Elon Musk became the first trillionaire in recorded history on Friday after SpaceX stock went public, with an initial public offering of $135 a share valuing the company at $1.77 trillion and pushing Musk’s total net worth past $1 trillion.
Demand for the offering was extraordinary. The sale was more than four times oversubscribed, with retail investors reportedly placing more than $100 billion in orders and BlackRock reportedly seeking at least $5 billion worth of shares.
Musk’s fortune is now larger than John D. Rockefeller at his peak in the oil era. Rockefeller’s fortune at its 1913 peak represented approximately 3 percent of US GDP, while Musk’s wealth represents about 3.7 percent of current US GDP of roughly $30 trillion.
The milestone caps a rapid ascent. Musk became the first person to cross the $500 billion mark in October 2025, and Forbes pegged his fortune at $839 billion earlier this year, driven by rising valuations at Tesla and SpaceX.
The $1.77 trillion valuation places SpaceX above Tesla and in the same bracket as Broadcom and Saudi Aramco. Analysts caution that the stock is likely to be volatile. Musk’s net worth already swings by $30 billion to $50 billion in a single day on Tesla’s stock price alone, and SPCX is expected to carry similar swings.
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On paper only. Companies whose earnings are less than expenses, such as Space X, and worth the book value (value of selling off their stuff) minus debts, which in this case results in a negative number. A renewed argument for a return to “irrational exuberance”.