For the first time ever, our planet has a trillionaire

©Anirudh via Unsplash

Elon Musk is the world’s first trillionaire, following the stock market debut of his space company SpaceX. His net worth reached an estimated $1.05 trillion, making him three times richer than the second-richest person, Google founder Larry Page. Bloomberg reports.

SpaceX went public on the U.S. stock market on Friday at a price of $150 per share, 11 percent higher than the offering price of $135. The stock then surged by more than 18 percent. Musk controls approximately 42 percent of SpaceX’s equity; the rest of his wealth consists mainly of Tesla shares.

The IPO is seen as a historic milestone. For investors, SpaceX is not just a rocket company. After all, the company also launches satellites via the Starlink network and is investing heavily in artificial intelligence. Although SpaceX lost nearly $5 billion last year, investors are looking at the enormous growth potential. The company itself estimates its market potential at $28.5 trillion.

A trillion dollars is an absurd amount. It’s equivalent to 156 million kilometers of dollar bills—more than 200 times the distance to the moon, or even to the sun. For every person on Earth, that would be $122. It is nearly one and a half times Belgium’s GDP, or 2.5 million homes in the U.S. It also equates to 920 billion liters of gasoline, more than the total U.S. consumption last year.

SpaceX’s IPO is seen as an important barometer for future mega-IPOs by AI companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic. In the coming weeks, the market will be watching closely to see if SpaceX can maintain its strong start. Following the IPO Musk himself retains a large portion of the shares and is now officially the world’s first trillionaire. A milestone never before achieved by an entrepreneur.

©Anirudh via Unsplash