Elon Musk, already the richest man on the planet, is now the world’s first trillionaire – wealthy enough to spend $1 million a day for 2,700 years – thanks to the IPO
SpaceX’s much-anticipated initial public offering – when a private company goes public by selling its stock to the public for the first time – raised $75 billion, giving the company a value of about $1.77 trillion.
Instead of offering a range of share prices, as most IPOs do, SpaceX set a fixed price of $135 a share. That meant investors had to take it or leave it. They took it, buying 555.6 million shares. The company began trading on the Nasdaq June 12, using the ticker symbol SPCX.
But the increase in Musk’s net worth has also drawn attention, rising from about $793 billion to $1 trillion, a jump of 26%. His net worth could change further, depending on SPCX stock price.
How much more is Elon Musk worth?
That doesn’t mean Musk will have $1 trillion in cash. Instead, he has a paper net worth – an estimate based on the market value of the assets he owns, including SpaceX and Tesla – of about $1 trillion. That reflects the value of his stake in SpaceX, not actual cash.
How the value of SpaceX compares with other IPOs
How much is $1 trillion?
A trillion (with 12 zeros) is a number so big it can be hard to comprehend in ordinary terms. A few comparisons may help.
Let’s start with the estimated time it would take to spend $1 trillion:
- $1 a second: 31,700 years
- $1 million a day: 2,738 years
- $1 million an hour: 114 years
How big would a stack of one trillion dollar bills be? Here it is, compared with other impressive amounts:
Or consider stacking $1 trillion in cash:
- $1 bills: 67,866 miles high
- $100 bills: 679 miles high
How else can you measure $1 trillion?
As a percentage of:
- U.S. GDP: 3.1% (based on annualized current-dollar GDP of about $31.8 trillion in Q1 2026).
- U.S. federal spending: 14.3% (based on outlays of about $7 trillion in fiscal year 2025).
- U.S. federal deficit: 56.3% (based on the Congressional Budget Office’s deficit figure of $1.775 trillion for fiscal year 2025).
$1 trillion divided equally among everyone in the United States would amount to $2,919 per person, assuming a population of 342.6 million.
SOURCE USA TODAY Network reporting and research; Reuters; Renaissance Capital; forbes.com; U.S. Census Bureau; U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; Investopedia; Motley Fool
