

Option 2: SpaceX-Backed Funds

Retail investors can look to public funds that hold private SpaceX shares:

• DXYZ – The Destiny Tech100 fund holds equity in SpaceX and other cutting-edge private companies.

• XOVR – A newer ETF with exposure to breakthrough tech, including private space firms.

These aren’t pure-play SpaceX bets.

For example, while 52.4% of DXYZ’s holdings are SpaceX, the fund also holds shares of OpenAI, Stripe, Axiom Space, and more. 

However, these funds remain some of the only ways to get indirect exposure inside a regular brokerage account.

One thing to note, however: both funds come with serious caveats.

DXYZ trades at an extreme premium to its net asset value – recently as high as 500% – making it more of a momentum-driven gamble than a value-based investment.

XOVR, while more structurally sound, faces its own challenges like private valuation lag, dilution risk, and higher fees.

In short, you can gain access to SpaceX through these vehicles – but you’ll be paying up for the privilege.

Option 3: “Mini-SpaceX” – Rocket Lab (RKLB)

For a public company with revenue, proven rockets, and bold ambitions, Rocket Lab is worth a look.

It’s one of the only U.S. firms besides SpaceX consistently launching rockets into orbit. And its business spans:

• Launch Services: 60+ missions using its Electron rocket, optimized for small satellites

• Spacecraft Manufacturing: Building satellite platforms and components, including for NASA

• Mission Ops: End-to-end space mission management

• Future Growth: Developing Neutron, a larger rocket designed to rival Falcon 9

At a $12 billion market cap, Rocket Lab is still a fraction of SpaceX’s estimated $350B valuation. But it offers real public-market exposure to the space economy.

I wrote about Rocket Lab back in November, check out my full thoughts here.

Final Approach

You can’t buy SpaceX stock yet. But you can get close.

Accredited investors have access through secondary marketplaces. And retail investors can gain indirect exposure via funds like DXYZ or XOVR, or by betting on public space players like Rocket Lab.

None of these are perfect proxies.

But they offer a rare chance to invest in the mission before a potential IPO.

To see just how big that mission is, you can watch Musk’s full Mars presentation here.