Before Friday, the trillion-dollar mark was reserved for measures such as the GDP—or staggering debt burdens—of a handful of major economies, and, more recently, the market value of some of the world's largest publicly traded companies. Now, for the first time, that milestone belongs to an individual.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk's net worth now stands at a staggering $1.11 trillion—higher than the combined fortunes of the next four billionaires: Larry Page, co-founder of Google; Sergey Brin, who also co-founded Google; Amazon founder Jeff Bezos; and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. The combined net worth stands at $1.089 trillion, while Musk’s worth alone is $1.11 trillion.
Weeks of anticipation and speculation culminated in a blockbuster debut of SpaceX as investors worldwide finally got their first opportunity to trade the company. SpaceX shares ended their first session up 19%, propelling Musk's wealth to an unprecedented level.
To put that into perspective, the number "one trillion" is difficult for the human mind to fully comprehend. One trillion dollars is a thousand times greater than $1 billion and a million times larger than $1 million.
SpaceX is now the sixth most valuable U.S.-listed company, boasting a market capitalization of $2.1 trillion. Shares began trading at $150, 11% above the IPO price of $135, before ending the session at $160.95.
Elon Musk history
Musk was first recognized as a billionaire by Bloomberg and Forbes in 2012, with Forbes estimating his fortune at $2.4 billion at the time.
His net worth climbed to $20 billion in 2019 before exploding higher the following year after a Tesla stock split. That rally made Musk the world's fifth centibillionaire—someone worth more than $100 billion—according to Forbes estimates.
In the six years since, Musk's fortune has expanded roughly tenfold. The pace of wealth creation has been unmatched even by the figures who previously held the title of the world's richest person, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Bernard Arnault, head of luxury giant LVMH.
Musk first became a household name through Tesla and SpaceX before broadening his influence with the $44-billion acquisition of social media platform Twitter in 2022. Born in Pretoria, South Africa, to a Canadian mother and South African father, Musk later moved to the United States and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997.
SpaceX IPO debut
Shares opened at $150 under the ticker SPCX after SpaceX raised $75 billion in the IPO. The stock touched an intraday high of $176.52, before closing at $161. More than 500 million shares changed hands during the session, approaching Facebook's first-day trading volume of about 580 million shares in 2012, per reports.
Despite the overwhelming investor enthusiasm, SpaceX remains loss-making. The company reported revenue of $18.67 billion for 2025 and a net loss of $4.94 billion. Investor optimism is instead being driven by the company's future growth prospects across satellite broadband, launch services, defence contracts and AI-related businesses, rather than its current profitability.
Musk is also expected to retain effective control of SpaceX following the IPO. Regulatory filings show he will hold about 82.4% of voting rights through Class B shares, which carry ten votes per share. Public investors, meanwhile, will own Class A shares that carry one vote per share.
(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)
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