I Got In at $80, Got Offered $534, and Said No

How I Got Into SpaceX When Most People Could Not

In 2022, I got access to something most retail investors never see — a fund that held pre-IPO SpaceX shares. I am not going to pretend this was easy or that it happens to everyone. It does not. I had a relationship with a broker who deals in private placements, and they reached out with an allocation. Most people cannot get into deals like this. I want to be upfront about that before anything else.

I put in $50,000 at $80.35 per share.

At the time, that was a meaningful chunk of capital. Not money I needed for groceries — but not Monopoly money either. It sat in an account, completely illiquid. No price updates, no ticker to watch, no CNBC coverage telling me whether I was up or down. Just a position in a private company that may or may not ever go public.

That is what private market investing actually feels like. You commit the money and then you wait. Sometimes for years.

The Call That Made My Jaw Drop

Recently, my broker called me with an offer. A secondary buyer wanted shares at $534 per share.

I will let that math sit for a second.

$80.35 to $534. That is roughly a 6.6x return on the original investment. On $50,000, that kind of move represents a life-changing number. The broker told me I could cash out half my position — roughly $134,000 in proceeds — with all transaction fees covered by the buyer. Private market transactions are not cheap. There are legal fees, transfer fees, platform fees. The fact that they were covering all of it told me something about how badly buyers want SpaceX exposure right now.

I said no.

Not because I am reckless. Not because I am trying to be clever. I said no because I believe in the long game, the same philosophy I bring to my Schwab options positions. SpaceX is not a lottery ticket I accidentally won. It is a company I believe in for the next decade. If they go public — and the pressure to eventually provide liquidity for early investors is real — the number I am looking at today may look like a bargain in five years. If they never go public, I have other ways to get liquidity eventually through secondary markets.

Saying no to $134,000 is hard. I am not going to pretend it was easy. I thought about it for a few days. But my conviction is intact, and I am playing a longer game.

The Reality Check: This Is Not For Most People

Here is what I need to be honest about before you read the next section.

I had $50,000 I could put into a completely illiquid investment with no guarantee of return, no ability to sell when I wanted, and no regulatory protection a public stock would have. Most people in retirement — or approaching it — cannot and should not do that.

This kind of capital deployment requires a foundation first. It requires having your regular retirement accounts funded, your living expenses covered, and a cushion beyond that. SpaceX at $80 was not some brilliant insight — it was me having enough capital that I could afford to lock $50,000 away for years without it affecting my daily life.

If you are 67 and trying to figure out how to stretch Social Security, private placements are not the answer. I want to be clear about that. The reason this story works is because I sized it correctly relative to my total picture.

But if you are building toward a position where you have discretionary capital beyond your core portfolio — capital you genuinely would not miss for five to ten years — opportunities like this do exist. They are harder to find, they require relationships, and they are not without risk. Which brings me to the other side of this story.

The Udemy Disaster — Because You Need to Hear Both Sides

Around the same time I was buying SpaceX, I also invested $25,000 in Udemy.

Udemy is not a private company — it is publicly traded. I bought shares believing the online education market had legs, that the company had a defensible platform, and that the pandemic-era growth in digital learning would continue. It was a reasonable thesis. It was wrong.

That position is now worth approximately $3,000.

Let me be direct about what that means: I lost roughly $22,000. Real money. That is not a rounding error or a paper loss I can explain away. That is $22,000 that I put into a publicly traded company and watched evaporate over two years.

I did not panic sell. I held it because I believed in the thesis longer than I should have. The company struggled with competition from YouTube, LinkedIn Learning, and a dozen other platforms. The growth story did not materialize the way I expected. At some point you have to accept that a thesis has failed and that holding is not patience — it is denial.

I have not fully exited because at $3,000 the pain of realizing the loss feels worse than just watching it sit there. That is a psychological trap and I know it. But I am being honest with you about where I am at.

SpaceX and Udemy, Side by Side

Here is what both of these look like together:

SpaceX: $50,000 in, currently valued at roughly $330,000+, offered $134K for half, said no.

Udemy: $25,000 in, currently worth ~$3,000, down about 88%.

Same investor. Same general timeframe. Completely different outcomes.

This is what investing actually looks like. It is not a highlight reel of only the SpaceX wins. It is both of these things happening at the same time, to the same person, with real money.

The SpaceX gain more than offsets the Udemy loss — by a wide margin, mathematically. But that is not a license to be reckless. The reason the wins can cover the losses is because I sized my bets appropriately. SpaceX was not my entire retirement savings. Udemy was not either. Both were positions I could afford to have go to zero if it came to that.

That is the lesson I keep coming back to: the sizing is everything. You can be right about a company and still lose money if you put in more than you can afford to hold through volatility. You can be wrong about a company and still survive if you sized it within reason.

What I Would Tell Someone Starting From Here

If you are reading this and thinking about private market investments, here is my honest advice:

Build your foundation first. Max your IRA, fund your regular brokerage, make sure your core retirement income is covered. Schwab, index funds, dividend stocks — the boring stuff. That is the engine. Private placements and individual stock bets are the experiments you run with capital beyond the core.

When you get to a point where you have genuinely discretionary capital, start building relationships. Private placements come through people, not platforms. Your financial advisor, your broker, your network. It takes years.

Size every position so that if it goes to zero, you do not have to change your life. Udemy going to zero would have hurt. It would not have ended me. That is the right posture.

And be honest with yourself about your thesis. The moment you are holding a loser because you cannot emotionally accept the loss — not because you genuinely believe the thesis — you are no longer investing. You are hoping. Those are different things.

SpaceX and Udemy both happened. I am proud of how I played SpaceX. I have made peace with Udemy. Both are part of the same story.

Want to see how I invest the core of my portfolio? Read about my Fundrise real estate strategy — 7 years, $26K+ portfolio, $200-$260/quarter in dividends with none of the landlord headaches: /articles/why-i-chose-fundrise

Financial Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Consult a licensed financial professional before making investment decisions. SixtyFive70 is not a registered investment advisor.