Elon Musk Becomes World’s First Trillionaire Amid SpaceX IPO

Elon Musk saw his net worth surge as SpaceX hit the public market Friday.

The biggest public offering ever was priced at $135 a share. The shares opened at $150 and jumped some more when they started trading on the Nasdaq under the symbol SPCX.

The stock is up 18% nearing the close at about $159, off its high for the day of $176, for a market cap of over $2 trillion.

Musk became the world’s first trillionaire through his combined stakes in the rocket and satellite company and automaker Tesla, which is also publicly traded.

The Fobes Real-Time Billionaires list put Musk’s current net worth at $1.2 trillion, in a class of his own and pulling well ahead of top billionaire rivals Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison.

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index, last updated yesterday, still had Musk at $971 billion.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders weighed in on X — “Today, Elon Musk, a trillionaire, pays the same amount into Social Security as someone making $184,500. If we end that absurdity and lift the cap on taxable income, we can make Social Security solvent for 75 years and expand benefits by $2,400. My Social Security bill does that.” (An alarming government report this week warned the retirement fund will run out by 2032 unless Congress acts.)

Assets of SpaceX – formally Space Exploration Technologies Corp. — also include Starlink, the growing satellite internet business, social media platform X and AI startup xAI, parent of chatbot Grok.

Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 launched its first rocket in 2008. The company laid out its lofty mission in a prospectus for investors filed with the SEC ahead of the IPO — “to build the systems and technologies necessary to make life multiplanetary, to understand the true nature of hte universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars.”

“To do this, we have formed the most ambitious, vertically integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth with unmatched capabilities to rapidly manufacture and launch space-based communications that connect the world, to harness the Sun to power a truth-seeking artificial intelligence that advances scientific discovery, and ultimately to build a base on the Moon and cities on other planets.”

The IPO raised some $75 billion selling about 555 million shares, about 4% of the company’s total stock. SpaceX intends to use the net proceeds from the offering to fund its growth strategy, including the expansion of AI compute infrastructure, enhancements of launch infrastructure and launch vehicles and increases in the scale and capacity of its satellites.

As of March, the prospectus said, SpaceX had completed 650 orbital space launches and its focus in driving launch costs down. “We believe rocket launches and landings should be as routine and commonplace as airplanes taking off and landing,” it said.

Starlink, which is profitable, provides global access to high-speed internet for consumers, businesses and governments.

The filing called X “our real-time information, entertainment, and free speech platform.”