Elon Musk becomes world's first trillionaire as SpaceX goes public
Canadian-born entrepreneur's net worth surges past $1.1 trillion with SpaceX IPO; 4,400+ employees become millionaires through company stock compensation.
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Elon Musk has crossed a threshold no one else has reached: becoming the world's first trillionaire. The Canadian-born entrepreneur, who holds South African, Canadian, and U.S. citizenships, saw his net worth surge to an estimated $1.1 trillion US when SpaceX went public Friday, according to Forbes.
SpaceX is now valued at nearly $2 trillion, dramatically increasing the fortune of the 54-year-old, who holds a 38 per cent stake in the aerospace company he founded in 2002. Musk is also chairman, CEO, and chief technical officer of SpaceX, and owns Tesla Inc., xAI, X (formerly Twitter), Neuralink Corporation, and The Boring Company.
In a speech marking the historic IPO, Musk reflected on SpaceX's improbable rise. "It is certainly hard to believe that a little company that started in a warehouse in El Segundo is now going public with the largest IPO ever," he said. "If people had told me this was going to happen, I was like, man, you must be smoking some really good crack, because I think this company is gonna fail. I gave SpaceX less than a 10 per cent chance of succeeding at all."
The IPO will make millionaires of over 4,400 current and former SpaceX employees. Musk had offered company stock as part of compensation packages to welders, machinists, technicians, and manufacturers.
However, Tesla faces multiple employment-related lawsuits, including a recent California court decision blocking the company from forcing factory workers into one-on-one arbitration. Tesla also faces a class-action lawsuit alleging racial discrimination, unfair wages, and failure to pay overtime.
The news of Musk's soaring wealth drew sharp criticism. U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren released a video saying the milestone comes "when more and more people are hanging on by their fingernails to survive in this economy."
"I want to be clear: this is not just some fluke. It is a feature of a rigged economy," Warren said. "Today's marker should be a wake-up call that enough is enough. Time to make a change."
Senator Bernie Sanders also weighed in, noting that Musk pays the same amount into Social Security as someone making $184,500 annually, despite vastly greater wealth.