Even though Elon Musk may never populate Mars as he has claimed, enough investors view the inventor of SpaceX as a kind of miracle worker to support him in achieving yet another amazing objective on Friday when he takes the rocket firm public.
The richest man in the world is about to become the world’s first trillionaire.
Investors are placing bets on a firm with losses as large as its aspirations, and Musk, who is well-known for his technological innovations, extravagant boasts, and missed deadlines, is predicted to surpass the trillion-dollar milestone in the largest initial public offering ever. Forbes estimates Musk’s net worth at $982.6 billion before SpaceX’s first trading.
The corporation has pledged to save humanity by building additional space outposts, launching football-field-sized data centers into orbit, and surpassing competitors Anthropic and OpenAI in the race to profit from artificial intelligence, in addition to building a one-million-person Martian colony.
SpaceX needs billions more than it now makes from its rocket and satellite operations in order to achieve its objectives. The corporation lost $8.7 billion between the beginning of 2025 and March 31, 2026.
By paying a high enough price for the 555.6 million on offer to fund $75 billion, both large institutional buyers and smaller-pocketed investors have shown that they are ready to take a chance. That will easily surpass Saudi Aramco, the oil company that now holds the title and raised $26 billion in its maiden offering in 2019.
Musk will be the primary factor determining the IPO’s valuation if everything goes as planned.
The soon-to-be trillionaire, at least on paper, amassed wealth by founding two businesses, PayPal and Zip2, which brought in roughly $200 million when they were sold. Using that money, he founded SpaceX and invested in Tesla, defying the odds by founding a car firm that made electric vehicles cool and a space company that discovered how to reuse rockets.
Musk has amassed enormous riches for himself, most of it in stock that he hasn’t yet cashed in or grants for shares that he won’t get until Tesla or SpaceX meet challenging performance goals.
The Vatican criticized his recent compensation package from Tesla. He has alarmed shareholders at Tesla by battling authorities, splitting his time between several businesses, and joining the Trump administration last year.
However, since going public in 2010, Tesla has returned 20,000% for shareholders, or more than $1.2 trillion in investor value, proving that a rising stock price has solved all problems. According to Forbes magazine, this increased Musk’s pre-SpaceX IPO valuation to $795 billion.
This year, three “megacap” businesses are anticipated to go public: SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI.
Investors will ultimately purchase the rocket manufacturer’s shares far earlier because Nasdaq even changed its regulations to let SpaceX to enter funds linked to its indexes in 15 days.
Not every investor is overjoyed that SpaceX might be in their index fund holdings.
Last month, representatives from California and New York pension funds for teachers, firefighters, and other workers wrote to SpaceX criticizing certain aspects of the company’s initial public offering (IPO), such as the “super voting shares,” the requirement that shareholder claims be arbitrated rather than litigated, and the extent of Musk’s control over the business.
