SpaceX IPO gives Elon Musk net worth number that stuns Wall Street

Elon Musk recently posted on X, the social media platform he owns, that “whoever said ‘money can’t buy happiness’ really knew what they were talking about.”

He’s now in a position to test that theory at a scale nobody in history has ever faced.

On June 12, 2026, SpaceX made its long-awaited stock market debut on the Nasdaq. The rocket and artificial intelligence company’s shares surged roughly 19% on its first day of trading, closing just above $160 apiece.

That pushed SpaceX’s (SPCX) total market value past $2 trillion and vaulted Musk into entirely uncharted financial territory.

The result? Musk, 54, became the world’s first trillionaire, Reuters confirmed.

SpaceX IPO broke every IPO record

SpaceX raised $75 billion in its initial public offering, the biggest IPO in history.

The offering came in running roughly two times oversubscribed, signaling that investor appetite far exceeded the supply of available shares.

For context, Bloomberg’s wealth index puts Musk’s fortune at approximately $1.1 trillion.

That’s more than three times the net worth of the second-richest person on the planet, Google co-founder Larry Page, who sits at around $295 billion, Forbes noted.

Oracle founder Larry Ellison, Bezos, and Sergey Brin trail further behind, each worth more than $200 billion, Bloomberg indicated.

“The second richest person has been hovering around $300 billion,” Forbes Wealth Deputy Editor Matt Durot told Reuters. “And only one other person, Larry Ellison, has ever been worth $400 billion.”

SpaceX accounts for the vast bulk of Musk’s fortune.

His roughly 42% stake in the company is worth close to $866 billion, according to Reuters.

Combined with his 12% stake in Tesla, which carries a market cap of around $1.5 trillion, and his holdings in X and xAI, his wealth is almost entirely tied to paper assets rather than cash, the BBC reported.

Musk himself noted on X that less than 0.1% of his net worth is held in cash.

To put $1 trillion in perspective: Steve Cohen, the world’s highest-earning hedge fund manager in 2025 with $3.4 billion in earnings, would need to match that figure for nearly 300 consecutive years to reach the same milestone, Bloomberg indicated.

SpaceX is Elon Musk’s most valuable company.picture alliance/Getty Images SpaceX is now worth more than Tesla

Until this week, Tesla was the primary way for retail investors to gain direct exposure to Musk’s ventures. That changed the moment SpaceX began trading.

SpaceX has evolved well beyond its rocket launch origins. Its Starlink satellite broadband service, launched in 2019, along with its merger with xAI and X, has made it a sprawling artificial intelligence and connectivity company.

Bloomberg reported that, ahead of the IPO, retail investors had placed orders totaling more than $100 billion for SpaceX shares.

For BNP Paribas analyst James Picariello, much of this enthusiasm traces back to Tesla’s own track record.

More SpaceX:

Tesla shares have climbed roughly 35,000% since the company went public in 2010, Bloomberg confirmed. Many Musk followers are hoping SpaceX replicates or tops that run.

However, given SpaceX’s lofty valuation, a similar run is almost impossible. If SpaceX triples from current levels, it will be the world’s most valuable company.

Instead, with less than $20 billion in annual sales and a negative profit margin, I believe SPCX stock will underperform the broader markets over the next 12 months.

“There’s only about 15 companies that are worth a trillion dollars today,” said Guardian Wealth Advisors investment advisor Rand Millwood, speaking to Bloomberg.

“Most of them have been around a long time. They’re very successful, cash flow positive — and that’s not SpaceX.”

That concern has a broader historical basis. According to research by University of Florida finance professor Jay Ritter (2026), tech companies that go public at extreme valuations, specifically price-to-sales ratios above 40, have a dismal long-term track record.

In Ritter’s data, 12 of 14 such companies underperformed the broader market within their first three years of trading.

SpaceX’s valuation, which has surpassed $2 trillion, puts it squarely in that conversation.

“Much like Tesla, SpaceX is a bet on Elon Musk,” Renaissance Capital senior strategist Matt Kennedy told Reuters. “A market cap of $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion would throw all traditional valuation methodologies out the window — it’s best characterized as the ‘Elon Musk premium.'”

The sheer scale of that cultural capital, what market observers call the “Muskonomy,” continues to drive investor behavior in ways that defy conventional financial modeling.

Whether SpaceX can eventually justify that faith with cash flow is a question Wall Street will be watching closely. For now, the world’s first trillionaire is just getting started.

This story was originally published by TheStreet on Jun 15, 2026, where it first appeared in the Investing section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

SpaceX IPO gives Elon Musk net worth number that stuns Wall Street

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