Elon Musk, the world's richest man, is set to become its first trillionaire as SpaceX goes public. The Texas-based rocket company is expected to break the trillion-dollar mark in the biggest initial public offering ever. Musk's net worth is currently at $982.6 billion, according to Forbes. SpaceX shares will begin trading on Nasdaq and Nasdaq Texas. In addition to establishing a million-person Martian colony, the company has promised to save humanity by establishing other outposts in space, launch data centers the size of football fields into orbit and outdo rivals Anthropic and OpenAI in the race to make money from artificial intelligence. To reach its goals, SpaceX needs billions more than it currently takes in from its rocket and satellite business. Between the start of 2025 and March 31, the company lost $8.7 billion.
Big institutional buyers and smaller-pocketed investors alike have indicated they are willing to take a chance, paying a high enough price for the 555.6 millions on offer to raise $75 billion. If the IPO goes off without a hitch, its value will come down mainly to one thing: Musk. The soon-to-be trillionaire made his fortune by creating two companies, Zip2 and PayPal, that netted him about $200 million at sale. He used that money to start SpaceX and invest in Tesla, and defied the odds by creating a space company that figured out how to reuse rockets and a car company that made electric vehicles cool.
(Reporting by Michael Liedtke)