SpaceX debut vaults Elon Musk into history as world’s first trillionaire

Elon Musk became the first person ever to command a thirteen-digit fortune on Friday, as shares of his rocket and satellite company SpaceX surged on their first day of trading in New York. The debut on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX opened at $150 per share — an 11 per cent leap above the $135 initial public offering price — and within minutes climbed past $160, briefly touching $175 in pre-open indications. That trajectory lifted SpaceX’s market capitalisation to roughly $2 trillion and, by Forbes’s estimate, propelled Musk’s net worth to $1.1 trillion, comfortably breaching a threshold no individual had previously crossed.

The IPO itself rewrote the record books. SpaceX sold 555.6 million shares to raise $75 billion, more than double the $29 billion raised by Saudi Aramco in 2019, the previous record-holder. The offering valued the company at $1.77 trillion before a single share changed hands, placing it among the most valuable publicly traded firms in the United States. Musk’s 38 per cent stake, comprising 4.8 billion shares and additional stock options, accounts for the bulk of his wealth, with his Tesla holdings providing the remainder. The sheer scale of the operation tested Wall Street’s trading infrastructure, with exchanges and market makers bracing for order volumes not seen since Meta’s troubled 2012 debut.

Viewed from Washington, the milestone came with an asterisk. The Washington Post noted that Musk’s trillionaire status exists “only on paper,” contingent on stock prices and on options tied to distant ambitions such as building a Mars colony and orbital data centres. Russian outlets echoed this caution: Dozhd and Interfax both highlighted the paper nature of the valuation, while Meduza stressed that the fortune could evaporate if shares retreat. From London and other financial capitals, analysts framed the listing as a crucial test of the so-called “Musk premium” — the investor faith that has sustained Tesla’s valuation above $1 trillion despite uneven profitability. SpaceX itself posted a loss of nearly $5 billion last year, a fraction of the revenue generated by similarly valued tech giants.

Beyond the financial mechanics, the event resonated as a cultural moment. In a post on his social media platform, Musk had recently mused that “money can’t buy happiness,” a remark now amplified by the South China Morning Post as his fortune entered uncharted territory. From Sydney, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation captured Musk’s pledge from Starbase, Texas, that SpaceX would “take you to the moon, take you to Mars, and ultimately beyond.” Indian commentary in The Times of India questioned whether the net worth could be sustained, while Indonesian and Middle Eastern outlets framed the achievement as a symbol of both technological ambition and deepening global wealth inequality.

The debut is expected to open the floodgates for a series of major artificial intelligence IPOs in the coming months, with firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic watching closely. Yet the real verdict on SpaceX’s valuation, analysts caution, will arrive only after the market digests the offering over the coming weeks. For now, the world has its first trillionaire — a figure whose fortune, however notional, marks a new era in the concentration of private wealth.