Elon Musk has been the world’s richest person for a long time, but he has never seen wealth on this level. No one has.
As SpaceX’s (NASDAQ: SPCX) stock price has continued to soar, so too has Musk’s net worth. And it has reached the point that Musk could lose $1 trillion and still sit atop the list of the world’s richest individuals.
SpaceX shares were up for the second consecutive day Tuesday, with SpaceX’s market cap topping both Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and, for a period of time, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). That gave another boost to Musk’s fortune. As of 10:32 a.m. ET Tuesday, Musk was worth $1.4 trillion, according to Forbes. That’s an increase of over $100 billion since the close of trading Monday.
The second-richest person in the world is Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) cofounder Larry Page, who has a net worth of $300.8 billion. (Bloomberg’s rankings put Page at $314 billion.) Take away $1 trillion and Musk still has a very comfortable lead over Page and has more than the net worth of Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) founder Jensen Huang ($176 billion) and Meta (NASDAQ: META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg ($211 billion) added together.
Rocketing growth
Musk’s stake in Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) had already secured him the top spot on the list of the world’s richest people, but SpaceX has taken it to a different stratosphere.
The company’s stock saw another big boost in early trading Tuesday, with gains of 14% in the first hour. That sent its market cap soaring to the point where it topped both Amazon and Microsoft in less than two days of trading. (It later lost some ground, falling below Microsoft once again.) SpaceX, as of Tuesday morning, is the fifth-largest company on Wall Street, behind Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Alphabet and Nvidia.
Musk owns an estimated 43% stake in SpaceX, tying a considerable amount of his fortune to the rocket/AI company. He also holds approximately 16% of Tesla shares, along with investments in other private companies, such as tunneling startup The Boring Company and brain implant firm Neuralink.
Musk’s fortune, of course, isn’t found in a bank account. The value is tied to the performance of SpaceX and Tesla. That means his net worth will fluctuate regularly.
And, should SpaceX follow the trajectory of other big IPOs, it’s likely to take a big dip in the months to come. A recent study by Truist looking at 30 major IPOs found they all finished their first year with stock prices below their IPO price. In the best-case scenario, one company found itself down 20% after one year. The worst-case scenario saw a 90% drop. The average major public offering fell 55% in the first year.
Should SpaceX match the average decline, that would take Musk out of trillionaire status. Then again, nothing to date about the SpaceX IPO has been average or normal.
Chris Morris is a veteran journalist with more than 35 years of experience at many of the internet's biggest news outlets. In addition to his activities as a writer, reporter and editor, Chris is also a frequent panel moderator and speaker at major conferences, including CES and South by Southwest.
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