Elon Musk crossed a line no person in history has reached. When SpaceX priced its initial public offering at $135 a share, Musk became the world’s first trillionaire. The milestone was locked in before the stock ever traded, built on numbers from the company’s filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and confirmed by wealth trackers at Forbes and Reuters. The shares then opened on the Nasdaq on Friday, June 12, above that price, adding even more to his fortune.

The math is simple, even if the figure is hard to picture. In its IPO prospectus, SpaceX said Musk owns about 4.8 billion shares, roughly 42% of the company, plus 350 million stock options. The $135 offering price valued the company at $1.77 trillion. At that price, Musk’s SpaceX stake alone was worth roughly $690 billion. Add his stake in Tesla, worth about $279 billion, along with his other holdings, and his total fortune cleared $1 trillion.

Then the stock climbed higher. Shares opened at $150, about 11% above the offering price. Within minutes they topped $160, up roughly 19%, lifting the company’s market value above $2 trillion.

To put the number in perspective, one trillion dollars equals one thousand billion dollars. Before Friday, Musk was already the richest person alive, worth an estimated $813 billion, more than twice the fortune of the second-richest person, Google co-founder Larry Page. No one else is close.

The deal itself broke records. SpaceX raised $75 billion by selling 555.6 million shares, making it the largest initial public offering in history. It surpassed the previous record held by Saudi Aramco. The company also broke from standard practice by setting a fixed offering price of $135 rather than offering a range, a move with few precedents among major U.S. listings.

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase led the offering, joined by 18 additional banks.

Musk rang the opening bell from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas. Gwynne Shotwell, the company’s president and chief operating officer, rang the bell at Nasdaq’s Times Square location, surrounded by employees. Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 and kept it private for 24 years. What ultimately pushed the company to go public was Starlink, the satellite internet service that now generates most of its revenue.

Musk cannot access most of this wealth anytime soon. More than 90% of his fortune remains tied up in company stock. He also faces a 366-day lockup period on his SpaceX shares, longer than the standard 180-day restriction, meaning he cannot sell shares for more than a year.

The company is also still losing money. SpaceX reported $18.67 billion in revenue for 2025, up 33% from the previous year, but posted a net loss of nearly $5 billion. Critics argue the $1.77 trillion valuation is far too high for a company that remains unprofitable.

Wall Street is divided. Oppenheimer initiated coverage with a Buy rating and a $190 price target. Morningstar took the opposite view, with analyst Nicolas Owens assigning a fair value estimate of $63 per share, less than half the IPO price.

The offering is expected to create thousands of new fortunes. About 4,400 SpaceX employees could become millionaires now that the stock is publicly traded, according to estimates cited in early coverage. Retail investors also received their first opportunity to own a stake in the company. The stock trades under the ticker SPCX and is available through brokers including Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Robinhood, SoFi, and E*Trade.

For now, Musk sits alone at the top — the first member of a club that has never had anyone in it.

JBizNews Desk

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