A single company is preparing to raise seventy-five billion dollars by selling shares to the public for the first time — a number so large it would dwarf every IPO that has ever happened. In this episode, we break down the story behind the most anticipated stock market debut in history and pick up five B2+ English expressions that are essential for understanding business news, financial conversations, and the language of big ambition.
⚡ 5 Key Expressions
Expression 01
Go public
When a private company sells its shares on a stock exchange for the first time, allowing anyone to buy in, we say it "goes public." Before this moment, ownership is limited to a small group of founders and private investors. Afterward, the shares are available to the entire market. The formal process is called an IPO — Initial Public Offering — and the word "initial" is key: it's the first, and only first, time the public gets access. In everyday informal English, "go public with something" can also mean to announce or reveal information openly, but in a business context, the financial meaning is almost always intended.
- "The startup had been growing quietly for five years before it finally decided to go public."
- "I've been dealing with this issue privately, but I'm thinking about going public with it."
Expression 02
Under wraps
If something is "under wraps," it is being kept secret — deliberately concealed, like a gift wrapped so the recipient can't see what's inside. The phrase almost always implies intentional secrecy rather than simple ignorance. You use it when someone is actively hiding information until the right moment: a product launch, a deal, a surprise, a filing. When a company submits a confidential filing before a major announcement, the details are quite literally under wraps — hidden from the public until the company chooses to reveal them.
- "The product launch details are still under wraps — we'll announce everything next Tuesday."
- "We're keeping the plans for her birthday under wraps until the last minute."
Expression 03
Tower over
To tower over something means to be so much bigger, more impressive, or more powerful that everything else looks small by comparison. The image is architectural — a tower stands high above the buildings around it. In English, the phrase extends far beyond physical height. You can use it to describe dominance in finance, achievement, talent, or scale. Crucially, it implies a large gap, not just a slight edge. If a company's revenue "towers over" its competitors, it isn't merely ahead — it is in a different category entirely.
- "Her performance towered over every other candidate in the competition."
- "The new skyscraper towers over everything else in the neighborhood."
Expression 04
Gargantuan
Enormous — but with a hint of the absurd. "Gargantuan" comes from a sixteenth-century French novel by François Rabelais, whose main character Gargantua was a giant famous for his extraordinary size and insatiable appetite. The word entered English and became the go-to adjective for things that are not just large but almost comically, overwhelmingly so. It works well for quantities, costs, tasks, and ambitions. Importantly, it carries a slightly dramatic, even humorous tone — which makes it memorable and fun to use. You would not call a large coffee gargantuan, but you might call a seventy-five-billion-dollar fundraising goal exactly that.
- "The merger required a gargantuan amount of regulatory approval before it could proceed."
- "I had a gargantuan amount of homework this weekend — I barely slept."
Expression 05
Retail traders
In finance, "retail traders" — also called retail investors — are ordinary individual people investing their own money, as opposed to large institutions like banks, hedge funds, pension funds, or insurance companies. The contrast is between everyday people (often using investment apps) and the professional, institutional players on Wall Street. When you read that "retail traders are buying heavily," it means regular people are driving that activity, not big firms. The term matters because retail traders and institutional investors often behave very differently — and a sudden surge of retail buying can move markets in ways the professionals don't expect.
- "The platform was originally built for institutional investors, but it has since opened up to retail traders."
- "Retail traders drove the stock price up far beyond what analysts had predicted."
🎭 The Dialogue: Normal Rules Don't Apply
Maya works in finance and Alex is her colleague who hasn't been able to think about anything else all morning. They're catching up at their desks on a Thursday — and the news is hard to ignore.
📍 Open-plan office, Thursday morning. Maya is at her desk. Alex walks over with two coffees and his phone already out.
Maya: Have you been following the SpaceX news? Everyone on my floor is talking about it.
Alex: Are you kidding? A company that wants to go public at one point seven five trillion dollars — I haven't thought about anything else all morning.
Maya: The number is just gargantuan. It would tower over every IPO that's ever happened.
Alex: And most of the details are still under wraps. We don't know the share price, we don't know the number of shares — nothing.
Maya: The one thing I did hear is that they want to reserve thirty percent of shares for retail traders. That's triple the usual amount.
Alex: Smart move. After what happened with Tesla, they know that retail traders can drive up a stock like nothing else.
Maya: I just can't believe that one IPO could tower over the entire US market from last year.
Alex: Welcome to the Elon Musk economy. Normal rules don't apply.
🧠 Episode Quiz
Can you answer this?
SpaceX is attempting to break the record for the largest IPO in history. The current record holder raised twenty-nine billion dollars when it went public in 2019. Which company holds that record?
- A — Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant
- B — Saudi Aramco, the Saudi Arabian oil company
- C — Facebook, now known as Meta
✅ Answer: B — Saudi Aramco. The Saudi Arabian oil company raised twenty-nine billion dollars when it listed in 2019, making it the largest IPO in history — for now. Facebook's 2012 IPO raised around sixteen billion dollars, which was massive at the time but well short of Aramco's record. If SpaceX hits its target of seventy-five billion, it won't just break the record — it will tower over it.
📚 Bonus Vocabulary
Valuation (noun) — the estimated total worth of a company, calculated based on its assets, earnings, and market expectations. SpaceX's target valuation of one point seven five trillion dollars is what investors and analysts believe the company is worth as a whole — not the amount being raised. "The startup's valuation doubled after its latest funding round."
Confidential filing (noun phrase) — a document submitted to a regulatory body (like the SEC in the US) that is not immediately made public. Companies use confidential filings to begin the IPO process without revealing details until they are ready. The contents stay under wraps until a later public filing. "The company submitted a confidential filing six months before announcing its IPO."
Propel (verb) — to drive or push something forward with great force, often into a new position or level. In business, it often describes what launches a company, idea, or person to a much higher level of visibility or success. "The viral campaign propelled the brand from obscurity to household name in under a week."
