From Mania Saini, Echo Wang, and Nikit Nishant

June 12 (Reuters) - SpaceX shares are set to begin trading on the Nasdaq on Friday after investors poured $75 billion into the world's largest initial public offering, betting that Elon Musk's big ambitions in space, communications and artificial intelligence could justify a company valuation of $1.77 trillion.

This historic listing cemented Musk's status as the world's first trillionaire and propelled SpaceX into the ranks of the world's most valuable companies, even though the company suffered a loss of nearly five billion dollars last year and generated only a fraction of the revenues achieved by similarly valued tech giants.

The stock's performance will be a test of what's known as "Musk's premium," which has been the driving force behind Tesla's trillion-dollar valuation. It will also be closely watched for signs of investor appetite ahead of the anticipated initial public offerings of Anthropic and OpenAI, two of the world's largest artificial intelligence companies.

With SpaceX seen as a prototype for a new generation of mega-IPOs, market participants will also be watching how smoothly trading begins. Exchanges and IPO managers are under pressure to demonstrate their ability to handle the expected massive demand and avoid a repeat of the technical problems that plagued MetaTrader's IPO in 2012.

Trading in the stock is unlikely to begin before the middle of the trading session, as the exchange collects buy and sell orders.

SpaceX set its initial public offering price at $135 per share and sold 555.56 million shares.

The record-breaking IPO represents the culmination of Musk's ambitions in the space and technology sectors, and has attracted huge numbers of individual investors to the market.

* Largest IPO ever

Raising $75 billion, the offering more than doubled the proceeds of the previous record-holding giant, Saudi Aramco, when it listed in 2019. The sale made SpaceX the first U.S. company to reach a market capitalization of $1 trillion at its initial public offering, and the seventh-largest U.S. company by market value.

The company's value could rise even further if the underwriters exercise their right to sell additional shares, a decision that is usually made within 30 days after the offering.

Despite all the excitement surrounding the initial public offering, determining the true value of SpaceX remains a difficult process.

SpaceX announced that its market potential is $28.5 trillion, a figure it described as the largest ever. Thanks to its leading position in the space sector—the company says it is responsible for more than 80 percent of space launches over the past three years—and the revenue generated by its Starlink service, some investors believe it has a strong foundation to build upon.

Among the obstacles preventing it from reaching its huge market value are the efforts of competitors, such as Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin, to accelerate the commercialization of space and pursue government contracts with the aim of opening up new markets.

Analysts at Morningstar said earlier this month that its fair value is around $780 billion, less than half its market value at the time of the offering.