Elon Musk becomes the world's first trillionaire after SpaceX IPO

Elon Musk just crossed a line no human in history has ever touched: he is officially the world’s first trillionaire, at least on paper.

The historic milestone comes courtesy of SpaceX’s monster public market debut, landing 110 years after John D. Rockefeller became the world’s first billionaire back in 1916.

The $75B public debut

SpaceX pulled off the largest IPO in corporate history Thursday night. The company priced 555.6 million shares at $135 apiece, raising a staggering $75 billion in a single offering.

That haul more than doubles Saudi Aramco’s 2019 record, valuing the company at nearly $1.8 trillion. Trading under the ticker SPCX on the Nasdaq, shares opened at $150, comfortably above the $138 price target Musk needed to enter 13-figure net worth territory.

If bankers exercise their over-allotment option for another 83.3 million shares, the total raised will climb by an extra $11 billion. Retail investors took home roughly 30% of the allocation, about triple normal levels, and exchange rules could fast-track SPCX into the Nasdaq 100 in just 15 trading days.

Worth more than the next four combined

Before the IPO, Musk was already sitting on roughly $800 billion. The public float anchored his 4.8 billion SpaceX shares alongside his roughly $320 billion stake in Tesla.

At the $135 offer price, Musk’s SpaceX position alone was worth $866.5 billion. According to Forbes, Musk is now worth about as much as Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Jeff Bezos, and Larry Ellison combined. Both Bezos and Ellison now hold less than a quarter of Musk’s net worth.

Musk also holds ironclad control over the company. Between his Class A shares and super-voting Class B shares, he wields 85% of total voting power. Insiders won big too: Valor Management CEO Antonio Gracias is sitting on nearly $68 billion worth of shares, while COO Gwynne Shotwell holds roughly 12.6 million shares.

## Why it matters

Investors just handed a company that lost $4.9 billion on $18.7 billion in revenue last year a $1.8 trillion market cap. That valuation does not rely on today’s Falcon launches or Starlink dishes; it is priced entirely on Musk’s pitch for "orbital AI compute" and a multi-planetary economy.

We think this is one of the most audacious financial engineering feats ever pulled off. Musk essentially bundled rocket transport, generative AI, and social media under one corporate umbrella, compelling public markets to finance speculative orbital data centers and domestic chip fabrication.

For tech and space rivals, the deal sucks a massive amount of institutional capital out of the room. But holding 85% voting control while amassing over $1 million a minute over the past year will almost certainly invite intense regulatory scrutiny and political backlash.