Elon Musk Could Be the First Person Worth $1 Trillion

Billionaire Elon Musk is expected to become the first person in history with a net worth of $1 trillion, in an event that could enter the economic history books: Musk’s company SpaceX is expected to go public on Friday and become the largest public offering ever recorded.

The offering price has been set at $135 per share, giving SpaceX a valuation of $1.77 trillion. If it moves forward as planned, the company will become one of the ten largest companies traded on stock exchanges in the United States. In addition, it is expected to raise about $74.4 billion — a figure significantly higher than the previous record set in 2019, when Saudi Aramco offered its shares to the public at a valuation of $1.7 trillion and raised more than $29 billion.

This would also mark a dramatic jump compared with the valuation SpaceX gave itself as recently as last February, when it stood at $1.25 trillion. The new valuation is more than 40% higher than the previous one.

Behind the deal are 23 banks and brokerage firms hired to distribute the shares to investors around the world. According to estimates, underwriting fees alone could generate more than $500 million for them. But for the financial system, this is not just about money. The success of the offering is seen as an important test ahead of other possible public offerings by artificial intelligence giants, including OpenAI and Anthropic, the developer of Claude.

The biggest winner from the move is expected to be Musk himself. According to data from The Wall Street Journal, his personal fortune is currently estimated at about $970 billion, most of it based on his holdings in companies he owns. Among other assets attributed to him are $5 billion in The Boring Company, $5 billion in Neuralink, about $104 billion in real estate, planes, and other assets, as well as $167 billion in Tesla shares.

Musk also holds 4.8 billion SpaceX shares, representing about 42% of the company’s common stock. Before the offering, his stake is valued at about $538 billion. After it is completed, his stake could jump to about $841 billion. That would mean his total fortune could reach about $1.1 trillion — an unprecedented sum on a global scale.

Even now, with an estimated fortune approaching $1 trillion, Elon Musk is already in an economic league with almost no precedent. His personal wealth is already larger than the annual GDP of many countries, and he holds financial power that allows him to influence the space industry, the electric car market, the field of artificial intelligence, and social media all at the same time.

Still, it is important to remember that most of Musk’s wealth is not held in cash, but is based on the value of shares and holdings in public and private companies. So even if these estimates are realized, this is still mostly wealth “on paper,” whose actual value depends on the performance of the companies and fluctuations in the capital markets.